"The cases of Robinson and others, indicted for treason, were called. They tendered themselves ready for trial. The government was not ready; nor was there any officer to represent the government upon the trial. A motion was made by a gentleman deputed for that purpose, simply to continue the causes. I saw no alternative, but a trial, which, without readiness on the part of the government under the most peculiar circumstances, would have amounted to an acquittal, almost to a farce, and on the other hand, a continuance. The latter ultimatim was adopted. The question then remained, what was to be done with the prisoners? As they tendered them selves ready for trial, I believed that to continue them in confinement would be oppression. I therefore discharged them on bail."

The United States Attorney, instead of being at Lecompton to try these cases, was in the border-ruffian army, marching towards Lawrence to massacre its inhabitants; and the "law and order" men, who alone were fit, according to Judge Lecompte, to sit upon a jury, were flying in terror from Lecompton, because of the reported approach of Lane. And on the afternoon of the same day upon which the alleged traitors were so generously set at liberty on bail, the guns of Lane were pointing over the town, to discharge the prisoners, had they not already been dismissed, without the legal form of a bail-bond. How far this fact influenced the action of the judge, he has not thought proper to state. One thing is certain; these men had already been held in custody for months without a trial; and it is quite probable that the government would never have been ready for trial, if its Kansas ministers could have continued the prisoners in confinement with any degree of safety to themselves. Had the accused been pro-slavery men, there would have been no lack of readiness on the part of the government to try the cause, nor any difficulty on that of the court to secure an acquittal.

An extract from that portion of the letter of Chief-Justice Lecompte, in which he attempts to repel the charges of official defection, will afford the reader some amusement even should it fail to convince him of the entire purity of the judge's ermine

:

"As to the charge of 'party bias,' he says, if it means simply the fact of such bias, I regard it as ridiculous; because I suppose every man in this country, with few exceptions indeed, entitled to respect, either for his abilities, his intelligence, or

LECOMPTE'S DEFENCE.

165

his virtue, has a 'party bias.' I am proud of mine. It has from my first manhood to this day, placed me in the ranks of the democratic party. It has taught me to regard that party as the one, par excellence, to which the destinies of this country are particularly intrusted for preservation.

"If it be intended to reach beyond that general application, and to charge a pro-slavery bias, I am proud, too, of this. I am the steady friend of southern rights under the Constitution of the United States. I have been reared where slavery was recognised by the constitution of my state.

I love the institution as entwining itself around all my early and late associations; because I have seen as much of the nobility of the human heart in the relation of master and servant, and on the part of the one as well as of the other, as I have seen elsewhere. I have with me now an old woman who left all to come with me, when it was purely at her discretion. Another who did the same have I lost and buried with care and decency, at Fort Leavenworth. An old man has lately come to me under the care of a youthful nephew, within a few days, all the way from Maryland, and passing through every intervening free state, with a perfect knowledge of the fact, and making his own way through various interferences by his own ingenuity.

in

"If it mean more than the fact, and to intimate that this 'party bias' has affected the integrity of my official action, any solitary case, I have but to say that it is false-basely false.

"In relation to the other of 'criminal complicity with a state of affairs which terminated in a contempt of all authority,' I will content myself with saying that it, too, is falsebasely false, if made in relation to me, and to defy the slanderer to the proof of a solitary act to justify the deepest villain in such an assertion."

his

Who, after that stout denial, will dare to question the integrity or impartiality of Chief Justice Lecompte? Who can any longer doubt that to the abolitionist he has always meted out the same mercy and justice that he has bestowed upon opponents? Who will pretend to affirm that Hays, the murderer of Buffum, would not have been as readily discharged from custody even had he been a free-state man or an abolitionist? The judge really seems to think himself innocent of the charge of "party bias;" yet the loved institution of slavery is entwined around all his affections, and he could not

hold his court because "the law and order men'
only he could select a jury, had fled from Lecompton

" from which

CHAPTER XXVI.

The murder of Buffum.-Warrant for the arrest of the murderer.-Partial conduct of the marshals.-Reward offered.-Indignation of free-state citizens.-Arrest of Charles Hays.

WHEN the army from Missouri was disbanded on the morning of the 15th September, the great body of it returned at once to that state, by the Westport road, committing every atrocity in their power as they passed along. They burned the saw-mill at Franklin, stole a number of horses, and drove off all the cattle they could find.

A detachment, calling themselves the "Kickapoo Rangers," numbering about two hundred and fifty or three hundred men, under command of Col. Clarkson, took the road for Lecompton, where they forded the river early in the afternoon, on their way to the northern part of the territory. This party was mounted and well armed, and looked like as desperate a set of ruffians as ever were gathered together. They still carried the black flag, and their cannon, guns, swords and carriages were yet decorated with the black emblems of their murderous intentions.

Six men of this detachment, when within a few miles of Lecompton, halted by a field where a poor inoffensive lame man, named David C. Buffum, was at work. They entered the field, and after robbing him of his horses, one of them shot him in the abdomen, from which wound he soon after died. The murderer also carried away a poney, belonging to a young girl, the daughter of a Mr. Thom, residing in the neighborhood.

Ålmost immediately after the commission of this wanton crime, Governor Geary, accompanied by Judge Cato, arrived upon the spot, and found the wounded man weltering in his blood. Although suffering the most intense agony, he was sensible of his condition, and perfectly mindful of the circumstances that had transpired. Judge Cato, by direction of the governor, took an affidavit of the unfortunate man's dying

THE MURDER OF BUFFUM.

167

declarations. Writhing in agony, the cold sweat-drops standing upon his forehead, with his expiring breath he exclaimed, "Oh, this was a most unprovoked and horrid murder! They asked me for my horses, and I plead with them not to take them. I told them that I was a cripple-a poor lame manthat I had an aged father, a deaf-and-dumb brother, and two sisters, all depending upon me for a living, and my horses were all I had with which to procure it. One of them said I was a God d―d abolitionist, and seizing me by the shoulder with one hand, he shot me with a pistol that he held in the other. I am dying; but my blood will cry to Heaven for vengeance, and this horrible deed will not go unpunished. I die a martyr to the cause of freedom, and my death will do much to aid that cause."' The governor was affected to tears. He had been on many a battle-field, and been familiar with suffering and death; but, says he, "I never witnessed a scene that filled my mind with so much horror. There was a peculiar significance in the looks and words of that poor dying man that I never can forget; for they seemed to tell me that I could have no rest until I brought his murderer to justice. And I resolved that no means in my power should be spared to discover, arrest, and punish the author of that most villanous butchery."

On his arrival at Lecompton, the governor immediately had a warrant drawn and placed in the hands of the United States marshal, for the arrest of the murderer, for the execution of which warrant the whole of the United States force was at his disposal. Several days elapsed, and no return was made, nor had any disposition been discovered to effect the governor's wishes in the matter.

In the mean time the marshal and his deputies were extremely active in obtaining and executing warrants against free-state men, some of them upon the most trivial and unwarrantable charges. To accomplish this object, requisitions were daily made upon the governor for troops, until it became so annoying to himself, and evidenced so clearly a spirit of persecution on the part of the officials, that he was compelled to refuse compliance with these requisitions. Charges for offences alleged to have been committed months before, were trumped up, and the accused were hunted down, and thrust into prison, and there held until released by the intercession of the governor, or upon an examination being demanded, no accuser or witness appeared. Mr. C. W. Babcock, postmaster

at Lawrence, and several other respectable gentlemen, were arrested at Topeka, and brought to Lecompton as prisoners. As their names did not appear in the warrant held by the deputy-marshal who made the arrests, inquiry was instituted in regard to his conduct, when it appeared they were seized under the general appellation of "others," the warrant demanding the arrest of certain parties named, "and others." They were free-state men, or abolitionists, and that fact was sufficient to justify the outrage.

Whilst these proceedings were being conducted with surprising and admirable industry and activity, and additions were almost every hour being made to the swelling crowd of freestate prisoners, not one arrest had yet been made of a proslavery man. The murderer of Barber ran at large, and was daily in conversation with the marshal, and drinking whiskey with the sheriff. Buffum's murderer, though known, was unsought. John H. Stringfellow, Ira Morris, James A. Headley, William Martin, Captain Parker, William Simmons, and many others, all pro-slavery men, and charged with serious crimes, were at liberty, though warrants against them were in the marshal's hands, and the governor had given him requisitions upon General Smith and Col. Cook for a sufficient number of troops to secure their persons.

Justly indignant at the one-sided policy that was clearly being pursued by the territorial officers, the governor addressed the following note to Marshal Donalson :

"Sir: A warrant was issued a day or two since for the arrest of the murderer or murderers of Mr. Buffum at or near the residence of Mr. Thom. Please report to me whether that warrant has been executed, or whether any attempt has been made to arrest the offenders in this case, and what has been the result.

"Yours, &c.,

"JNO. W. GEARY, "Governor of Kansas Terr tory."

The reply to this note showed that, while the deputy-marshals were extremely active in executing warrants against freestate men, some of whom had committed no offence, they had no time to devote to such scoundrels as the assassins of Buffum. The marshal says: