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The great topic of conversation was that just the night before, the new governor of the territory, Shannon, the very man who had been feted and celebrated by the Missourians in Westport around the time of our arrival in K.T., had passed through Lawrence and gone on, after only just looking in at the Cincinnati House, where the contagion had passed. Two or three citizens went to him and urged him to stay for the night and meet some of the people of Lawrence, but he had declined them in no uncertain terms, for the sake of traveling convenience! He elected to spend the night in Franklin or thereabout, rather than in the largest town, the only real town, in K.T. Everyone said that he had no time for Lawrence but that he proposed to spend his Sunday, the next day, with a slaveholder who lived at the Shawnee mission school.

The indignation of our friends knew no bounds. Shannon’s sentiments were clear and his want of manly qualities, according to the few who had caught sight of him, evident in his person. "Shambling Shannon" was what Mr. Bush named him. He was a tall, rough, undistinguished man, red-faced, red-nosed, clearly a man both sound on the goose question and equally sound on the highly rectified whiskey question. Mr. Bush and Mr. Jenkins were horrified but not surprised, for it was their firm belief that the stealing of the Kansas elections by the slave power in Missouri and everything that had happened since, including the departure of Governor Reeder, who had been inclined toward the Free Staters, expressed a policy that had been colluded in, and even devised by, the Pierce administration, which was, Mr. Bush said, in the thrall of Jefferson Davis and all the rest of them. No one knew what hold these southern men had over the President and his advisers, but, said Mr. Bush, whatever it was, it was a powerful one. "The lawlessness," declared Mr. Jenkins on our last evening in the leaning house, "runs right to the top."

Mr. Holmes, fresh from Boston and the same age as myself, though with two children already, said the same conviction was rampant in New England. "Every man of sense says so. They made up their grand plan in ’48, when they couldn’t get Texas in as six states but only one."

Mr. Bush responded, "First there was the Fugitive Slave Act, then they repealed the Missouri Compromise. Then they stole the elections here, made up a government as quickly as they could, and recognized themselves. Here we are. Our sentiments are against the law now, and our officials are preparing to subdue us. We may wonder if Shambling Shannon ignored us out of enmity or shame or policy, but it all amounts to the same thing. It doesn’t take a genius to know what they’re doing."

"And there’re more of them than us in every office in Washington, D.C.," said Thomas.

There was a long pause while everyone considered this.

"We’ll have our own territorial government in a day or two," said Mr. Bisket, who planned to attend the convention in Topeka that was to take place three days later.

"Evil people must spread their evil everywhere," said Mrs. Holmes, who was considerably older than her husband. "Scripture is absolutely clear on that. That is the nature of Satan. I’ve seen it already, and I’ve been in the west only a few days. Evil is all around us."

Mr. Jenkins said, "All I say is that it’s a plan concocted by men. I won’t say what motivates them to do it. Pure greed, most likely."

Susannah Jenkins looked at me and lifted her eyebrows slightly. I knew she was thinking of Mr. Stringfellow’s remarks about the real purpose of slavery, but I ventured to say, "My brother-in-law Roland back in Quincy always says, ’No man’s going to roll over on his back and let eight hundred dollars’ worth of property walk off, or eight thousand, or eighty thousand.’ "

Mrs. Holmes glared at me. "They have trafficked in human souls!"

I said, "Well, he said it, only. He didn’t own any slaves himself." I defended him, but really, to these citizens of Lawrence, Roland Brereton looked, walked, and talked just like the Missourians.