Daily Times
Leavenworth, Kansas
June 13, 1861
The St. Joseph Gazette, a secession sheet, discourses in a very mournful tone concerning the arrival of the Federal soldiers at that place. The Gazette is evidently displeased, which reminds us of those oft-quoted, but pungent and truthful lines of Hudibras, about the dislike which rogues entertain for the law which dooms them to the halter:
[“]Troops in Our City.—They have succeeded! The Union men and supporters of Abe Lincoln, by misrepresentation in charging Southern men with acts of violence and proscription, have brought into our midst a band of soldiers from abroad—and for what? Not to restore good order and quiet, for our City was never more peaceable and orderly, but to keep in subjection men whom THEY FEAR may not support the Administration in its unholy work of subduing a people that ask for nothing but to be let alone. On Monday evening about two hundred troops from Leavenworth reached here via the Weston road. They bring with them two pieces of artillery, and several hundred stand of arms for the purpose of organizing a Home Guard, to be commanded probably by men from the New England States. It remains to be seen whether or not our city will be more quiet and orderly now than it has been heretofore.
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Such an infringement on the rights of a free people was one of the charges of tyranny alleged against George III by our revolutionary fathers. Military surveillance has ever been galling to a free people.[“]
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“Infringement on the rights of a free people,” forsooth! The Government sends soldiers to protect her faithful citizens from the persecution of lawless traitors, and this is an arbitrary and despotic act, according to the [illegible] of justice entertained by Secessionists!