Great Meeting at Market Hall, "The Wrongs of Kansas," Speech of Colonel Lane

Fountain City Herald [Fond du Lac], June 10, 1856

A great number of our citizens assembled on Market Square last evening to greet the gallant Col. Lane of Kansas. Owing to the exhausted state of Col. Lane, who has for weeks been speaking in public meetings in the Western states, the market hall was occupied, and such a gathering has seldom been seen in our city, realizing the "sea of upturned faces."

Albert Smith Esq., was chosen President, and introduced Col. Lane, who spoke in substance follows: He had been, since coming here, impressed with wonderful growth of a city like this, coming up here as in a day, and since his own not very old recollections. He felt more at home than before any meeting he had addressed for many here were as it were frontiersman, who had gone through much the same trials and hardships which were being gone through by those of Kansas, who sent him home, a suppliant.

He asked the question, whether when the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed, it was not understood by all that question of Slavery was intended to be left to the people. Further he asked whether it was not understood and believed, and stated in Congress that Kansas, by estimate was devoted to by nature to freedom. He was surprised to find that a great many people suppose that Kansas is settled mostly from New England, and thence abolitionists. The fact was that Kansas was mostly settled by western men. But he had never been able to see why a New England man had not as good a right as anyone to settle in Kansas, and he knew that the people from the neighborhood of Bunker Hill were men of as much valor and true courage as those from any part of the Union.

The people of Kansas are a conservative people and he who charged them with being abolitionists in the sense of wishing to disturb slavery in the states, is a slanderer and a liar. He himself had been denounced as an abolition lecturer when he was trying to organize the Democratic party on the platform of 32. And he would say, that the day was near, when abolitionists would signify all that was patriotic and good.

On the day of the Kansas election, the people were preparing peaceably to vote, when they found among them bounds of Missourians, walking arsenals. He hoped there were here no apologists for the Missourians. If there is such a white livered hypocrite here let him go to Platte County. The men there are proud of their deed. They said the Missouri river she'd run in blood, but Kansas should be a slave state. The very boys of Wisconsin ought to lash such northern apologists naked out of the state.

Well, these Missourians voted. They took possession of every poll but one. What would you do, if the people of Illinois, who are your friends, as others are your enemies, came over here that way? What would you do if they came over that way and took your polls? [Voices, "We'd fight] Of course you'd fight. There is not a man or child who wouldn't.

Colonel Lane here held up the book, the statutes of Kansas, made by the Missourians in two or three weeks, by taking the whole Missouri code, "With a generous confidence," as an Irishman once did a frog.

He had been a Democrat from his childhood, he claimed now to belong to the same party, if there is one. But there is a pro-slavery portion of that party, cherish, mark and beets, to the car of slavery, to which he did not belong. They are traitors to the Democratic party. That wing of the party is growing small daily. The Ides of November will show that the people are against them. The wing is made up of-well mostly postmasters they talk of some other people as "Nigger worshippers" while themselves are the most subject slaves to slavery, and the jaeggerment will crush their bones until they make a very small mark.

Well, move, Frank Pierce-don't talk because I say Frank-he was the work of my hands as I was the state elector from Indiana and cast the vote for him didn't we make a pretty mess of it? Pierce says we must obey the laws and those pro-slavery editors say I must be hung for not obeying them.

Kansas is no valueless price. It has the loveliest establishment in the world, and must be free. This known should be good enough for the people of Kansas and good enough for Wisconsin, remember that! (Colonel Lane had read some extracts from the bloody code of bogus legislature of Kansas.) It put ideas the stealing of a white child with imprisonment for six months but the taking away of a Negro child to freedom with death. Apologists called us Nigger worshipers. They dare to stand up and abuse us for not obeying such laws.

So when they come to win an appeal in the Irishmen and Germans because they say, their opponents are Know Nothings. Let it not be said that after tonight! These very men took away from the alien born in Kansas the right to vote on their first papers and now they sag that those who repudiate the Missouri code are Know Nothings!

Almost all of the foreigners have adhered to the Democratic party. I tell you the pro-slavery reign of the party is sold to slavery, and is your bitterest enemy. Only the other day a poor Irish waiter was shot down by a Congressman and killed; and every one of these traitors voted against an investigation! I call on you to remember that those Kansas laws of the Missourians defranchise you. You are opposed to slavery, but Pierce and Douglas, and the other traitors are in favor of it and your enemies.

Colonel Lane continued to comment on the bloody code of Kansas in bitter, burning sarcasm of common language. If you go into Kansas with a letter of Washington or Jefferson against slavery or a Democratic platform down to 1852, and hand it to your friend, you must go to the penitentiary for two years, which means a ball and chain by the bloody code. Take this home to yourselves, people of Wisconsin: look at the chain gang what good for us of Kansas is good for you. Is there a man here that would obey such laws? (Many voices Never, Never)

Why, on jury trial, no man can serve if he has any doubts of the existence of slavery in Kansas, and if he expresses the doubts of the existence of slavery in Kansas, and if he expresses the doubts in answer to the question in court, he is indicted by the Grand Jury and condemned to the chain gang! Why, we have not the right of suffrage at all. First a dollar must be paid to the sheriff, and then the person offering to vote must swear to up and hold the Fugitive Slave Law! Some people must do it! Here he must swear to sustain the Kansas bill. Some might do that too! I voted for that bill; and I feel that I might stand a better chance of Heaven when I know I am forgiven for that sin! But after swearing this, if you can't get past the array of bowie knives you can vote for a delegate. For nothing else, for these Missourians have appointed all the officers! They went into the meanest holes of Missouri to get the officers. That creature, Jones, was never shot at all! Despite the crocodile tears shed by the editors. In one district they have put a Wyandot Indian over us.

We sent the most urgent memorials to Pierce, he has nine of them-praying that this outrages might be stopped. When they began to talk about enforcing these laws, we assembled, men and women. Resolving to take six feet of prairie rather than obeying these laws. I am on my way to Kansas in view of an indictment for high treason-and when I am on the scaffold and the knife is ready to sever the cord my last respiration shall be-these laws shall never be obeyed (Tremendous applause).

Colonel Lane proceeded to relate the instances and manner of forming a state government in Kansas, carrying the vast audience with him enthusiastically. He spoke of the Constitution formed as one of the most Republican ever formed. Kansas is now knocking at the door, and the blood shed in Kansas lies at the feet of Pierce and Douglas and their myrmidons.

News clipping courtesy Kevin Dier-Zimmel.