It would give me great
pleasure to visit your state on an occasion of such peculiar interest,
and to make the acquaintance of its brave and self-denying pioneers, but
I have not health and strength for the journey. It is very fitting that
this anniversary should be duly recognized. No one of your sister states
has such a record as yours,--so full of peril and adventure, fortitude,
self-sacrifice, and heroic devotion to freedom. Its baptism of martyr
blood not only saved the state to liberty, but made the abolition of
slavery everywhere possible. Barber and Stillwell and Colpetzer and
their associates did not die in vain. All through your long, hard
struggle I watched the course of events in Kansas with absorbing
interest. I rejoiced, while I marvelled at the steady courage which no
danger could shake, at the firm endurance which outwearied the
brutalities of your slaveholding invaders, and at that fidelity to right
and duty which the seduction of immediate self-interest could not swerve,
nor the military force of a proslavery government overawe.
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