the real sentiment of the people, if they allow
themselves to be held down under such a reign of terror?

The prevalent sentiment of the squatters from Missouri was, "We will
make Kansas a free white State; we will admit no negroes into it." These
men regarded the negro as an enemy to themselves. They said: "We were
born to the lowly lot of toil, and the negro has made labor a disgrace.
Neither ourselves nor our children have had opportunity for education,
and the negro is the cause of it. Moreover, an aristocracy at the South
has assumed control of public affairs, and the negro is the cause of
that. Now we propose to make Kansas a free white State, and shut out the
negro, who has been the cause of all our calamities."

There was, however, a class of men among them that had pity for the
negro. I will repeat one story, as it was told me by Bro. Silas Kirkham.
Bro. Kirkham belongs to that family of Kirkhams so well known to our
brethren in Southeastern Iowa. Bro. Kirkham was raised in a slave State.
He said: "When I was a boy I had never thought of slavery as being
wrong. There was a black boy in the settlement named Jim. Jim was so
good-natured, faithful and well-behaved that we all liked him. Jim
married a black girl and they had twins--boys--bright, likely little
fellows, and Jim's wife and twin babies were all the treasure he had in
the world."

Bro. Kirkham said: "One day I found Jim in the woods, where he had been
sent to split rails. He was sitting down with his face buried in his
hands, apparently asleep. I thought I would crawl slyly up to him, and
spring suddenly on him, and frighten him. I did so, but Jim was not
asleep at all, but lifted up his head with such a look of unutterable
woe that I was frightened myself, and said: 'Why, Jim, what is the
matter?' Jim cried out: 'O, my boys! my boys! Massa sold my boys!'"

Bro. Kirkham said: "_I_ have vowed everlasting enmity to an institution
that will legalize such treatment of a human being."

But while these ominous mutterings were heard in so many of the Kansas
squatter cabins, little did the high and mighty Atchison Town Company,
or the editorial staff of the _Squatter Sovereign_, or the puissant
Territorial Legislature, reck that so soon they must take up the sad
refrain of Cardinal Woolsey:

Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And be