Abraham Lincoln: a History -- Volume 2 | Page 5

from the State of Missouri have entered Kansas, at various points, armed, with the intention of attacking the opposite party and driving them from the Territory, the latter being also represented to be in considerable force. If it should come to your knowledge that either side is moving upon the other with the view to attack, it will become your duty to observe their movements and prevent such hostile collisions."[5]
[Sidenote] Woodson to Cooke, Sept. 1, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. III., pp. 90, 91.
[Sidenote] Cooke to Woodson, Sept. 1, 1856. Ibid., pp. 91, 92.
Lieutenant-Colonel P. St. George Cooke, upon whom this active field work devolved, because of the General's ill health, concentrated his little command between Lawrence and Lecompton, where he could to some extent exert a salutary check upon the main bodies of both parties, and where he soon had occasion to send a remonstrance to the acting Governor that his "militia" was ransacking and burning houses.[6] To the acting Governor's mind, such a remonstrance was not a proper way to suppress rebellion. He, therefore, sent Colonel Cooke a requisition to invest the town of Topeka, disarm the insurrectionists, hold them as prisoners, level their fortifications, and intercept aggressive invaders on "Lane's trail"; all of which demands the officer prudently and politely declined, replying that he was there to assist in serving judicial process, and not to make war on the town of Topeka.
If, as had been alleged, General Smith was at first inclined to regard the pro-slavery side with favor, its arrogance and excesses soon removed his prejudices, and he wrote an unsparing report of the situation to the War Department. "In explanation of the position of affairs, lately and now, I may remark that there are more than two opposing parties in the Territory. The citizens of the Territory who formed the majority in the organization of the territorial government, and in the elections for its Legislature and inferior officers, form one party. The persons who organized a State government, and attempted to put it in operation against the authority of that established by Congress, form another. A party, at the head of which is a former Senator from Missouri, and which is composed in a great part of citizens from that State, who have come into this Territory armed, under the excitement produced by reports exaggerated in all cases, and in many absolutely false, form the third. There is a fourth, composed of idle men congregated from various parts, who assume to arrest, punish, exile, and even kill all those whom they assume to be bad citizens; that is, those who will not join them or contribute to their maintenance. Every one of these has in his own peculiar way (except some few of the first party) thrown aside all regard to law, and even honesty, and the Territory under their sway is ravaged from one end to the other.... Until the day before yesterday I was deficient in force to operate against all these at once; and the acting Governor of the Territory did not seem to me to take a right view of affairs. If Mr. Atchison and his party had had the direction of affairs, they could not have ordered them more to suit his purpose."[7]
All such truth and exposure of the conspiracy, however, was unpalatable at Washington; and Secretary Jefferson Davis, while approving the conduct of Colonel Cooke and expressing confidence in General Smith, nevertheless curtly indorsed upon his report: "The only distinction of parties which in a military point of view it is necessary to note is that which distinguishes those who respect and maintain the laws and organized government from those who combine for revolutionary resistance to the constitutional authorities and laws of the land. The armed combinations of the latter class come within the denunciation of the President's proclamation and are proper subjects upon which to employ the military force."[8]
[Sidenote] "Washington Union," August 1, 1856.
Such was the state of affairs when the third Governor of Kansas, newly appointed by President Pierce, arrived in the Territory. The Kansas pro-slavery cabal had upon the dismissal of Shannon fondly hoped that one of their own clique, either Secretary Woodson or Surveyor-General John Calhoun, would be made executive, and had set on foot active efforts in that direction. In principle and purpose they enjoyed the abundant sympathy of the Pierce Administration; but as the presidential election of 1856 was at hand, the success of the Democratic party could not at the moment be endangered by so open and defiant an act of partisanship. It was still essential to placate the wounded anti-slavery sensibilities of the Northern States, and to this end John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, was nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He was