Nicole Etcheson, "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era"
How to escalate a local dispute into a Constitutional crisis.
Despite my criticism of Gov. Shannon, I will also offer an apologia. Sheriff Jones represented the lawful authority in his county, and was being openly defied by a large and growing number of armed men. Sounds like an insurrection to me, and it was the governor’s duty to suppress same. The toxic mixture of slave and free-state politics was hijacking a local problem, and was merely an example of the toxic mix that was consuming the country at large.
I’m not sure under the circumstances what Gov. Shannon was supposed to do differently. To ignore the Sheriff’s plea was to permit an insurrection against lawful authority and would have been a dereliction of his duty as Territorial Governor.
I have come to the conclusion from studying the flawed compromises that put our original Constitution together that once Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and gave new life to the institution of slavery, the Civil War was inevitable. I throw up my hands like Hillary Clinton and ask “What difference does it make?”
It’s amazing the way things can blow up into a major armed engagement just because men are ready for a little excitement.
I recall reading a book about the Lincoln County War (the land dispute in New Mexico that featured Billy the Kid), in which the author emphasized how much alcohol all the participants drank on a regular basis.
Ineptitude precipitated
Kinda like today..........................
Nicole Etcheson, "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era"