The Cabin at Pharaoh's Ford [pp. 507-516]

THE CABBIN AT PHARAOH'S FORD.
as well as by the warmth of the greeting
which her father gave them whenever
they came, that they could not at heart
be cold or bad. Very likely they had
no room in their natures just then for
anything but a zealous sense of devotion
to a single idea-the idea that had lodgment at the very core of their reflections,
molding and moving them with all the
heat and force of a great passion.
That was a memorable year in Kansas, and the councils and consultations
that Hannah Brewster heard in the ark
at Pharaoh's Ford were neither accidental nor purposeless. The Bogus
Legislature, as it was called, had enacted a set of statutes for the Territory
which actually made it a felony to so
much as speak, write, or print a sentence in denial of the right to hold slaves
therein, and disqualified as jurors in the
trial of such cases all persons "conscientiously opposed to holding slaves;"
while the enticing, persuading, or assisting of Negroes to escape from the Territory was declared to be grand larceny,
for which the punishment provided was
death! The acts of this legislature were
indorsed by the Federal officials of Kansas, and ratified by the Federal authorities at Washington, and Federal troops
were at hand to uphold and enforce them.
The anti-slavery sentiment of the Territory was divided, as it had been from
the start, on the point of respecting or
defying laws forced upon the actual inhabitants by fraudulent elections and
the menace of administration bayonets.
The general feeling was probably in favor of making a virtue of what seemed
to be a necessity by yielding a tacit obedience. But this feeling did not prevail,
and never had prevailed, except in a feeble way, among those who were accustomed to take counsel together at Parson Brewster's; and these obnoxious
laws, instead of dismaying or discouraging them, wrought their courage to a
higher pitch, gave increased fervor to
their enthusiasm, and apparently inspired them with renewed faith in the success of the work in which they were engaged. I fancy they were inclined to
hail the bogus statutes as something
akin to a blessing. In fact, the parson
was heard to say "the finger of Providence was plainly visible in the matter,"
inasmuch as it was sure to bring on a
crisis, and force men to take a stand on
one or the other of the two sides of the
controversy-"the sheep on this hand,
the goats on that," as he put it.
The idea of openly resisting the laws,
however, was something which even
these men were not yet thoroughly persuaded to accept. Impulse favored it,
but principle, as well as policy, argued
against it. Such a step would be combating one wrong by committing another; and they could not quite reconcile
their consciences to that kind of morals.
Then, again, to precipitate a conflict of
that character would be to place themselves in a treasonous attitude, and thus
to furnish their adversaries with the coveted excuse for treating them as public
enemies; and that prompting of worldly
prudence, which is often a better monitor than the most exalted spirit of valor,
made them hesitate to assume a position
so emphatic in its meaning and so equivocal in the way of results. Parson Brewster alone declared for prompt and undisguised resistance, both as a duty and
as an expedient; and he spent many a
night trying to convert the others to his
view of the situation. His arguments
were mainly addressed to the moral perceptions, and his illustrations were usually drawn from the Scriptures. "This
is God's work that we are engaged in,"
he would say; "and when God puts
stumbling-blocks in our way He expects
us to make stepping-stones of them."
These bogus laws could not be obeyed
or accepted, he urged, without at least
a seeming betrayal of moral trust; and
he would vehemently add: " Let us not
[DEC.
5IO