Record Data
Source citation
Orville Chester Brown, Letter from Orville Chester Brown, March, 1856, Spencer Kellogg Brown, His Life in Kansas and His Death as a Spy, 1842-1863, As Disclosed in His Diary, Smith, George Gardner, editor, New York, NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1903, p. 380.
Type
Letter
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Michael Blake
Transcription date
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
"Our cause daily brightens. Let them curse! God reigns, and right will rule. Let the `Border Ruffians' rage, and the Missourians imagine a vain thing! The `Yankees' are not the pusillanimous creatures they had supposed from seeing the poor white men of the slave States. Let us have more men (settlers and their families), and money to aid in paying expenses of our Free-State movements, and mills to cut lumber for houses, and in two years we will defy Missouri and F. Pierce in the bargain. But to do this the North must stand up for us and never flinch, always holding herself ready to avenge wrongs and aid in fighting our battles. Let the North know that the Southerners, accustomed to ride rough-shod over humanity's dearest rights, care no more for law, and for personal and property rights, than so many Arabs do. If their course is continued they must be flogged into better behaviour. Their position over a few poor blacks makes them really believe that they are the only portion of mankind worthy of consideration, and that all others are mere hirelings, fit only to do their bidding."