New York 11 Feby 1857
Dear Sir
Your favor of 23d ult. I have just recd on my return from Kansas. I was so unfortunate as not to arrive in Season, and our Committee had adjourned before I arrived.
Notwithstanding all that has been done for Kansas there has been, now is, and will continue to be much unrelieved wretchedness there. Perhaps it is not necessary to say it publicly, but the clothing charity looks better on paper than it really is. Much of what was sent was unsuited for the Season. Very much was so worn as to be not worth the freight & of little service to the recipients. I suppose not half was really suitable. Less than half has yet arrived. Could a judicious and large hearted man like Dr. Cabot have had placed in his hands an amount of money equalling the cost of all this bounty he might have purchased & taken in material enough to not only have clothed double the number, but to likewise have kept many employed. However, this probably could not have been done. We must regard the clothing as an extra. The point is that its service has been overrated, and the North seems to now feel that enough has been done.
Bear with me while I present the case of Kansas as it stands to day.
Its present free state population as pioneers have the comon fate of pioneers before them unless aided by the North. That fate is to be driven back & off their claims for want of money to purchase them, or to borrow money at crushing rates of interest, thus enslaving them for years to come. Should not their services in behalf of freedom exempt them from this fate? [???] benefits they have to some extent recd? Perhaps they can do without any thing more of this kind. But an appropriation should at once be made for seed corn & wheat or next winter another season of suffering must be experienced. Be assured my Dear Sir, if this is not done the Territory will not nett over ¼ crop this year. The North have stayed their hands just at a moment to undo a great portion of the good they have done. My heart is heavy I must confess. The petty slanders that have been attached to my name I can not a rush for. God & History are enough for me. But for our poor brave & devoted settlers to see them deserted at this moment and left with no means of providing for the future does wring my heart with anguish. One hundred thousand dollars at this moment laid out in agricultural implements, cattle and seed corn would add millions to the wealth of Kansas besides taking from the North a future burden, and what a stroke for freedom! –
“How shall we pay for our lands?” This is the universal cry. I heard it everywhere. It is the great woe of the people. And after their unparalleled heroism and hardships, it does seem that this one woe at least should be taken from them by the sympathing hands of the North.
The States need not give a dime. Let them only make suitable Loan Funds & appoint intelligent & upright Loan Commissioners & they would be doing a work demanded by every consideration of Patriotism & Philanthropy. To do less seems to be an [???] finale to a work so well begun.
What can be done? Is there any help?
Believe me.
Amos A Lawrence Esqr
Thaddeus Hyatt
