THE HOWARD AND OLIVER REPORTS. Kansas in under the Topeka constitution. To have admitted Kansas to Statehood with a constitution thus framed and a government so established would have been a monstrous precedent, since the Topeka constitution had been adopted by a convention which had not the authority of law, was irregular, and represented only a faction. The House did not consider the Toombs bill, but when the House bill was taken under consideration in the Senate the former bill was substituted for it and passed a second time. The Democrats charged that the Republicans did not sincerely desire to settle the dispute regarding Kansas, but only to make a convenient use of the question in the approaching Presidential campaign. The Democrats seemed to be well satisfied with the progress they had made and adopted a resolution in the Senate to print 20,000 copies of the Toombs bill for circulation as an electioneering document. Meanwhile, on July 1, the majority of the House committee appointed to investigate affairs in Kansas had made their report. More than 300 witnesses had been examined by the committee, and the evidence was annexed to the report. The majority report was signed by William A. How * Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. v., pp. 389-390. The report of the select committee is in House Report 200, 34th Congress, 1st session. Extracts are given in MacDonald, Select Documents, pp. 414-415. VOL. VII- 25 379 ard, of Michigan, and John Sherman, of Ohio, and the minority report by Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri. Howard and Sherman believed from the evidence before them that the Missourians had illegally interfered in Kansas affairs and that Kansas would be a free State if the will of the legal voters could be carried out. They said that the Territorial legislature was an illegally constituted body, that its enactments were null and void, that neither Whitfield nor Reeder was legally entitled to a seat as delegate in the House, and that steps should be taken to secure a free and fair election in the Territory. The minority report, signed by Oliver, was submitted on July 11; it cited, principally, testimony relating to the Pottawatomie raid by John Brown and his party. In his speech on the report Oliver stated that the committee had heard of these assassinations while on the Missouri border, but that Howard and Sherman had refused to collect any evidence regarding them, on the ground that the committee had no power under the resolution of the House to to investigate transactions which had occurred since their appointment.* It is strange that the Oliver report was not turned to better account by the Democrats in the campaign; the allusions to it are fragmentary and rare. The Republican journals, on the other hand, made good use of the * Congressional Globe, vol. xxxiii., p. 1012. 380 WHITFIELD AND REEDER; THE APPROPRIATION BILL. evidence collected, which showed that the border ruffians had killed seven Free State men in a year and a half; but the Democrats failed to make capital of the fact that, in a single night, John Brown and his party had deliberately and foully murdered five proslavery men. Instead of laying stress on this outrage the Democrats continued to reiterate their charges against the emigrant aid companies and the New England men who went to Kansas with Sharps rifles. The Democrats took the ground that the stories of Kansas outrages had been exaggerated and that many of them were manufactured by the Republican newspapers. They also alleged that They also alleged that at election riots in Eastern States, more men had been killed within a year than in the same length of time in Kansas.t * That part of the report of the special investigating committee relating to the admission of Whitfield and Reeder to the House was referred to the Committee on Elections. This committee, on July 24, reported against the admission of Whitfield and in favor of Reeder, whereupon the latter issued, on July 31, a further statement in his own behalf. The House, however, took a different view of the matter and, on August 1, by a vote of 110 to 92, decided that Whit * Congressional Globe, vol. xxxii., pp. 842, 867, 1387, vol. xxxiii., pp. 725, 727. Ibid, vol. xxxiii., pp. 725, 787. House Report, 275, 34th Congress, 1st session. field should be unseated and then, by a vote of 113 to 88, rejected Reeder's claim.* During the closing days of the session the House attempted to attach to two appropriation bills riders which dictated to the President a limited policy in the interest of the Free State settlers in Kansas. The House receded from its amendments to one of the bills, but a stubborn fight ensued on that relating to the army appropriations. This amendment had been introduced by John Sherman and, under its provisions, the President was forbidden to use United States soldiers for the enforcement of laws of the Kansas Territorial legislature. The Senate struck out this amendment and, even after three conferences, the two Houses could not reach an agreement. On August 18, while the House was still considering the matter, the Speaker declared the House adjourned sine die, and thus the appropriation bill failed to become law.† The President immediately called an extraordinary session of Congress, and on the 21st the two Houses reconvened. After further conferences the House, on August 30, receded from its position, and by a vote of 101 to 98 passed the army appropriation bill without the Kansas rider. On the same day Congress adjourned, and Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. v., pp. 401-402. † Ibid, vol. v., pp. 402-414. Rhodes, United States, vol. ii., p. 201; Von Holst, pp. 415-420. THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. 381 the contest was transferred to its party had nominated candidates from constituency. In his campaign Buchanan was shrewd enough to formulate a rallying cry that was certain to win votes in the North, particularly among conservative Whigs, for, as it was apparently a foregone conclusion that the Republican ticket could not carry a single State south of the Mason and Dixon line and the Ohio River, he must make his appeal to the doubtful States of the North. He therefore subordinated the Douglas and Pierce Kansas policy and loudly sounded the slogan that the Democratic party, being strictly National," would supersede all sectional parties. He quoted one of Washington's warnings 66 against forming parties on geographical lines and maintained that the Democratic party was the champion of the Constitution and the Union.* This was a thrust at the Republicans who had been forced to select sectional candidates, owing to the sectional character of Republican principles. Since the free States had 176 electoral votes and the slave States but 120, it would appear that Frémont would win the election, and this caused great apprehension in the South. In a speech at Albany, June 27, Fillmore spoke in plain language of the folly of making the election sectional. He said that for the first time a political * Curtis, Life of Buchanan; Horton, Life of Buchanan, p. 414. the free States with the avowed purpose of electing them by the suffrages of one part of the Union only, to rule over the whole United States, and asserted that the Southerners would by no possibility submit to be governed by a sectional chief magistrate. He felt that we were treading on the brink of a volcano which was liable at any moment to burst forth and overwhelm the Nation.* Toombs said that, with the election of Frémont, National unity would come to an end, for, he asserted, the object of Frémont's friends was to conquer the South. Similar sentiments were expressed by Governor Wise, the Richmond En quirer, Senator Slidell, Senator Mason, and others. Many Northern * Congressional Globe, vol. xxxiii., p. 716; Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. V., pp. 439-440. Rhodes, United States, vol. ii., pp. 204-205. Writing to Jefferson Davis on September 30, 1856, Mason said: "I have a letter from Wise, of the 27th, full of spirit. He says the governments of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana have already agreed to the rendezvous at Raleigh (to which Wise had invited them) and others will this in your most private ear. He says further, that he had officially requested you to exchange with Virginia, on fair terms of difference, percussion for flint muskets. I do not know the usage or power of the department in such cases; but if it can be done even by liberal construction, I hope you will accede. Was there not an appropriation at the last session for converting flint into percussion arms? If so, would it not furnish good reason for extending such facilities to the states? Virginia probably has more arms than the other southern states and would divide in case of need. In a letter yesterday to a committee in South Carolina, I gave it as my judgment, in the event of Frémont's 382 CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS. Whigs turned to Buchanan because they thought that disunion was likely to take place if the Republican party accomplished its object and relegated the government to the North. One of the most prominent of these was Rufus Choate, who argued that a Republican government would appear to the eyes of Southerners as alien and hostile, and would represent a vast conglomeration of States founded upon anti-slavery, flushed by triumph, cheered onward by the voices of the pulpit, tribune, and the press; its mission to exalt freedom and put down oligarchy; its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural rights which make up the Declaration of Independence.* This reasoning appealed with irresistible force to many, but upon the majority of the Republicans it had no effect whatever, for, from their point of view, the assumption that Frémont's election would cause disunion was unwarranted.t election, the south should not pause, but proceed at once to immediate, absolute, and eternal separation. So I am a candidate for the first halter.'"- - Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton, p. 449. * Brown, Life of Choate, p. 321. See also Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. V., p. 447. Senator Wilson said, April 14: "Threats had been thrown out that if the black Republicans' triumph in 1856 the Union will be dissolved. Sir, you cannot kick out of the Union the men who utter these impotent threats." Hamilton Fish wrote to James A. Hamilton on September 12, 1856: Doubtless there are men, both at the north and at the south, who contem of life was not so great, however, being estimated at about 200 during the period from November 1, 1855, to December 1, 1856, the destruction of property in these 13 months amounting to about $2,000,000. In the Eastern States Reeder was advocating a free Kansas. Robinson was now in prison, and the direction of the Free State propaganda lay in the hands of James H. Lane, who placed personal preferment above advancement of the cause, and his efforts accomplished little toward making Kansas free. Meanwhile Governor Shannon had been removed by the President and plate, and some even who desire a dissolution of the Union. Our jails and lunatic asylums are of sufficient capacity to accommodate them. Fortunately they are as impotent as the object they contemplate is wicked."- Frémont the Conservative Candidate, p. 12. See however Merriam, Life and Times of Samuel Bowles, vol. i., p. 155; Curtis, Life of Buchanan, vol. ii., pp. 180, 182; Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii., pp. 531-532. THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. J. W. Geary appointed in his place." On September 9 Geary arrived at Fort Leavenworth and found his hands full of work; but his energetic measures seemed in the course of a month to promise a respite from further outbreaks and a restoration of peace and order. The details of the conflict need not detain us, though they had a marked influence on the National election. Reporters of Republican newspapers, being strong partisans, were ready to believe the most atrocious outrages told about the border ruffians and were prone to conceal any facts of interest to the other party; based upon the stories sent them by their reporters, these Republican newspapers would contain startling headlines and scathing editorials. Meetings to express sympathy with Kansas were being continually held, and Reeder spoke to crowded houses whenever he discussed his favorite theme. At Buffalo, Detroit, and other places, large sums of money were donated for the cause of free dom in Kansas. With a few exceptions there was little personal abuse in the campaign. Not only were the private characters of Buchanan and Fillmore above reproach, but the Kansas and slavery issues were so much more important that the people lost sight of individ Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. ii., p. 9. See Nicolay and Hay, vol. ii., p. 11 et seq.; Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History, vol. v., pp. 422-435. 383 uals in their eagerness to discuss principles. Probably no previous campaign save, perhaps, the Tippecanoe campaign, had been so full of excitement as this. Processions numbering thousands were common; ringing, rousing campaign songs were constantly heard; and the air vibrated with shouts of free speech, free soil, and Frémont. Several campaign biographies were published familiarizing the public with the events of Frémont's life, and his exploits in California were painted in colors designed to make him appear as a hero. The enthusiasm, however, seemed to be for the cause and not the candidate. Republican principles had added lustre to Frémont's fame, but Frémont, the person, had added but little strength to the party. Several State elections were held before the Presidential election. In August the Republicans were successful in the Iowa Congressional election. Maine and Vermont went Republican by large majorities. In October, elections occurred in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, but the most important of the three was Pennsylvania where |