"The lie it told on me killed it," retorted Aubrey.

Without replying Major Weightman threw a glass of brandy in the Frenchman's face and while he was blinded by its effects, stabbed him to death. Major Weightman afterwards said that Aubrey was angry and was drawing his pistol and that he stabbed him in self-defense.

The Road to Santa Fe, as it appears now, was a long line of historic places. After a lapse of forty years, it is realized that the old highway had a most interesting part in the settlement of the West, and that its heroes are worth remembering. Now it may be seen that the Santa Fe trail was as important in the development of the West as the "Wilderness road" was in the opening of the west.

It was in a spirit of appreciation that the suggestion came that the course of the old trail, as much of it as possible, be preserved to future generations by a series of monuments or "markers." The Kansas City council appropriated $20,000, November 6, 1905, to pay for markers to define the line of the Santa Fe road through the city.

In Kansas a legislative appropriation of $20,000 was made for markers to outline the Santa Fe trail through the state. The amount was not sufficient and it was supplemented by contributions from the school children. Each school child in the state was asked to contribute one penny to the fund, and 369,166 responded. The markers, purchased and prepared by the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kansas, have been set in place. Four or five markers were erected in each county where the later highways crossed the old trail. In the towns through which the roads passed, bronze markers were placed on the sidewalks and buildings. This is the inscription. on the granite monuments:

The Santa Fe Trail, 1822-1872.

Marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the
State of Kansas, 1906.

CHAPTER VIII.

CIVIL WAR PERIOD.

In presenting a history or a historical period, it is necessary to set down step by step the several facts that the events may unfold by degrees and thus present a picture of the whole situation. The history of the Civil war conditions in Kansas City and its effects cannot be understood without a clear conception of the causes and events of the Civil war.

Virginia ceded to Congress its claims to land in the northwestern territory, March 1, 1784, and the same day Thomas Jefferson as chairman of a committee reported to Congress a plan of government for the new acquisition. Congress adopted Jefferson's plan, April 23d, 1784, but it did not become effective and was abrogated by that "immortal prohibition of slavery," the "Ordinance of 1787." From the introduction of Jefferson's ordinance in 1784 until the final Ordinance of 1787, of which it was said, "no act of American legislation has called out more eloquent applause," various other ordinances were submitted to Congress. Master minds of the North and the South framed the Ordinance of 1787 on a basis of enlightened statesmanship. It was presented to and rejected by Congress several times in different forms. At its first presentation, in 1784, the clause prohibiting slavery in the Northwestern territory, inserted by Jefferson, was stricken out by Congress. The ordinance, however, seemed only to gain strength from each rebuff. Men, broad of intellect, strong of will, forgetful of self, a majority from the slaveholding states of the South, labored harmoniously to provide for every emergency. Parcels of land were set apart for schools and churches for the pioneers who braved the hardships of the wilderness. The northwest territory to which the Ordinance of 1787 applied included an area of about 265,878 square miles, from which the following states were formed: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

George Bancroft, writing of the final peaceful adoption of the ordinance, said: "Before the federal convention had referred its resolutions to a committee of detail, an interlude in Congress was shaping the character and destiny of the United States of America. Sublime and humane and eventful in the history of mankind as was the result, it will not take many words to tell how it was brought about. For a time wisdom and peace and justice dwelt among men, and the great ordinance, which could alone give continuance to the Union, came in serenity and stillness. Every man that had a share in it seemed to be led by an invisble hand to do just what was wanted of him; all that was wrongfully undertaken fell to the ground to wither by the wayside; whatever was needed for the completion of the mighty work arrived opportunely and just at the right moment moved into its place.”

Five of the eight states that voted for the ordinance in peace and harmony were slave states and three were free. Of the eighteen votes cast, eleven were slave state delegates, seven free state delegates. Daniel Webster said of this ordinance: "We are accustomd to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787."

Statesmen, historians and jurists have vied with one another in celebrating its praises. In one respect it has a proud pre-eminence over all other acts of legislation on the American statute books. It alone is known by the date of its enactment, and not by its subject matter.

The Ordinance of 1787 gave a wonderful impetus to the development of the country west of the Mississippi river, on account of the vast influx of slave-holding immigrants from the slave-prohibited territory. Nine years later, in 1796, the Spanish authorities in St. Louis, harassed by a threatened invasion of English from Canada, offered every inducement to immigrants, in order to further strengthen their defense. The Spaniards especially desired immigrants from the United States, believing their hatred of the English would make them stronger allies.

Immigrants were offered immense tracts of land merely for the cost of surveying and the small legal fees incident to the purchase. All slave holders in the northwest territory were forced by the Ordinance of 1787 to either give up their slaves or leave the territory. Streams of immigrants, going into the Northwest territory through Kentucky and Tennessee from the South and through Ohio and along the Lakes from the Northeast, met in Indiana and Illinois and crossed to the west side of the Mississippi river into the country, part of which finally was included in the state of Missouri.

Following the Ordinance of 1787, with its important influence on the development of the great West, more especially Missouri, came a transaction of unusual importance, which took place in that chain of remarkable events that culminated in a great national duel. It is said of the clause in the Louisiana Purchase treaty, describing the boundary line, "that the words flow smoothly but it is doubtful if the same number of words in a treaty ever before concealed so many seeds of controversy." Article three of the treaty became the apple of discord when Missouri sought admission to the Union in 1819. In that clause it said, "The people of the Louisiana Purchase shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess." The religion of the people of that territory was unmolested, but the "property" clause was threshed out on the floor of Congress and the "Missouri compromise," with the 36° 30′ restriction, was the result.

Previous to the acquisition of the Louisiana territory one of every seven of Missouri's inhabitants was a slave. After 1803 the population of the territory that became Missouri increased rapidly, tripling between 1810 and 1820. The aggregate number of inhabitants in the state of Missouri in 1860, the last national enumeration while slavery existed, was 1,182,012,

of which 114,931 were slaves. Missouri advanced from twenty-third in population among the states and territories in 1810, to eighth place in 1860. Up to 1817 the "balance of power" had been maintained between the slave states and the free states according to the constitution of the United States. When the Fifteenth Congress assembled in July, 1817, the free states had a large majority in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, however, with a representation based, not on population, but on states, the representatives of the free and slave states were more evenly divided. Early in the first session of the Fifteenth Congress, Mississippi, a slave state, was admitted to the Union, and a year later, in December, 1818, Illinois, a free state, was admitted, thus preserving in the Union the "balance of power." Unfortunately, however, the South with its slave system expanded more rapidly than the North, and to make matters worse, in the second session of the Fifteenth Congress of 1818-19, both Alabama and Missouri asked permission to frame constitutions preparatory to becoming states. At that time there were twenty states in the Union, ten free and ten slave.

Georgia had stipulated a slave policy to Alabama when ceding the territory to form that state, and this act was regarded by the northern representatives as final; and the Louisiana Purchase treaty, too, had guaranteed to the people of that territory peaceful possession of their property, including slaves. Congress had given the Georgia stipulation validity; the Louisiana Purchase treaty had received the same indorsement. Alabama was received with open arms, December, 1819, while Missouri, at the same time, pleading for the same privilege, under the same conditions governing Alabama, was opposed by the northern representatives who insisted upon the people of Missouri adopting an anti-slavery clause in their constitution. This issue engen

dered a debate, the first in the history of the country where a geographical line divided the contestants, and resulted in that episode in the history of Missouri, filled with hatred, vengeance and bloodshed, a history that finally ended with the war between the states.

A northern Democrat, Representative James Talmage of New York, proposed in February, 1819, as an amendment to the bill for the admission of Missouri: "That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude shall be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been fully convicted; and that all children born within the state after the admission thereof shall be free at the age of twenty-five years."

Slavery had existed in Missouri since the first white settlement, and in the treaty of purchase by which Louisiana was acquired from France, it was expressly stipulated that slavery should be protected. The discussion that followed the amendment, proposed in 1819, by James Talmage, was

hot and speculative. Should the amendment be accepted and go into effect, the next move would, no doubt, be toward the old institution of slavery in the Southern states. This measure was the cause of bitter and lengthy debates in Congress. There were many issues at that time that tend to the conclusion today that slavery was not the real cause of the debates of 1803 relative to the Louisiana Purchase treaty and the later fight for the "Missouri compromise," but that it was a struggle for political power. The admission of Alabama and Arkansas in 1819 and 1820 without contention. as to slavery and that, too, while Missouri's fate was still pending, showed small interest in the abolition of the institution of slavery. With the Talmage amendment, a contest began that had dark forebodings for Thomas Jefferson. "The Missouri question," said Jefferson, "is the most portentous that ever threatened the Union. In the gloomiest moments of the Revolutionary war I never had any apprehension equal to that I feel from this source."

In his letter of April 22, 1820, to John Holmes, Jefferson said: "This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment; but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, never will be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper."

Twice the house, in which the North was predominant, passed the bill with the anti-slavery proviso, but the restriction was each time defeated in the Senate. The Senate at last yoked Maine, which was ready for admission, with Missouri, the South agreeing to let Maine in as a free state if the North would allow Missouri to come in with slavery. This adjustment was proposed by a northern Democrat of pro-slavery proclivities, Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois, by which Maine was to be admitted as a free state and Missouri to enter with slavery with the 36° 30′ north latitude proviso, prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory with the exception of Missouri. This proposition, which the house fought for a time but which at last, in 1820, was accepted, was the "Missouri compromise" proper.

This question disposed of, another arose. Missouri's constitution contained a clause that prohibited the entrance of free negroes into the state. This provision precipitated further debate in Congress. The question was settled by a compromise offered by Henry Clay, under which Missouri agreed not to exclude any one recognized as a citizen by any other state. At that time negroes were recognized by several northern states.

The close of the Mexican war of 1845-46 brought new territory to the United States. By the terms of the treaties the United States acquired