| 321 placed at my disposal to avert the calamities with which you are threatened.
"Ours is a Government of laws. To them we owe all obedience, and their faithful administration is the best guarantee for the enjoyment of our rights.
"No citizen, nor number of citizens, have a right to take the redress of their grievances, whether real or imaginary, into their own hands. Such conduct strikes at the very existence of society, and subverts the foundation on which it is based. Not being willing to persuade myself that any portion of the citizens of the State of Missouri are so lost to a sense of these truths as to require the exercise of force, in order to insure a respect for them.
"After advising with the Attorney General, and exercising my best judgment, I would advise you to make a trial of the efficacy of the laws. The judge of your circuit is a conservator of the peace. If an affidavit is made before him by any of you that your lives are threatened and you believe them in danger, it would be his duty to have the offenders apprehended and bind them to keep the peace. Justices of the Peace in their respective counties have the same authority, and it is made their duty to exercise it. Take, then, this course, obtain a warrant, let it be placed in the hands of the proper officer, and the experiment will be tested whether the laws can be peaceably executed or not. In the event they cannot be, and that fact is officially notified to me, my duty will require me to take such steps as will enforce a favorable execution of them.
"With regard to the injuries you have sustained by destruction of property, etc., the law is open to redresses, I cannot permit myself to doubt that the courts will be open to you, nor that you will find difficulty in procuring legal advocates to sue for damages therein.
"Respectfully, Your obedient servant.
"DANIEL DUNKLIN.
"W. W. Phelps, Esq., Independence, Mo."
-Evening and Morning Star, pp. 226-231.
As the resolutions above-quoted refer to an article in the Evening and Morning Star, we here present this article entitled,
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