 On May 22nd, 1856, South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks walked into the chamber of the Senate. Accompanying him was his fellow South Carolinian congressman, Lawrence Kitt, and Henry Edmondson, a colleague from Virginia. The Senate session had already ended for the day and people were leaving. If you've ever visited the old Senate chamber in the Capitol, you might remember that there are galleries above the floor where people used to watch the Senators debate, and many of the people there were women, usually wives of Senators. And Brooks, being a Southern gentleman, was waiting for one female straggler to clear out before doing what he had come to do. Brooks was an interesting character, to say the least. He'd been born to a pretty powerful cotton family in South Carolina, and in 1840, Brooks had been wounded in a duel. He was shot in the hip and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life, forcing him to depend on a cane for support. Unlike many Southerners, he served in the Mexican-American War, but he spent most of the war vomiting. He later lied about his war exploits to make himself look more heroic, but people called him out for it. However, this did not stop him from gaining political office in 1853 as a South Carolina representative, and when he took office, his main object was to make sure that Kansas was admitted as a slave state. Once the galleries were clear of women, Brooks and Kitt approached the senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner. Two days prior, Sumner finished giving a lengthy speech about Kansas. Sumner had been elected to Congress in 1851, but in reaction to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, Sumner switched to the new Republican Party. Sumner's speech was actually given over the course of two days, May 19th and 20th, and it was titled, The Crime Against Kansas. In a minute, he called people out by name. He referred to Stephen Douglas, the engineer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, as the squire of slavery, implying that he was basically a puppet of the slave owners in the South. Sumner invoked sexual innuendo, comparing the happenings in Kansas to rape. In one part of the speech, he said, quote, It is the rape of a virgin territory compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery, and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave state, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the national government. Yes, sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong and to make it a hissing to the nation, here in our Republic, force, aye, sir, force has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution and all for the sake of political power, end quote. But most importantly, at least regarding the appearance of Preston Brooks, were Sumner's vituperations against Andrew Butler. Along with Douglas, Sumner referred to Butler as one of the two senators who, quote, have raised themselves to eminence on this floor in championship of human wrongs. Sumner then devoted a lengthy section of the speech to attacking Andrew Butler directly. In what is probably the most enduring line of the speech, Sumner said, quote, the senator from South Carolina, meaning Andrew Butler, has read many books of chivalry and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course, he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him. Though polluted in the sight of the world, is chased in his sight. I mean the harlot slavery, end quote. Andrew Butler was the cousin of Preston Brooks, so by insulting the honor of Senator Butler, Sumner was also insulting the honor of Preston Brooks, which I'm sure Sumner would have no problem with doing. Anyway, since Brooks was an equally strong supporter of slavery as Butler. But this is the speech that brought Brooks and his colleague, Lawrence Kitt, to the Senate Chamber on the 22nd of May. When Brooks approached, Sumner was sitting at his desk writing. Mr. Sumner, Brooks said to him, I have read your last speech with care and as much impartiality as possible under the circumstances. And I feel it is my duty to say that you have libeled my state and slandered my kinsmen who has aged and absent, and I have come to punish you for it. Sumner started to stand up, but before he could get out of his desk, Brooks bashed him over the head with his cane. Brooks's cane was narrow at the bottom and grew thicker at the top, where it was finished off with a thick gold end. Brooks continued beating Sumner with the thick gold end of his cane, while Lawrence Kitt held bystanders at bay with a pistol, profiting them from interfering. The Senate desk, which again you can see if you ever visit the Capitol in Washington DC, the desks were bolted into the ground, but Sumner lurched up so hard while being beaten that he actually ripped the bolts out of the floor. Brooks continued beating Sumner even as his cane broke in half. When Brooks was finally stopped, Sumner had suffered such severe injuries that he was unable to return to his seat for nearly three years. Though the people of Massachusetts continued to reelect him anyway. Brooks was fined a paltry $300 and he wasn't even kicked out of the House of Representatives, though he did resign. The people of South Carolina, though, held him as a hero, standing up to a northern bully, and they reelected him immediately. And many supporters even sent him replacement canes with inscriptions like, hit him again and use knockdown arguments. The governor of South Carolina even presented Brooks with a silver goblet at a banquet to honor him for his violent act. With the caning of Charles Sumner, the violence over the Kansas Controversy was no longer completely contained within the boundaries of the contested territory. I'm Chris Galton and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. In the last episode, we covered the passage of the Kansas Nebraska Act, the early settlement of the New Kansas territory, and the voter fraud that took place in the election of a pro-slavery territorial government, one that the free state settlers refused to recognize as legitimate. At the end of the episode, I told of the story of the first killing of a free state settler named Charles Dow, who was killed over a land dispute, unconnected to the political controversy. However, his slaying would be politicized and Charles Dow would serve as the match lighting the fuse to the powder keg that was to finally explode in May of 1856. Residents of Lawrence, Kansas, started to prepare for a potential war with the pro-slavery settlers who had just flooded into Kansas to support Governor Wilson Shannon and the official territorial legislature of the pro-slavery politicians. The Lawrence settlers started to build fortifications, and they appointed James Lane, a Mexican war veteran, as second in command to Charles Robinson, making Lane responsible for the defense of the city. Lane decided to make his headquarters the Free State Hotel, which was effectively a fortress. At its base, the walls were two foot thick, and at the top, the walls were 18 inches thick, but they extended up past the roof by as much as six feet, and portholes were cut out that would allow rooftop militia members to fire down on people below, if need be. Pro-slavery forces laid siege to Lawrence and blocked anybody from bringing provisions into the city. Arms and ammo did make it through, though. One man was actually able to smuggle in a hoitzer, but the smuggling success was largely due to the idea of Southern chivalry that compelled the pro-slavery forces to let women through their lines, and these women smuggled supplies in under their skirts. Two of the Free State women, Margaret Wood and Lois Brown, actually smuggled in two barrels of gunpowder under the seat of their buggy, as well as led for bullets under their skirts and guns in their sleeves. Whatever sins the pro-slavery faction were guilty of committing, these details are important in recognizing the hyperbole of the Northern press that effectively painted the Southerners as barbarians who would ride into Lawrence, to quote one paper, killing every man and ravishing every woman. There would actually be many instances in Kansas in which Southern chivalry would be used against the pro-slavery men, but that is not to say that there were not also some female victims of violence in Kansas at the hands of the Southerners either. Several months after this siege in August of 1856, for example, four pro-slavery men snatched a young Free State woman, bound her arms, pulled her tongue as far out of her mouth as they could and raped her. So the deference to women was a common, but not a universal characteristic of the Southern men. But this chivalry would be apparent in some cases to the advantage of the Free Staters, even as the violence escalated. For the most part, by the way, Northern men also showed deference to women just with less naivete, as far as I can tell about women's willingness to participate in the conflicts. We don't actually know as much about the pro-slavery women, but there was one 17-year-old pro-slavery girl who was killed while she was in bed by a shower of bullets fired on her cabin intended for her husband. This was actually in a raid after John Brown's massacre of Potawatomi and one of the raiders, I think he was leading the band of men in this killing, was John Cook, who would later become John Brown's spy at Harper's Ferry. And some historians have suggested that the reason that he didn't have her husband executed was guilt over the accidental killing of the young wife, but that's of course speculation. But as Lawrence was being sieged at the end of 1855, there was yet no fighting taking place. There were only preparations for fighting as fortifications were constructed and James Lane drilled his men. The siege lasted through the end of November and ended on December 8th. It has been called the Wakarusa War, but warfare didn't actually take place. There was only one casualty of the entire affair, which came about on December 6th. Three free state settlers were on horseback, heading home from Lawrence when they were intercepted by a party of Missourians on patrol. The patrol was suspicious of the travelers because they cut off the main road to take a shortcut. So the patrols weren't apprehending anybody leaving Lawrence, but these three free state are seem suspicious. So the patrol stopped them and asked where they were going and what was going on in Lawrence. The three men were Thomas Barber, his brother, Robert Barber, and their brother-in-law, Thomas Pearson. Thomas Barber took it upon himself to do the talking. He asked what law they were breaking. Major George Clark, one of the patrol leaders, ordered his men to accompany Barber and the others to wherever they were headed, but Barber refused to allow this. So Clark drew his gun. Before leaving, Thomas had tried to convince Robert to leave his gun behind, worried it might cause trouble, but Robert refused, and when Clark drew his gun on Thomas, Robert responded by pulling his gun out as well, clumsily getting it caught in the holster as he struggled to react to Clark's weapon. So as Robert was fumbling with his revolver, Clark fired on the unarmed Thomas Barber. Once he finally had hold of his weapon, Robert returned fire. Thomas Barber yelled out, boys, let us be off, and the three free staters rode off. After they had put a small amount of distance between them and the Missouri Patrol, Thomas let his companions know that he'd actually been shot in the abdomen. He was bleeding profusely and he fell off his horse. Pearson at this point wanted to surrender to the Missourians, but Robert refused, worried that they'd be executed. Since Thomas was dead, they said they couldn't help him by sticking around and seeing the Missourians in pursuit, Robert Barber and Thomas Pearson took off, leaving their dead relative behind. Now, Robert Barber justified his actions by saying that his brother was dead, which he likely genuinely believed as Thomas Barber was on the ground and unable to speak at this point, but he was not dead and he actually survived for another 40 minutes. A woman from a home nearby tried to give him some water, but he couldn't take a drink. Finally, he did lose enough blood and he died, having been abandoned by his family fleeing the Missourians who shot him. Back in Lawrence, Charles Robinson learned about Thomas Barber's death, only the next day, on December 7th. He was worried that the news of Barber's death would cause fighting to finally erupt, so he ordered the news be kept secret, but this did no good as word of the killing spread quickly throughout the city anyway. On the other side of the conflict, the territorial governor, Wilson Shannon, was also worried about the looming battle. His territorial militia had quickly ballooned from the flock of Missourians wanting to support the pro-slavery government, but he wasn't confident that they could be controlled. These were not exactly disciplined militia members. A lot of them were teenagers who were probably hankering for a fight and likely to act rashly. The same night of Barber's death, before either side's leaders knew about the killing, Shannon spoke to the Missouri leaders to try to make sure they could keep them in from committing any rash acts. The next day, Shannon and one of his military leaders, the grandson of Daniel Boone, in fact, named Albert Boone, rode into Lawrence. As the two men entered the Free State Hotel, they saw Thomas Barber's body, which had only recently arrived. Shannon and Boone, of course, had no knowledge of the killing when they decided to come negotiate peace, so their arrival was probably fortuitous. Their shock at the killing was apparent enough to convince the Free Staters present of their sincerity at not being aware of the murder, and they offered their regrets on the matter. Shannon spent the day in Lawrence, ate with Robinson at his home, and the two factional leaders agreed upon a plan for peace, which was written up as a document that night by a committee in Lawrence. By the time the document was being drafted, Shannon and Boone had already returned to inform the militia leaders of his plan. The timing of all this was crucial. Several members of the territorial militia were planning an attack on Lawrence that night, and Shannon was able to intercede in time to prevent it. Negotiations over the agreement continued for several hours the next day, but at the end of it, leaders from both sides signed a written statement agreeing to the terms. The citizens involved in the Branson rescue following Dow's killing, which I talked about in the end of the previous episode, were excused. Shannon also agreed to aid in the apprehension of criminals, which was a concern among the Free Staters because of the unwillingness from the official government to even attempt to bring justice to Branson. But any question of the legality over the issues themselves were avoided, so there was no settlement over whether or not any party was justified in their previous actions. The agreement pretty much just said that both sides would drop it, so to speak. The agreement also danced around the legitimacy of the territorial government, which Free Staters still saw as bogus because of the obvious and widespread election fraud I also talked about in the last episode. The Free Staters acknowledged the territorial militia, which was basically a practical acknowledgement of the threat it posed in forcing them to submit, but they did not actually acknowledge the legitimacy of the territorial government. In many ways, this agreement was just kicking the can down the road as it clearly avoided addressing any of the overarching issues that created the conflicts to begin with. But for the time, further violence was avoided as Governor Shannon ordered the militia to disband on the 8th of December, and the only casualty of the anti-climatic Wakeruza War was Thomas Barber. The second Kansas killing, the first that was truly and explicitly the product of the political tensions was also a Free State settler. The story of the Wakeruza War has one more element worth talking about though. Shannon's relief at avoiding a major bloodshed probably caused him to make some practical miscalculations shortly after the agreement, at least from his perspective as the official territorial governor trying to keep the peace and establish legitimacy for the pro-slavery legislature. He was still worried about his ability to control his militia for one thing, so he authorized Robinson and Lane to raise their own militia to repel invaders. They probably would have done this anyway, but Shannon gave sanction to their actions, allowing them to do so more overtly. Then Shannon decided to celebrate his diplomatic victory, which involved some alcohol. Robinson came to Shannon again while the governor was a little drunk, and Robinson told Shannon that there was a pro-slavery force outside of Lawrence that was about to attack, and he wanted permission to repel the force. Shannon granted him the permission to do so, signing the paper that Robinson gave him, authorizing his actions. The force that Robinson claimed was preparing to attack didn't actually exist, but with the signed paper in Robinson's hand, James Lane felt that was all the sanction needed to inform his men that they were United States dragoons, which was the name for a Calvary Regiment at the time. So now the free-staters believed they had official military status, though Shannon would later claim that he only gave permission for them to repel an attack, which is consistent with what Robinson told them, but wasn't what Shannon actually signed off on, apparently. Always read the terms and conditions, right? The free-state men, just like the pro-slavery militia, were themselves wanting a fight at this point. So Shannon unwittingly fueled the tensions by giving them the impression that they had official sanction to take action against the pro-slavery settlers. The free-staters did not feel like they had any justice for the death of Thomas Barber, but they also were enjoying a confidence boost from seeing the Missourians disperse. They believed they had been victorious, and the Missourians apparently agreed. They were angry at what they saw as a victory of lawlessness. The reality of the situation was that the leaders on both sides were having increasing trouble controlling their men, and they were each doing what they could to try to keep the violence from erupting, but tensions only continued to escalate. It was something of an impossible situation for the men in charge. The Wakarusa War also derailed the attempts by the more conservative free-soilers to exert influence on the convention at Leavenworth, which was scheduled for December 7th, which meant that the Wakarusa War interrupted this effort, cementing the pro-slavery agenda for the legislature. The people there called on Governor Shannon to suppress the nullifiers, as they called them. It's kind of ironic with nullification being first explicitly advocated by Calhoun in South Carolina. Accusations of nullification would be levied more at northerners and anti-slavery people. Even some of the secession documents cite nullification of the fugitive slave law as justification for secession, but I'm getting sidetracked here. Thomas Barber was buried on December 16th, and Robinson gave his oration in which he called him, quote, a martyr to principle. John Greenleaf Whittier composed a poem entitled The Burial of Barber. One line of the poem clearly aimed at the pro-slavery territorial government asserted that, quote, the law shakes hands with crime. So the peace in Kansas was temporary. The recent settlement was enough to put off the fighting until the roughest part of the winter had passed, but it would pick back up in early 1856. January 15th, 1856 was the date set for the Free State elections to decide on officers under the Topeka Constitution, which they were still pursuing as a rival to the legitimacy of the pro-slavery government in the Compton. Word about violence in Leavenworth, where the pro-slavery men dominated, polling for the elections took place in private homes. Nonetheless, Missouri border ruffians decided it was time to redeem themselves for the Wakarusa embarrassment. A handful of pro-slavery men, something between 30 and 50 of them, but the exact number isn't clear, interfered with the elections by threatening and disarming voters. They were ultimately driven off, but this was only the beginning of the contest. Stephen Sparks, his son, Moses, and his nephew were headed home from the polls at 2 a.m. On their way home, a group of Missourians stopped them. The Missourians made threats, and the Stephen Sparks tried to appeal to their history as neighbors to be left alone, but this did no good. What Sparks didn't know was that a group of Kickapoo Rangers, a group of border ruffians, had already been to his house, where they had held Sparks's other son, only 12 years old at the time, at gunpoint, while they gave a note to Sparks's wife, telling her and her husband to get out of Leavenworth. So when Sparks was trying to appeal to the goodwill of the men who stopped he and his son and his nephew on the road, he was unaware that they had already made the decision to drive him out of the community. And responding to his pleas, they fired on the Sparks's and took Stephen Sparks and his nephew hostage. Moses, however, escaped and ran to get help from the Free State Reserves, which consisted of only 15 men. The leader of the group was Reese Brown, no relation to John Brown, who was in Kansas by this time, they'll all be talking about him more in the next episode. Reese Brown had been at Lawrence during the Waukarusa War two months ago. When Moses found him, he had spent the night drinking, but this didn't stop him from taking action. He and his men freed the two hostage Sparks's, but Stephen Sparks was wounded during the 10 minute tussle. A pro-slavery man was also wounded in the gunfire, but nobody was killed and the Free State men spent the night at Leavenworth. The next day, Reese Brown and his men were ambushed by the Kickapoo Rangers, who were led by John W. Martin. He had Brown and his men arrested for shooting the pro-slavery man who was injured in the episode the night before. As he was escorting the prisoners to where they could be held before trial, Martin's men were acting unruly. One of Martin's men, a guy named Bob Gibson, took a hatchet and attacked one of Reese Brown's men, and he had to be restrained by men from both factions. Martin wanted a keyboarder, but the men were less professional. They continued to drink, and this only made them more willing to make threats against the Free Stateers. They held hostage. They finally carried their prisoners back to Dawson's store, which is where the Sparks's had been stopped on the road, and inside the store, the wounded pro-slavery man from the night before was lying on the ground, moaning in pain. While they were all holed up in the store building, Brown was taken into a room to be questioned by Martin. Twice, Martin's men broke into the room while this was happening, and the second time they did so, Gibson led a dozen of Martin's men to attack Reese Brown with a hatchet. This time, Martin couldn't do anything to stop his men, so he left the room, claiming he couldn't stand watching the torture. While his men were in the other room torturing Brown, Martin took down the names of the other Free Stateers and then let them go. Reese Brown, meanwhile, was being brutally beaten by the drunken kick-a-poos. After beating Brown pretty well, they decided that Gibson, the chief antagonist of the group, and Brown should go at it one-on-one. So they took Brown outside to fight, but Brown was already beaten pretty badly. A hatchet wound on his head was bleeding heavily, so he broke free and tried to run. He obviously couldn't get far, but eventually the kick-a-poos were tired of toying with him, so they took him home where they dropped him on the doorstep of his house. His wife and two-year-old daughter would find him there, brutalized and bleeding, but still alive. Brown's wife got a doctor, but the gash on his forehead from Gibson's hatchet was two inches long and the blood was just too much for the doctor to do anything about. As Reese Brown lay dying, while his wife stood helplessly by, his last words were, they murdered me like cowards. Aside from the murder of Reese Brown, the January elections went off without any other incident, but the news of Brown's brutal killing only reignited tensions among the Free State Settlers. Then, on January 24th, President Pierce poured salt in the wound. He blamed all the violence in Kansas on the Free State Settlers for provoking the Missourians. Now he was threatening military intervention in Kansas and he called on Congress to make appropriations to carry this out. To the Free State Settlers, this was a travesty of justice. One of theirs was brutally murdered by the men who weren't even obeying the command of their own officials and the president had the audacity to lay the blame entirely on them as provocateurs. Pierce made good on his threat. In February, he commanded all armed irregulars being the unofficial militias to disperse. This meant that he was telling the Free Stateers, from their perspective, that self-defense was now a criminal action. Governor Shannon was given control of a group of federal troops stationed at Fort Leavenworth. Rhetorically, Pierce condemned both factions for acting outside the law, but he made it clear that it was the Free State Settlers who were the primary culprits and his actions made that even more undeniable. When the Topeka legislature assembled, Sheriff Jones, who had sparked the Wakerusa War only a few months prior, showed up and took down names of everybody present. This was all after the pro-slavery presses were calling Free State Actions a revolt and condemning their leaders as outlaws. One report referred to the Free State Actions as quote, actual overt and consummate treason. Their fears of being arrested for treason, a capital crime, were not at this point unfounded. Still, the Free States asserted their moral legitimacy and rightful political authority, but despite their resolve, the Topeka legislature put off passing any actual legislation until after Kansas achieved statehood so as to avoid potential treason charges. Meanwhile, many settlers determined not to pay taxes to the bogus legislature as they called the LaCompton government. The Missourians seemed to sincerely view the Northerners as aggressors, which was a common political view where the North was constantly worried about the so-called slave power. The South was always drumming up fears about quote, unquote, Northern aggression. But Northerners traveling to or through Kansas or traveling on the Missouri River were increasingly harassed by Missourians. Residents in Lawrence, meanwhile, were taking on the expense of paying for private mail delivery because Missouri's stagecoach drivers charged with delivering the mail would simply dump the so-called abolition mail on the road. Packages were also being inspected, though Missouri paranoia about packages to Lawrence were not irrational. Most famously were packages marked Bibles that contained sharps rifles funded and delivered by Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Sharps rifles gained the nickname Beecher's Bibles throughout the territory. Outraged by the events, Charles Sumner started to prepare his speech, The Crime Against Kansas. He wrote the entire speech out by hand, which he then had the congressional printer typeset for him. The full speech ended up being 112 pages long. He spent time rehearsing it, trying to perfect the rhythm and delivery for the greatest emotional impact. Though Sumner by contemporary accounts wasn't a spectacular speaker, Sumner delivered his speech privately for William Seward and his wife, Francis, to get feedback. Francis, while taking no objection to the tone or message of the speech, warned him about the sarcasm in the personal attacks he intended to levy against Stephen Douglas and Andrew Butler, among others. When he finally delivered the speech, he split it up over the course of two days. He spoke for three hours on May 19th. The Senate was packed with spectators, including Preston Brooks. Sumner finished the speech the next day, though Brooks did not bother to show up this time. When Douglas got a chance to respond to the speech, he said, quote, Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street that he may get sympathy upon the just chastisement? Of course, Douglas was not aware that Preston Brooks was already plotting to do exactly that. And sympathy is exactly what he would receive in the North, at least. Sumner only added to his vituperations against Douglas after being challenged on the speech. The two exchanged open insults. Sumner started to respond, quote, No person with the upright form of a man can be allowed. Douglas interjected, taunting him, say it. Douglas responded, quote, I will say it. No person with the upright form of a man can be allowed without violation of all decency to switch out from his tongue, the perpetual stench of offensive personality, the noisome squat nameless animal to which I now refer is not a proper model for an American senator. Will the senator from Illinois take notice? Sumner was slinging this insult directly at Douglas on the floor of the Senate. And in the 19th century congressional version of the old, I know you am, but what am I? Douglas responded, quote, I will and therefore not imitate you, sir. But Sumner won the day. His speech was celebrated by abolitionists when copies were printed and distributed all over the North. When Preston Brooks showed up to assault him on the 22nd, he was at his desk stamping copies of the speech to send to his admirers. But the day before Brooks took his revenge on Sumner for the insult to his family and state, Kansas saw another act of violence from the pro-slavery side. Back in April on the 19th, Sheriff Jones showed up in Lawrence to arrest S.N. Wood, who was the lawyer who had been part of the group rescuing Branson after the Dow killing, if you remember. Lawrence's citizens defended him, disarmed Jones and sent him packing. One paper joked that when Sheriff Jones called for help, he never specified who needed the help so the citizens of Lawrence thought he wanted them to help Wood. The next day, Jones showed up with a group of men. This was still not enough and the citizens of Lawrence stood up to him. Jones claimed he was acting on behalf of the laws of Kansas, and one yelled that they would never submit. Outmanned, Jones left quietly. Three days later, Jones finally showed up again. This time backed by a group of United States dragoons. The national authority of the dragoons, Jones assumed, would break the resolve of the Lawrence rebels. It did, certainly, test their resolve. Standing up to a territorial legislature was a far cry from standing up to the national government. This time, Jones made six arrests without resistance, though the citizens of Lawrence vocally denounced Jones in the territorial government. The six men arrested were just men who had previously refused to help Jones arrest Wood. Basically, he was arresting them for draft dodging for all intents and purposes. But the lawyer, S.N. Wood, was still free. He spent the night right outside Lawrence. Gunfire was going off, but it isn't clear what prompted it or who was firing. Jones, however, was hit in the back while he was trying to sleep inside his tent. The pro-slavery press jumped on this. One headline read, the abolitionists in open rebellion, Sheriff Jones murdered by the traitors with three exclamation marks punctuating the title. Another newspaper called it a brutal assassination, and one editorialist wrote about a clan of assassins acting against law and order. Jones was not killed. In fact, his injury wasn't especially serious, and he recovered pretty quickly. But the fuel had already been added to the fire, and pro-slavery men wanted blood. The leaders in Lawrence, including the first territorial government, Andrew Reeder, who joined the free-staters after being disgusted by the election fraud during his short tenure, denounced the actions of whoever shot Jones. They condemned it outright, insisting that they were dedicated to peace and calling it the isolated act of a single individual. Robinson actually suggested that Jones was shot by a pro-slavery man who wanted an excuse to go to war in the territory, which was obviously a bit of a stretch. So on May 5th, Judge Lacompt ordered the arrest and indictment of all free-state officials in Lawrence and the destruction of their newspaper, which was in violation of the territory's slave codes that condemned anti-slavery speech, and the free-state hotel, since it was obviously a fortress. Before these indictments were made public, the free-state leaders took their own initiative. They decided to send men east to lobby for aid from sympathetic Northerners, and in the meantime, former Governor Andrew Reeder would allow himself to be arrested to serve as a test case. Reeder initially agreed to this. I should mention that he was appointed as the free-state delegate to Congress in the Topeka Convention, but when a marshal came to arrest him, he refused to submit. The marshal left and Reeder fled, disguising himself in a borrowed overcoat and hat. He traveled at night, was smuggled to Kansas City, Missouri, by some free-staters, where he was delayed for a week because of how bright the moon was and how clear the night skies were. So finally, the free-staters helping him planted a false telegraph report claiming that Reeder had been seen in Chicago, where they mailed him a letter, and Reeder was able to continue his escape with his pursuers following this false trail. Robinson also tried to escape, but he was apprehended after he and his wife tried to travel on a steamboat on the Missouri River. They were stopped in Lexington, Missouri, and Robinson was arrested for fleeing the indictment. His wife, Sarah, urged him to resist, genuinely believing he would be murdered outright, but he submitted, and unlike the kick-a-poos who got hold of Reese Brown, this group did not kill their prisoner. But Robinson's arrest was not enough to satiate the pro-slavery people who were still calling for blood. So several hundred Missourians, estimates are generally between 500 and 700, gathered around the city of Lawrence. Citizens of the town were now sufficiently intimidated that they issued a statement saying they would submit to the territorial laws of the pro-slavery legislature. On May 21st, some arrests were made, and the people of Lawrence peacefully conceded their arms, including the Hovertzer that had been smuggled in during the Wakarousa standoff. Jones then announced that he was going to carry out his orders to destroy the Free State Hotel and the newspaper. The hotel owner was given until 5 p.m. to get his furniture and other belongings out of the building. When the time came, Jones had four cannons aimed at the building, and his men commenced to their bombardment. The Free State Hotel wouldn't crumble, so they tried to blow it up with gunpowder. This destroyed the windows, but the structure held. Next, they set the hotel on fire. Once this was done, Jones dismissed the men. No longer acting under any official orders, the men took it upon themselves to raise the city. Robinson's house was burned down. Houses were looted. The Free State newspaper headquarters was broken into, and the men dumped the press into the river. The Free State citizens of Lawrence made no attempt to resist as the sack of Lawrence continued into the night. The only casualty was one of the Missourians who was killed when a piece of the ceiling of a building being destroyed fell on his head, actually. But the sack of Lawrence did more to help the Free Staters than anybody else. Public opinion swung in their favor. The Free State press around the country was no more honest than the pro-slavery press had been previously. Reports came out that hundreds of Free State men, women, and children were killed. A speech was circulated in the North, supposedly given by pro-slavery official David Atchison, urging Missourians to quote, "'Spring like your bloodhounds at home upon that damned abolitionist whole.'" The speech was a fabrication by Northern propagandists, and Atchison had actually tried to restrain the pro-slavery leader, so this was all complete bunk. But the perception had been established, and Northern sentiment was on the side of the Free State settlers in Kansas. The next day, of course, Sumner received his brutal caning at the hand of Preston Brooks, as I detailed in the beginning of the episode. Telegraph lines had not yet reached all the way to Kansas, so word had to be delivered by foot. But news spread fast, and one person in particular who received the news of Sumner's caning was John Brown, who was already seething over the sack of Lawrence and had not been satisfied by the peace during the Wakarusa War, which coincided with his arrival to Kansas. In this episode, John Brown has been in the background of all the events I've talked about. On May 24th, John Brown would be front and center as the bloodshed would escalate with the infamous Potawatomi Massacre, which will be the subject of the next episode. For more content like this, visit mesus.org.