Scenes in the Kansas Election, 1855

From The Liberator, July 27, 1855. 66.

THE VOTING AT LAWRENCE. In this District where the late census report indicates but 350 voters, the election shows there were 1,000 votes polled, nearly three times as great a number as legitimately belonged here; and yet a large number of our actual residents, and particularly those from a distance, did not exercise their right to the elective franchise as they found they could not do so without endangering their lives. The Free State strength in this District is full five to one, and yet the Pro-Slavery ticket has a majority of more than three to one.

Mr. Edwin Bond, who went to vote in the morning, was forcibly ejected from the ground, and pursued by an angry crowd to the bank of the river with curses and threatenings of destruction, and compelled to jump down the declivity, when a revolver was discharged at him and a ball narrowly escaped his head. He ran along the beach and finally escaped unscathed.

VOTERS ARMED. We repaired to the polls about 10 o'clock in the morning but retired on the assurance of numerous friends that we were in personal danger, thinking it best to defer our rights as an elector to a later period in the day, when it was hoped better order would prevail. At 4 o'clock we again visited the polls and discharged our duties as a freeman without molestation. It was the first time we ever appeared at the ballot-box with an instrument of defense, and we trust it will be the last time it will be deemed necessary to be guarded with a retinue of friends, each provided with bowie knives and revolvers, besides having several of the latter instruments about our own person ready for immediate use.

THE VOTING AT TECUMSEH. After it was satisfactorily ascertained that the number of persons imported into Lawrence, from Missouri, was greater than the occasion demanded, a company of 200 was detached from the main body, and took up their line of march from Tecumseh, with the view of overbalancing the large number of free voters in that District, a majority of whom are located at Topeka. They arrived at their destination in time to participate in the fraud there practiced upon the ballot-box. When they had accomplished the object of their mission, they returned in a body to their encampment near Lawrence, where they remained until Saturday morning, when they took their final departure for Missouri.

Mr. Burgess, one of the Judges appointed by the Governor, was violently threatened; a pistol was three times snapped in his face, a club flourished over his head, till finally he was compelled to proclaim the election adjourned.

The mob then selected a new Board, with two drunken Secretaries, who took possession of the ballot-box, and allowed no person to approach it unless he was right on the "Goose question,"-a slang phrase used among the Missourians, implying they are in favor of extending the institution of Slavery over Kansas.

No questions were asked the voter as to his citizenship or place of residence; no oath was administered, or other test required, save an assurance of support to the Pro-Slavery ticket.

An aged gentleman, who felt disposed to exercise the privileges conferred on him by the laws and Constitution, approached the ballot-box, when he was offered a pro-slavery vote. He remarked that he did not vote that ticket, when someone knocked him off his hat, another cuffed him, while a third applied the boot, and forced him from the ground, threatening to put a bullet through him, unless he left instantly.

The friends of Freedom, finding themselves borne down by the invaders, quietly retired from the polls; and we are assured no Free State votes, other than three or four, were cast in that district, though that party was largely in the majority; while the pro-slavery marauders from Missouri polled between four and five hundred.

The late census returns showed that, thus far, every election district in the territory was settled by a large majority of voters from the free States, and that, if left to the ordinary course of things, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory would be united upon the subject of human rights.