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Out of the antagonistic and contending factions mentioned in the last two chapters, the bogus Legislature and its Border-Ruffian adherents on the one hand, and the framers and supporters of the Topeka Constitution on the other, grew the civil war in Kansas. The bogus Legislature numbered thirty-six members. This was at the March election, 1855.
In result the incident was extremely damaging to the South, for it tended more than any single Border-Ruffian crime in Kansas to unite hesitating and wavering opinion in the North against the alarming flood of lawlessness and violence, which as a rule found its origin and its defense in the ranks of the pro-slavery party.
They might be deaf to the "equalities" proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence or blind to the moral sin of slavery, but they comprehended a rifle which could be fired ten times a minute and kill a man at a thousand yards. The arrivals from Missouri finally slackened and ceased. The irregular Border-Ruffian squads were hastily incorporated into the skeleton "Kansas militia."
Eight days later a tall, bronzed young man with yellow hair and quick blue eyes, in what an observant British tourist noted in his journal as "the not unpicturesque garb of a border-ruffian," helped a dazed but very pretty young woman on to the rear platform of the Pullman car attached to the east-bound overland express at Ogden.
Thirteen of the captains in the Wakarusa camp were called together, and the situation was duly explained. The treaty was accepted, though the Governor confessed "there was a silent dissatisfaction" at the result. He ordered the forces to disband; prisoners were liberated, and with the opportune aid of a furious rain-storm the Border-Ruffian army gradually melted away.
Though forewarned by ex-Governor Shannon and by General Smith, Governor Geary did not yet realize the temper and purpose of either the cabal conspirators or the Border-Ruffian rank and file.
With his authority to control election returns, there is every reason to suppose that Calhoun would have set up a pro-slavery State Legislature, to choose two pro-slavery senators, whom in its turn the strong Lecompton majority in the United States Senate would have admitted to seats; and thus the whole chain of fraud and usurpation back to the first Border-Ruffian invasion of Kansas would have become complete, legal, and irrevocable, on plea of mere formal and technical regularity.
J. R. Brown proposed that I should attend the fair and take his brother's sharp-shooter, that the captain carried through the border-ruffian conflict in Kansas, and during his movement at Harper's Ferry. After a few days' reflection I reached the conclusion to go. General Curtis gave me a pass to Detroit and return. The John Brown gun created much interest.
At once commenced that long and terrible struggle between the friends of Free-Soil and the friends of Slavery, for the possession of Kansas, which convulsed the whole Country for years, and moistened the soil of that Territory with streams of blood, shed in numerous "border-ruffian" conflicts.
General Richardson ordered out his whole division on the strength of the "Argus Extra" and neighborhood reports, and the entire border was already in motion when acting Governor Woodson issued his proclamation declaring the Territory "to be in a state of open insurrection and rebellion." General Smith found it necessary to direct his first orders against the Border-Ruffian invaders themselves.
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