The Platte Argus having advertised $200 reward for the detection and seizure of Eli Thayer, President of the New England Emigrant Aid Society, the Democratic Platform, in noticing it, says: "We hope that the individual may be found and meet with just such a course of treatment as one of his sort deserves-hanging!!"

The same paper, in speaking of A. Guthrie, who had written some letters to the East encouraging emigration, remarks, "We would hate to see an American hung without the benefit of clergy or jury. But is there not some way to punish this traitor? Is drowning too good for him?"

In the latter part of July the Platte County Self-Defensive Association was formed at Weston, with Gen. B. F. Stringfellow as Secretary. Its constitution contained a preamble and nine articles, the substance of which was:

All free negroes must be expelled from the country.

No traffic between whites and slaves was to be permitted. No slaves were to be permitted to hire their own time. The Association was to try and punish all abolitionists. That we hereby mutually pledge ourselves, our honor and purses to bring to an immediate punishment any person guilty.

That we appoint six presidents, and wherever any person is found his case shall be referred to one of these presidents, and any other two subscribers hereto, whose concurrent judgment shall be final, and we pledge our persons to defend the same and our purses to indemnify.

About one thousand persons affixed their signatures to this constitution. It was an immense Lynch Court, with six judges and one thousand detectives; from the judgment of one of its judges and two of its members, there was no appeal. It has not its example in history, unless it be the famous Jacobin Club of France. At their first meeting the following resolutions were passed :

"That we, the members of the Platte County Self-Defeusive Association, do solemnly pledge ourselves to go at the

call of our brethren, who are across the river in Kansas, and drive out from their midst the abolition traitors.

2. That we recommend to citizens of other counties, and especially those bordering on Kansas Territory, to adopt similar regulations to those of this Association, and to indicate their readiness to co-operate in the objects of the first resolution."

Dr. George Bayliss, a man of small and feeble frame, the author of these resolutions, and who had formerly been Professor of Anatomy in the Louisville and Cincinnati Colleges, remarking upon them, said:

"I can not fight much, but I pledge you I will go with you, and you shall have all my skill as a surgeon for your wounded and dying."

Colonel Peter T. Abell, in speaking on the resolutions, said:

"I am ready to go the first hour it shall be announced that the emigrants have come, and with my own hand help hang every one of them on the first tree."

General Stringfellow having been called upon to express himself, denounced all who labor for their daily bread as slaves and prostitutes. It is justice to remark that he afterwards denied making such assertions.*

Gen. B. F. Stringfellow is a Virginian by birth, and a lawyer by profession. He is a man of more than ordinary ability, and with the exception of the part he took in the Kansas troubles, has always been noted as a high-toned gentleman and an excellent citizen. In 1849 he joined in law partnership with Col. I. T. Abell, at Weston, Mo., between whom

The following are the sentiments set forth by General Stringfellow, as certified to by seventeen respectable citizens:

All who labor for their daily bread and are dependent on their labor for subsistence are slaves! All females who labor for their daily bread are'whores! and have been so from the days of Abraham. He further remarked in this immediate connection, that should Kansas come in as a free State, he would leave this State; he would not allow his daughters and scns to associate with them; he would go where his color was respected and where he could bring up his sons honorable men and his daughters virtu

ous women.

ever since has existed the closest friendly and business relation. During the Kansas troubles the General continued to reside ta Weston, taking an active and lively interest in the affairs of the Territory. After the Slavery issue was abandoned in 1857, he meditated moving to Memphis, Tenn., and visitedthat city with that end in view. But from some cause, instead of moving to Memphis, he went to St. Louis, Mo., where in connection with Col. Abell, his partner, he opened his law office. Remaining there until 1860, he removed to Atchison, Kansas, where he has continued ever since in the practice of his profession, honored and respected by all with whom he mingles.

Dr. J. II. Stringfellow, the General's brother, was the more violent of the two and is frequently confounded with the latter. In 1854 he settled in Atchison and was senior editor of the Squatter Sovereign. He was wanting in the manliness and intellectual ability of his brother, and was the most ultra and rabid pro-slavery man that lived in the Territory. The Doctor remained in Kansas until 1855, when, the contest having been abandoned, he returned to Virginia. During the recent war some of the Kansas boys visited him at his residence and found him very hospitable and apparently glad to see them.

It was some time in the fall, perhaps as late as October, when Secret Societies began to be generally formed in western Missouri for the avowed object of extending slavery into Kansas. They had a constitution and by-laws, signs, grips and pass-words, as other secret societies generally have. They were sworn to assist in extending slavery into Kansas by all lawful means, and to afford each other mutual protection-especially while in the Territory. They wore a piece of ribbon in the coat button-hole as a badge of membership or affiliation, which entitled them to the protection of the order. Different orders had various names, as "Blue Lodge," "Social Band," "Friend's Society," "The Sons of the South, &c. They had existed for years in the old slave States, al

ways looking to the interest of slavery, and there were previous to this date, organizations of this order in Missouri.They formed a union of all the friends of slavery, and combined efforts in carrying out their measures. They had different degrees, the common class being admitted only to the first. Through these Societies the political leaders had immediate access to, and control of the masses. In them passions were inflamed, plans revealed, and whiskey drank.Their plan of operation was to send men into the territory to watch free state men, and report promptly; to keep a vast number of men in readiness to lend assistance at a moment's notice to those in the Territory; to organize an army to go over and vote, and collect money to pay their expenses. The members under heavy penalties were forbidden to reveal the secrets of the Society. These lodges performed the most efficient services in controlling the Territorial elections.They were equal to a line of numerous military posts extending two counties deep along the Border, the men of which could be concentrated at a given signal.

Such were the stupenduous arrangements that the Missourians made in the fall of '54 to conquer Kansas by overawing or expelling northern men and deterring future emigration. The avowed apology which they have given for their conduct was to counteract the workings of the Eastern Emigrant Aid Societies. And, yet, most of these steps and measures were taken before the first party of thirty under the auspices of these societies had begun their journey to Kansas. Almost all the emigration had come free and unconnected with the "monied institutions" of the East. It was not, therefore, the action of these societies altogether that led the Missourians to such desperate measures; but the real cause is to be found in the fact that they were alarmed and enraged lest the unexpected influx of free state emigration would render uncertain the darling institution of Slavery in Kansas; and these measures would have been the same had there been no emigrant aid societies. The direct effects of these societies were

as a drop in the ocean in the settling of Kansas with freemen. It is but a flimsy apology whereby many of the intelligent and seemingly honest men of Missouri have sought to excuse their conduct. It is the plea of justification afterwards so eloquently made in the halls of Congress, and which blinded the eyes of many in the North to the real nature of the struggle in Kansas, The action of these societies was maliciously employed to inflame the ignorant masses against emigrants to Kansas and prepare them for the barbarous outrages which it now becomes our painful duty to begin to relate and which have long since sunk their instigators into shame and contempt.

In a few days after the organization of the Self-defensive Association, they seized Thomas A. Minnard, Esq., formerly a sheriff in Iowa, a man of wealth and irreproachable character. He had begun to build a house in Kansas and had declared that he would vote for Kansas to be a free State. He was tried, condemned as an abolitionist and ordered to leave the country in twenty-four hours or receive fifty lashes on the bare back. He had helped to elect Franklin Pierce President and was an admirer of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. But he had resolved as a freeman to exercise his franchise in making Kansas a free State, for which he was inhospitably driven into the wilds of Kansas with a sick family where he had not yet completed his shelter.

An old citizen of that place was then seized, tried without proof except a negro's testimony, and condemned as an abolitionist. With the hair shaved from the right half of his head he was ordered to leave the country within fortyeight hours or receive one hundred and fifty lashes on the bare back!

The Rev. Frederick Starr was then arraigned before the tribunal for the offense of teaching the negroes to read, and riding in a buggy with a "negro wench!" Mr. Starr was a graduate of Yale College, and had quietly labored among the people of Weston for seven years, never weary in well