Article-1858, August 19

Kansas.

From our Special Correspondent.
Oxford, Johnson Co., K. T., August 9, 1858.

   Political economists tell us that the laws which govern population are fixed and irreversible, but what political economist could throw any light on the population of “Oxford.” Last Fall this renowned city thrice threw, or professed to have thrown, a “Law and Order” vote of 1,200. At the present election, under circumstances more or less embarrassing, it has exhibited a vote of 16 for the Lecompton Constitution, and 13 against. Twenty-nine all told, and only 3 Border Ruffian or “Democratic” majority. This, from a critical examination of the capacities of the place is probably just about what it could and should throw. And yet it is rather a comical declension, and another illustration of the mournful decay of all Border Ruffian things.

   Oxford, unlike its great namesake, is not famous as a seat of learning. It is stuck like a barnacle on the Missouri border, and is rather a small barnacle, at that. It looks out on a very beautiful prospect on the Shawnee country—a reserve once, now the home of many squatters, who are mixed in with the Indian population, the Indian taking the timber and the white men the prairie. A few groceries form the business staple, and a few shanties the town. I think it has reached the maximum of its glory. There is nothing to see and little to describe about the place. The landscape is certainly very fine. Away to the right, in a cluster of timber, is the Shawnee Mission, where some of the earlier Border Ruffian acts were perpetrated. Westward before us is a succession of prairie and woodland, a scene of Italian beauty, already dotted with the cabins of the squatters. It is a very fair specimen of Kansas scenery.

   The total vote of this Johnson County is 575, of which 425 are for “Proposition Rejected,” and 150 for “Proposition Accepted.” After all the Herculean efforts of the Westport “Shawnee Association” which once thought it had completely monopolized this county, this is rather a poor figure. It shows what the most systematic efforts of the slave propagandists, in the way of colonizing, can accomplish.

   I learn that Batt Jones, Danforth, &c., &c., expressed themselves as disgusted with this election. They said, “it was altogether not worth trying,” which, I suppose, means that it was inexpedient to bring in Cincinnati Directories. They declare with suspicious adroitness, that this election settles nothing, and that the Administration has to sustain the issue of admitting Kansas during next Congress with the Lecompton Constitution, and with the ordinance adopted by the Convention. That it must do so or back down from the South.

   Speaking of “Oxford” and “Oxford” matters, reminds me of the return made last October election of 1,200 votes from McGee County. I learn that an old man, one of the Judges of Election at that time, and who certified and sent off the poll books via Westport to Lecompton, states that the list recorded only 18 votes, that only that number were polled, and that if any more were returned that neither he, or any man in McGee County knew anything of the matter. These are some amusing reminiscences of expiring Border Ruffianism.

   We have had a Summer of rain and swollen rivers, and mud and musketoes, and now we have the burning August sun blazing down like an autocrat. I see clouds of dust, even, rise from the Santa Fe road, which winds a great commercial serpent amid the green prairie highlands to the westward. It is hot, hot; hot enough to make one think of Timbuctoo or Java. The ox teams crawl under the glaring sunbeams with a shrinking look of dusty misery. Politics and business are a burden. Those are Lecompton Constitution is “dead.” Oxford is in a “collapsed” state, and Border-Ruffians are passed all aid from the devil or the Democratic party.

[New York Daily Tribune, August 19, 1858, page 3.]