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Book, page 283 / 313 Manual Labor School, on the 16th of July. Shawnee Mission was one of our many national experiments in civilizing Indian tribes. This philanthropic institution, nourished by the Federal treasury, was presided over by the Rev. Thomas Johnson. The town of Westport, which could boast of a post office, lay only four miles to the eastward, on the Missouri side of the State line, and was a noted pro-slavery stronghold. There were several large brick buildings at the Mission capable of accommodating the Legislature with halls and lodging-rooms; its nearness to an established post office, and its contiguity to Missouri pro-slavery sentiment were elements probably not lost sight of. Mr. Johnson, who had formerly been a Missouri slaveholder, was at the March election chosen a member of the Territorial Council, which in due time made him its presiding officer; and the bogus Legislature at Shawnee Mission was therefore in a certain sense under its own "vine and fig-tree." [Illustration: ANDREW H. REEDER.] [Sidenote: "Squatter Sovereign," July 17, 1855.] [Sidenote: Ibid., June 19, 1855.] [Sidenote: "House Journal Kansas Territory," 1856, p. 12.] The two branches of the Legislature, the Council with the Rev. Thomas Johnson as President, and the House with Stringfellow of the "Squatter Sovereign" as Speaker, now turned their attention seriously to the pro-slavery work before them. The conspirators were shrewd enough to realize their victory. "To have intimated one year ago," said the Speaker in his address of thanks, "that such a result would be wrought out, one would have been thought a visionary; to have predicted that to-day a legislature would assemble, almost unanimously pro-slavery, and with myself for Speaker, I would have been thought mad." The programme had already been announced in the "Squatter Sovereign" some weeks before. "The South must and will prevail. If the Southern people but half do their duty, in less than nine months from this day Kansas will have formed a constitution and be knocking at the door for admission.... In the session of the United States Senate in 1856, two Senators from the slave-holding State of Kansas will take their seats, and abolitionism will be forever driven from our halls of
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