ed to return. As Mr. Burson went out he put the
ballot poll-books in his pocket and took them with him, and as he
was going out Jones snatched some papers away from him, and shortly
afterwards came out himself, holding them up, crying, "Hurrah for
Missouri!" After he discovered they were not the poll-books he
took a party of men with him and captured the books from a Mr.
Umberger, to whom Burson had given them. They then chose two new
judges and proceeded with the election. They also threatened to
kill the judges if they did not receive their votes, or resign.
They said no man should vote who would submit to be sworn; that
they would kill any man who would offer to do so. Some of the
citizens who were about the window, but had not voted when the
crowd of Missourians marched up, upon attempting to vote were driven
back by the mob, or driven off. One of them, Mr. I. M. Mace, was
asked if he would take the oath, and upon his replying that he
would if the judges required it, he was dragged through the crowd
away from the polls, amid cries of "kill the damned nigger-thief,"
"cut his throat," "tear his heart out," etc. After they got into
the outside of the crowd they stood around him with cocked revolvers
and drawn bowie-knives, one man putting a knife to his breast to
that it touched him, another holding a cocked pistol to his ear,
while another struck at him with a club.

The Missourians declared that they had a right to vote, if they
had been in the territory but five minutes. Some said they had
been hired to come there and vote, and got a dollar a day, "and by
God they would vote or die there." They said the 30th day of March
was an important day, as Kansas would be made a slave state on that
day. They began to leave in the direction of Missouri in the
afternoon, after they had voted, leaving some thirty or forty around
the house where the election was held, to guard the polls till
after the election was over. The citizens of the territory were
not armed, except those who took part in the mob, and a large
portion of them did not vote. Three hundred and forty-one votes
were polled there that day, of which but some thirty were citizens.
A protest against the election was prepared and sent to the
governor.

A similarly organized and conducted election was held in each of
the other districts of the territory, varying only in degrees of
fraud and violence. In the fifteenth district it was proven that
several