Amos A. Lawrence to Charles L. Robinson, August 10, 1855

Boston, August 10, 1855.

My Dear Sir, — From Mr. Abbott who has just arrived here from your neighborhood, I infer that the spirit of the settlers has been raised so high that they are ready to repudiate the present legislature altogether, and to resist its requirements. In this, you will have the good-will and assistance of the citizens of the free States at least.

But many are willing to go farther, and to resist the United States government, if it should interfere. For this I can see no apology; nor can there ever be good cause for resisting an administration chosen by ourselves. However wrong in our opinion, there never can be good reason for resisting our own government, unless it attempts to destroy the power of the people through the elections, that is, to take away the power of creating a new administration every four years. But I do not believe the present administration will attempt to impose the Missouri code upon the citizens of Kansas.

There is another reason of a more prudential kind, viz.: that whoever does this is sure of defeat. We are a law-abiding people, and we will sustain our own government “right or wrong.” Any movement aimed at the government destroys at once the moral force of the party or organization which favors it. Already the present administration is rendered powerless by the House of Representatives, and soon will come the time to vote for a new one. The people will never resist or attempt to destroy it in any other way.

Yours very truly,

A. A. L.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 99-101

George L. Stearns to John Brown, February 4, 1858

My Dear friend:

Your letter of the 11th inst. was received from Boston to-day. The $500 was furnished you by Whitman at my request. It was done because I thought you needed money for the winter, not because I felt myself under obligation to you, for I had made up my mind then, and still continue to believe that our friends need no aid in defending themselves from all marauders, and that their true course now is to meet the enemy at the ballot-box, and vote them down on every occasion. With the Territorial Legislature in their hands, they can defend themselves against every oppression, and they should do so. If I am correct in my conclusions, the contingency for which I gave you my pledge having ceased to exist, I am no longer bound by it, and it should be returned to me without conditions.¹ From your last letter to me I supposed you would return it as early as convenient to you.

If am in error I shall be glad to be enlightened by you, and hope to receive on my return to Boston an early reply to this.

I am not, however, indifferent to your request, believing your advice and encouragement to our friends to be of great importance.

If you can go to Boston you will have a much better chance of success, and I will aid you as far as it is proper that I should do so.

Colonel Forbes has written several abusive letters to Charles Sumner, and Sanborn, claiming that you had made a positive contract to pay him money, based on promises made to you by the New England men. Is it so?

Truly yours,

Geo. L. Stearns.

_______________

¹ This may refer to the draft for $7000.

SOURCE: Frank Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 162; Edward J. Jr. Renehan, Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown, p. 130 for the date of the letter.

Abraham Lincoln to Mark W. Delahay, March 16, 1860

Springfield, Ills– Mar–16, 1860

Dear Delahay–

I have just returned from the East. Before leaving, I received your letter of Feb. 6; and on my return I find those of the 17th. & 19th. with Genl. Lane's note inclosed in one of them.

I sincerely wish you could be elected one of the first Senators for Kansas; but how to help you I do not know. If it were permissable for me to interfere, I am not personally acquainted with a single member of your Legislature. If my known friendship for you could be of any advantage, that friendship was abundantly manifested by me last December while in Kansas. If any member had written me, as you say some have Trumbull, I would very readily answer him. I shall write Trumbull on the subject at this sitting.

I understood, while in Kansas, that the State Legislature will not meet until the State is admitted. Was that the right understanding?

As to your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I can not enter the ring on the money basis– first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money. I say, in the main, the use of money is wrong; but for certain objects, in a political contest, the use of some, is both right, and indispensable. With me, as with yourself, this long struggle has been one of great pecuniary loss. I now distinctly say this. If you shall be appointed a delegate to Chicago, I will furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expences of the trip. 

Present my respects to Genl. Lane; and say to him, I shall be pleased to hear from him at any time.

Your friend, as ever

A. LINCOLN.

P.S. I have not yet taken the newspaper slip to the Journal. I shall do that to-morrow; and then send you the paper as requested.

A. L.

SOURCE: Roy P. Basler, Editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 4, p. 31-2

John Brown to Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, February 20, 1856

Osawatomie, Kansas Territory,

20th February, 1856.

Hon. Joshua R. Giddings,

Washington, D. C.

Dear Sir:

I write to say that a number of the United States soldiers are quartered in this vicinity, for the ostensible purpose of removing intruders from certain Indian lands. It is, however, believed that the administration has no thought of removing the Missourians from the Indian lands, but that the real object is to have the men in readiness to act in enforcement of the hellish enactments of the (so-called) Kansas Legislature; absolutely abominated by a great majority of the inhabitants of the territory and spurned by them up to this time. I confidently believe that the next movement on the part of the administration and its proslavery masters will be either to drive the people here to submit to those infernal enactments or to assume what will be termed treasonable grounds, by shooting down the poor soldiers of the country, with whom they have no quarrel whatever. I ask in the name of Almighty God; I ask in the name of our venerated forefathers; I ask in the name of all that good or true men ever held dear, will Congress suffer us to be driven to such “dire extremities”? Will anything be done? Please send me a few lines at this place. Long acquaintance with your public life and a slight personal acquaintance incline and embolden me to make this appeal to yourself. Everything is still on the surface just now. Circumstances are, however, of a most suspicious character.

Very Respectfully Yours,

John Brown.

SOURCE: Walter Buell, Joshua R. Giddings: A Sketch, p. 200-1

Kansas is a smart young State . . .

. . . and is getting on surprisingly in the arts of civilization, especially Finance.  A special committee of her Legislature has just presented Charles Robinson, Governor, John W. Robinson, Secretary of State, and George S. Hillyer, Auditor, as guilty of conspiring to swindle the State in the sale of State Bonds to the amount of $189,000.  Some 10 per cent. bonds, it appears, have been sold as low as forty cents on the dollar – that is, nominally sold to confederates, to be resold by them at 95!  By such financing, the State has been swindled out of over $40,000.  The report closes with the following:

Resolved, That Charles Robinson, Governor, John W. Robinson, Secretary of State and George S. Hillyer, Auditor of the State of Kansas, be and they are hereby impeached of high misdemeanors in office.

If this report is well founded, the gentlemen impeached will have earned their money before they get safely off with it.  The Conservative (Leavenworth) says:

“Unless the Legislature impeaches and removes these scoundrels, it will be the religious duty of the people to hang them.  And it will be done.”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 1, 1862, p. 2

Leavenworth, March 6 [1862]

The Kansas Legislature have adopted a resolution, nearly unanimously, instructing the Kansas Senators, and requesting the representatives in Congress to aid the passage of the Collins’ Pacific RR bill, and a [ratification] of the Pottawattamie Indians [treaty].

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, March 7, 1862, p. 1