Description
Kansas and Missouri. The Lawrence Herald of Freedom, of July 14th, reveals one more of the secrets of the Missouri mob, which at last affords some key to the outrages of the last 8 month in Kansas.
To understand that fully, it must be recollected that all the triangle which now makes the northwestern part of Missouri, west of the meridian line, which was her western boundary until 1836, was by an act of Congress of June 7, of that year, ceded to the State of Missouri. It is a territory of admirable natural resources known as the “Platte Purchase.” Its cession to Missouri, to be occupied by men using slave labor, was the first violation of the Missouri Compromise, under the provisions of which this territory, like all the rest of Kansas in Nebraska, would have remained forever free.
This district now comprises six counties, of which the aggregate population in 1850 was about 55,000, and is now considerably larger. Two of these, Holt County, and Nodaway County, back from the river, are of inconsiderable importance – the notorious Platte County and Buchanan County being the most considerable.
In Platte County reside the two generals of modern border warfare, Generals Atchison and Stringfellow.
And now appears that the project of these men is to re-annex the whole Platte Purchase to Kansas. A population of some 60 or 70,000 would thus be at once forced upon that state, of whom in 1850, 4500 were slaves, and probably 600 now are.
With this population Kansas would have this winter sufficient population for a State, and, what is more to the purpose of these gentlemen, the majority of it would be a population of the kind they are used to, and, for their plans, must have a population habituated to the system of slavery, and themselves relying upon its continuance.
This precious plan is the key to the obstinate fight for the first legislature of Kansas, to the expulsion of all of the Free State members from the legislature, and to every lawless act which thus far disgraced the crew of men who took the legislation of Kansas into their own keeping.Date(s) of Creation
8/9/1855
