The steamer, Star of the West, having on board seventy-eight Chicago Abolitionists, was overhauled at Lexington, Mo., and the company disarmed.  A large number of rifles and pistols were taken at Lexington, and a guard sent upon the boat, to prevent them from landing in the Territory.  After leaving Lexington, it was ascertained that they had not given up all arms, but still held possession of a great number of bowie knives and pistols, which were probably secreted while the search was going on at Lexington.  At Leavenworth City, Captain Clarkson, with twenty-five men, went on board of the boat and demanded the surrender of all the arms in the possession of the Abolitionists.  Like whipped dogs they sneaked up to Clarkson and laid down their weapons to him.

The men thus robbed of their arms give the following version of the matter:  They say that at Lexington they were taken by surprise; that their arms were not accessible to them, and that there was nothing to do but to yield.  But that a pledge was made to them, that if they would give up their arms, they should be allowed to proceed peaceably to Kansas.  They furthermore state that at Kansas City Col.  Buford came aboard the boat, accompanied by a company of soldiers; that David R. Atchison and Gen. B. F. Stringfellow came on board, and that after the boat had left the landing these gentlemen informed them that they would in no wise be allowed to enter the Territory; that after the boat had stopped at Weston, they should be taken back to Alton; but that if they would not accept this arrangement, “they should be hung, every mother’s son of them.”

At various times the Squatter Sovereign and Leavenworth Herald report similar outrages.  The latter paper reports, July 5th, the sending back seventy-five emigrants that had come upon the steamer Sultan.  In reference to this occurrence, the Squatter Sovereign makes the following remark: 

We do not fully approve of sending these criminals back to the East, to be reshipped to Kansas—­if not through Missouri, through Iowa and Nebraska.  We think they should meet a traitor’s death; and the world could not censure us if we, in self-protection, have to resort to such ultra measures.  We are of the opinion that if the citizens of Leavenworth city, or Weston, would hang one or two boatloads of Abolitionists, it would do more towards establishing peace in Kansas than all the speeches that have been delivered in Congress during the present session. Let the experiment be tried.

The Missouri River was thus blockaded against the incoming of emigrants from the free States, and this created intense excitement throughout the North.  The result was, that the immigration to Kansas, instead of being diminished, was largely increased; but it changed its direction, and Iowa City became the entrepôt for the incoming tide of free State settlers, which now sought an overland route through Iowa and Nebraska, and began to reach Kansas about the 1st of August.