advised a more pacific policy. If the reader can imagine the
savage determination with which the old Scotch Covenanters turned at
bay when hunted into their mountain fastnesses by their bloody
persecutors, then he will have some idea of the spirit that animated a
great part of that assembly. Two companies of soldiers, handsomely
equipped, armed and drilled, one from Topeka and one from Lawrence,
were drawn up in front of the Topeka House, where the Free State
Legislature was to meet. It is probable that this crowd of men
assembled at this convention could have laid their hands on five
hundred muskets hidden away in their wagons, in ten minutes.

Meanwhile Col. Sumner had quietly drawn up his company of dragoons
just outside of the crowd. In front of the dragoons were two loaded
cannon, and by them grimly stood soldiers with burning fuse. While the
members of the convention were discussing among themselves their
proper policy, United States Marshal Donaldson came forward,
accompanied by Judge El-more, and taking possession of the stand from
which the speakers were addressing the people, Judge El-more read a
proclamation from the President and from acting Gov. Woodson,
commanding the Legislature to disperse.

To this Col. Sumner had appended the following note: "The
proclamation of the President and the orders under it require me to
sustain the Executive of the Territory in executing the laws and
preserving the peace. I therefore hereby announce that I shall
maintain the proclamation at all hazards."

This act of Marshal Donaldson was fiercely denounced as an impertinent
intermedding with other men's business. The general drift of the
reasoning was as follows: "Our act in framing a constitution and in
electing a legislature is not treasonable nor revolutionary. There is
no law against it: consequently we are breaking no law. It is,
moreover, something that has to be done at some time by the majority
of the citizens of this Territory, and we hope to be able to convince
Congress and the President that we are that majority. If we had
undertaken to set in operation a government in contravention to the
one now recognized by the President, then might there have been some
apology for this interference; but we have done nothing of the kind."

The writer will say to the reader that Gov. Walker, an ex-Senator from
Mississippi, and the ablest Governor Kansas ever had, admitted
afterwards that this reasoning of the Kansas squatte