hundred Missourians appeared and voted. Several speeches
were made at the polls, and among those who spoke was Major Oliver,
one of our committee. He urged all persons to use no harsh words
and expressed a hope that nothing would be said or done to wound
the feelings of the most sensitive on the other side, giving some
reasons, based on the Missouri Compromise, why they should vote,
but he himself did not vote. The whole number of votes cast in
that district was 417. The number of legal voters was about 80.
Of the names on the poll-book but 62 were on the census roll. But
a small portion, estimated at one-fourth of the legal voters, voted.

The validity of the so called pro-slavery legislature rested upon
this election. It is hardly necessary at this late day to say that
such a legislative body could not rightly assume or lawfully exercise
legislative functions over any law-abiding community. Their
enactments were, by every principle of law and right, null and
void. The existence of fraud at the election was admitted by every
one, but it was defended on the ground that the New England Emigrant
Aid Society had imported a great number of emigrants into Kansas
for the sole purpose of making that territory a free state. This
claim was thoroughly investigated and the organization and history
of the society examined. The only persons who emigrated into the
territory under the auspices of this company in 1855, prior to the
election in March, was a party of 169 persons who came under the
charge of Charles Robinson, and of whom sixty-seven were women and
children. They came as actual settlers, intending to make their
homes in the territory, and for no other purpose. Some of them
returned, but most of them became settlers. A few voted at the
election in Lawrence but the number was small. The names of these
emigrants were ascertained and thirty-seven of them were found upon
the poll-books. This company of peaceful emigrants, moving with
their household goods, was distorted into an invading horde of
pauper Abolitionists, who were, with others of a similar character,
to control the domestic institutions of the territory, and then
overturn those of a neighboring state.

The invasion of March 30 left both parties in a state of excitement,
tending directly to produce violence. The successful party was
lawless and reckless, while assuming the name of the "Law and Order"
party. The Free State party, at first surprised