In June 1855, the people of Lawrence had a meeting and decided to resist any laws the Kansas legislature passed. They believed the legislature was elected by armed Missouri people, not Kansas people. Amos Lawrence and others sent crates full of rifles. They wrote on the crates that the things inside were books because "the border ruffians had no use for books," so they did not take the rifles when they came to Lawrence. Horace Greeley helped send a howitzer to Lawrence.