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del.icio.usLincoln visited 'Bleeding Kansas'
The Wichita Eagle
This is one in a series of vignettes celebrating Kansas history. The series' name comes from the state motto, Ad astra per aspera: "To the stars through difficulties."
BY BECCY TANNER
When presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln came to Kansas in December of 1859, he knew he was coming into a charged situation.
For five years, Kansas Territory had been nicknamed "Bleeding Kansas" for the border clashes between Missouri and Kansas over whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or pro-slave state.
Lincoln was coming into John Brown territory. The fiery abolitionist Brown had just been hung by federal authorities.
Lincoln was invited to the territory by distant relatives. Louisiana Hanks Delahay was Lincoln's cousin. Her husband, Mark Delahay, was a former journalist turned lawyer.
Lincoln had come to Kansas as a political candidate because he believed slavery was immoral but especially because he believed it should not be extended into the new territory of Kansas.
On Nov. 30, 1859, Lincoln arrived in St. Joseph, Mo., preparing for his trip into Kansas Territory, just a short ferry ride across the Missouri River. He was met by Delahay and D.W. Wilder, publisher of the Elwood Free Press in Kansas.
As they waited for a ferry, Wilder noted the tall, leggy candidate looked something like a grasshopper because of the way he squatted in his overcoat, long legs protruding.
Once in Kansas, the two men helped Lincoln register at the Great Western Hotel in Elwood, where he agreed that night to speak in the hotel's dining room. There, he voiced his opposition to the violent manner in which John Brown had conducted raids along the Missouri-Kansas border and at Harper's Ferry, Va.
"We have a means provided for the expression of our belief in regard to slavery," Lincoln said. "It is through the ballot box, the peaceful method provided by the constitution. John Brown has shown great courage, rare unselfishness... but no man, North or South, can approve of violence and crime.
The next day, Lincoln traveled to Troy during a blizzard. He spoke for nearly two hours in the courthouse there. Then he rode to Doniphan, where he spoke to crowds and rested for the night.
He would spend the next few days traveling and talking. All told, he would spend nine days in Kansas, even traveling to Atchison, then a pro-slavery hot spot.
The trip to Kansas made an impression on Lincoln. He would later say when asked about the west: "If I went West, I think I would go to Kansas -- to Leavenworth or Atchison. Both of them are, and will continue to be, fine growing places."
Reach Beccy Tanner at 316-268-6336 or btanner@wichitaeagle.com.