Now a few words as to the character of the people who settled it, and in this examination I shall try to steer clear of the poetry and romance which are beginning to dehumanize them. It is not necessary for the purpose of this paper to show that the pioneers were more moral or more intelligent than those they left in the enjoyment of the peace and comforts of well regulated society, but it is important to know that they were a fair average in all respects as human beings, and as this question can not be determined by a personal examination, we must resort to the environment they voluntarily chose, or, in other words, to the objects and conditions which impelled them to the undertaking. The indolent and cowardly are not attracted by dangers, and hence we infer that volunteers make better soldiers than conscripts, and this inference is borne out by experience. Enterprises of great danger, forlorn hopes, are not chosen by those who love ease and quiet pleasure, but by the courageous and venturesome; those who take pleasure in overcoming resistance, surmounting obstacles, and braving dangers. The former are inclined to remain upon the old homestead, under the protection of law and the restraining influence of conservative public opinion; the latter push for the frontier, with apparent relish for the kind of life found only on the fretful edge of civilization. Some have assumed, therefore, that the borders are chiefly peopled by the reckless and immoral, those who would not be subject to proper restraint in the older communities; such an assumption, however, is wide of the mark. Under our flag there are no penal colonies; people go where they choose to go, and the currents of population are determined by self-selection. Places of trial and danger are taken by those who are not dismayed by such incidents, and unless we are willing to admit that there is a necessary connection between courage and criminality--that the enterprising and resolute are as a consequence tinctured with immoral tendencies--we shall believe what is more reasonable and in full accord with our experience, that the manly virtues are quite compatible with the moral attributes. I lived on the frontier, the Platte Purchase in Missouri, right among the people who contributed in men and money to the invasion of Kansas a few years afterwards, and I must say that I never lived in a more hospitable and law-abiding community. The forceful faculties were more prominent than in New England, but for personal honor, honesty, and brotherly feeling it would compare favorably with any portion of the United States. I had left that country when the Kansas troubles began, and was somewhat puzzled to reconcile the doings of the Border Ruffians with the character of the people as I knew them, but when I considered that a large majority of them were from the South, and, being born to the institution of slavery, were inheritors of all that such a state of society implies, I ceased to wonder.