"They were forced to this by the highest law of nature--the law of self preservation."

Unparalleled Outrage Upon Free State
Men in Kansas.

   A dispatch received from St. Louis yesterday, dated Lecompton, K. T., Oct. 10:h, gives a list of the names of the Free State men arrested by Gov. Geary and confined under the charge of murdur in the first degree. The prisoners number about one hundred men! They have been indicted by a jury of Border Ruffians, and are guarded by a battalion of Southern invaders.

   The offense of which these men are guilty, was that of defending their own and their neighbor's lives and property against the attacks of the Border Ruffians. They had met them in battle and had whipped them. They killed and wounded some, and lost some of their own numbers in the conflict. They were forced to this by the highest law of nature--the law of self preservation. They bad borne outrage, robbing, arson and massacre beyond ordinary human indurance. At last they turned at bay upon their murderous persecutors, and soundly threshed them in several bloody conflicts. The shield of law had been withdrawn from them and spread over their enemies, the Territorial Government was in the hands of Missouri usurpers, while that of the U.S. troops was in active conspiracy with the invaders.

   The Free State people were compelled to choose between the alternatives of fleeing from the Territory en masse, to escape their vengeful persecutors, or to take up arms in self defence, and fight them. They chose the latter. Their Angio-Saxon blood forbid them to run and they gave battle. In six contests with the pirates they came off victorious. And when  Geary reached Kansas the Free State men had threshed the villians out of two-thirds of the Territory. Had they been let alone a fortnight longer the last Ruffian would have been put out of Kansas and peace restored. At this juncture comes Geary--Judas like, with honied words on his lips, but murder in his heart, to betray them into the hands of their deadly foes. His first act was, to issue accordingly, high sounding Proclamation. His second, to employ the the United States troops in dispersing and capturing the Free State men. His third, to enroll the invading Ruffians with the Territorial Militia, under United States feed and pay!

   The very individuals whom the Free State men had beaten, in open stand up fight, taken prisoner, and liberated under promises that they would no more molest the Free State inhabitants, are the treacherous scoundrels that Geary has hired to stand guard over those Free State men who surrendered to the U. S.--Chicago Tribune.

- Western Reserve Chronicle, Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, Wednesday, October 22, 1856. Vol. 41, No. 10. Whole No. 2000. Pg. 2