e original cause. But what were the consequences? First,
a protracted anarchy and civil war among the several classes of
emigrants;--second, a murderous invasion of the Territory by the
borderers of a neighboring State, for the purpose of carrying the
elections against the _bona-fide_ settlers;--third, the establishment of
a system of terrorism, in which outrages having scarcely a parallel
on this continent were committed, with a view to suppress all protest
against the illegality of those elections, and to drive out settlers of
a particular class;--fourth, the commission of a spurious legislative
assembly, in the enforced absence of protests against the illegal
returns of votes;--fifth, the enactment of a series of laws for the
government of the Territory, the most tyrannical and bloody ever devised
for freemen,--laws which aimed a fatal blow at the four corner-stones of
a free commonwealth,--freedom of speech, of the press, of the jury, and
of suffrage;--sixth, the recognition of Slavery as an existing fact, and
the denunciation of penalties, as for felony, against every attempt
to question it in word or deed;--and, finally, the dismissal of the
Territorial Governor, (Reeder,) who had exhibited some signs of
self-respect and conscience in resisting these wicked schemes, and who
was compelled to fly the Territory in disguise, under a double menace of
public prosecution and private assassination.

These were the scenes of the first act, in a drama then commenced; and
those of the next were not unlike. A second Governor (Shannon) having
been procured,--a Governor chosen with a double fitness to the use,--on
the ground of his sympathy with whatever was vulgar in border-ruffian
habits and with whatever was obsequious in Presidential policy,--the
deliberate game of forcing the settlers to submit to the infamous
usurpation of the Missourians was opened. But, thank Heaven! those brave
and hardy pioneers would not submit! There was enough of the blood of
the Puritans and of the Revolutionary Sires coursing in their veins, to
make them feel that submission, under such circumstances, would have
been a base betrayal of liberty, a surrender of honor, and a sacrifice
of every honest sentiment of justice and self-respect. "Come," they said
to the marauders,--"come, hack this flesh from our limbs, and scatter
these bones to bleach with those of so many of our friends and brothers,
already strewn upon the unshorn and desolate fields,--