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Show lature, State officers, senators, and representatives, and applied for admission into the Union as a Free State. But men, who have already five times invaded the Territory, threaten to go there again, and enforce the laws which they have already made. I need only refer to the conduct of the Pre:;iclent, and his masters in the cabinet, and say that he has been uniformly on the side of this illegal violence. You remember his lVIessage last winter, his Proclamation at a later day, his conduct all the time. He encourages the violence of these tools of the Slave Power, who have sought to tread the people down. Hence it becomes indispensable for the Northern emigrants to take arms. It is instructive to see the old Puritan spirit coming out in the sons of the North, even those who went on theological errands. Excepting the Quakers, the Unitarians are the most unmilitary of sects; in Boston, their most conspicuous ministers have been- some of them still are- notorious supporters of the worst iniquities of American slavery. Surely you will not forget the ecclesiastical defences of the Fugitive Slave Bill, the apologies for kidnapping. But a noble-hearted Unitarian minister, Rev. Mr. Nute, "felt drawn to Kansas." Of course he carried his Bible: he knew it also by heart. His friends gave him a "repeating rifle" and a "revolver." These also "felt drawn to Kansas." This "rninister at large"- very much at large, too, his nearest denominational brother, on one side five hundred miles off, on the other fifteen hundred- trusts in God, and keeps his powder dry. Listen to this, written Dec. 3, 1855:- " I have just been summoned to be in the village with my repeating rifle. I shall go, and use my utmost efforts to prevent bloodshed. But if it comes to a fight, in which we shall be forced to defend our homes and lives against the assault of these border savages (and, by the way, the Indians are being enlisted on both sides), I shall do my best to keep them off." 83 On the lOth, he writes:- " Our citizens have been shot at, and, in two instances, murdered; our houses invaded; hay-ricks burnt; corn and other provisions plundered; cattle driven off; all communication cut off between us and the States; wagons on the way to us with provisions stopped and plundered, and the drivers taken prisoners; and we in hourly expectation of an attack. Nearly every man has been in arms in the village. Fortifications have been thrown up by incessant labor night and day. The sound of the drum, and the tramp of armed men, resounded through our streets; families fleeing with their household goods for safety. Day before yesterday, the report of cannon was heard at our house from the direction of Lecompton. Last Thursday, one of our neighbors,one of the most peaceable and excellent of men, from Ohio,- on his way home, was set upon by a gang of twelve men on horseback, and shot down. Several of the ruffians pursued him some distance after he was shot ; and one was seen to push him from his horse, and heard to shout to his companions that he was dead. A neighbor reached him just before he breathed his last. I was present when his family came in to see the corpse, for the first time, at the Free-State Hotel,- a wife, a sister, a brother, and an aged mother. It was the most exciting and the most distressing scene that I ever witnessed. Hundreds of our men were in tears, as the shrieks and groans of the bereaved women were heard all over the building, now used for military barracks. Over eight hundred men are gathered 1:1nder arms at Lawrence. As yet, no act of violence has been perpetrated by those on our side; no blood of retaliation stains our hands. We stand, and are ready to act, purely in the defence of our homes and lives. I arn enrolled in the cavalry, though I have not yet appeared in the ranks ; but, should there be an attack, I SHALL BE THERE. l have had some hesitation about the propriety of this course; but some one has said, ' In questions of duty, the first thought is generally the right one.' On that principle, I find strong jl:lstification. I could feel no self-respect until I had offered my ser- . vtces. "Day before yesterday, we received the timely re-enforcement of a twelve-pound howitzer, with ammunition therefor, including grape and canister, with forty born b'-shells. It was sent from New |