At 3 o'clock in the evening, the citizens of Kansas, from Leavenworth, Salt Creek and the country for miles around, gathered at the fort to pay their respects to Gov. Reeder. The concourse was large and highly respectable, and most enthusiastic in their gratification at his arrival. Our citizens in a body called upon the Governor at the quarters of Capt. Hunt, and a general introduction took place, during which many kindly expressions of welcome were indulged on the part of the people, and reciprocated by the Governor with the republican frankness and honest cordiality so agreeable to Western men. After a general interchange of courtesies, Dr. Charles Leib addressed the Governor as follows:

GOV. REEDER:

In behalf of my fellow-citizens, permit me to welcome you to the West and to the young and beautiful Territory whose Executive you are.

It is but a few months since the passage of the Kansas and Nebraska bill; it is but a few months since the people of the West were told by one of their distinguished Senators, "the Indians have retreated; go over and possess the goodly land," and to-day Kansas is teeming with hardy, industrious, enterprising, strong armed men, with noble hearts and willing hands, who have come here to till the soil and to enjoy the fruits of their industry, to pursue their different callings and to assist in building up a State which will ere long be knocking at the door of Congress for admission into the confederacy, and which I trust will be recognized as the thirty-second in the bright constellation which graces the flag of our Union.

Gov. Reeder, we are rejoiced at your coming, rejoiced that you are among us, because we believe it will be your pride and pleasure, not only as the Executive, but as a citizen, to assist in giving Kansas a place in the front rank of the Territories.

You will, sir, find men here from every section of this Union, who have come to find homes, to assist in filling up our broad and beautiful prairies and our valleys, rich as that of the Nile. In your own language, they know that this is "the pathway to the Pacific;" they know that the vast frontier, New Mexico and California trade, which now flows into the lap of Missouri, legitimately belongs to Kansas; they know and feel that they have the energy to build up a State which will command the trade, and it will not be long until they will have accomplished their object.

We doubt not that in coming here you have sacrificed much; that you have left behind those to whom you are bound by the ties of consanguinity, affection and love; that you have left tried friends, personal and political, in whose hearts you have a place; that you have left a community to which you were attached by a residence of long years among them, but when duty called, like Cincinnatus, you obeyed.

As a Pennsylvanian, one who loves the hills and valleys, the rivers and plains of the noble old Keystone State, but who, in heart and interest, is a Western man, I, in common with my fellow-citizens, am rejoiced at your appointment, because we believe you will administer the affairs of this government upon strictly republican principles, because we know your antecedents; because we know that Pennsylvania, the home of Rittenhouse, of Fulton, of Franklin and of the able and accomplished Buchanan, "who has graced our annals abroad and done us honor in Kings' courts," and who is a statesman of the school of the fathers, would not send us a son unworthy of herself; because we believe that under your administration Kansas will grow and flourish; that her resources, agricultural and mineral, will be developed; that her commercial importance will be acknowledged by the whole nation; that her hardy sons will prosper, and will make this the garden spot of the Mississippi Valley.

We, sir, meet here on common ground. The men of Maine and Mississippi, of Massachusetts and Missouri, aye, and those who cross the blue waters of the broad Atlantic, who turn their backs upon the tyrants of the old world and place themselves under the protection of the flag of our Union, may enjoy the blessed privileges of free speech, dare think, do and act for themselves. This is true Republicanism and cannot fail to meet the approval of all who are truly American at heart. But a few months since the red man alone occupied this Territory; they roamed undisputed masters of the soil; but to-day in all parts of it, the hum of industry is heard, the progress of the age demanded its settlement, and, by the hearths and firesides of our hardy pioneers is to be joy, peace and happiness, and a determination to maintain, at all hazards, the supremacy of the law.

In conclusion, Gov. Reeder, let me again welcome you to Kansas, and express the hope, nay, the sincere wish, that our relation as Governor and governed may be of such a character that when it shall be severed, we can always revert to it as the happiest period of our lives, though it commenced when trampling down the nettles and thistles of Kansas and preparing it for its high destiny.

It shall be my pride and pleasure, always to keep in view that single end, despite all sinister considerations or adverse circumstances. Our Territory is indeed a land of great interest and of glorious promise, and, although, now a frontier country demanding at our hands strong continued effort and no small privations, yet, we are cheered on by the conviction that another frontier is approaching us from the Pacific, and that when the inevitable destiny of this Union shall have filled up its limits with civilized population and thrifty enterprise, Kansas will be territorially the very heart of the Republic, and in the highway of its trade. Much of its progress, its prosperity and its future destiny will depend upon the impress that we shall make upon its early developments. That we shall have difficulties to meet and overcome, varied in their character and formidable in their number and extent, it were worse than folly to deny and conceal. Whatever they may be, however there is no fear that they cannot all be solved by prudent care, - by tolerance and charity for difference of opinion among ourselves - by calm but unquailing moral courage in asserting our own rights of action or opinion - and by the most scrupulous care to avoid encroachment on the rights of others. First of all, Kansas must, and with God 's help it shall be, a country of law and order. No man must be allowed to cast contempt upon the law - to unsettle the foundations of society, to mar our future destinies - to cause us to be shunned and avoided by good citizens - and to turn us upon the retrograde path toward barbarism, by substituting his own unbridled passions for the administration of justice, and by redressing his real and imaginary wrongs by the red and cowardly hand of assassination or the ruffianism of the outlaw. So far as it shall come within my province to deal with this spirit, I pledge you that I will crush it out or sacrifice myself in the effort. Every one of our millions of fellow-citizens who may choose to exercise his unquestionable right to plant himself, his family and his property on our soil, to swell its strength and develop its resources, must feel that the broad aegis of the law shelters him and his from outrage, and that its sword is keen and ready to punish him summarily and unfailingly, for outrage of the rights of others. We must, too, do our duty in cementing and preserving our glorious Union, by the strictest adherence to our constitutional and legal obligations, and a constant readiness to aid our fellow-citizens of other States, in securing to them all the rights which that constitution and those laws have sacredly guaranteed to them for the management of their own affairs, whilst at the same time, we must, with the most vigorous and determined firmness, preserve unimpaired and unquestioned, to every citizen of our Territory, freedom of opinion in the regulation of our own. The principle of the bill for erecting our Territory, I need scarcely tell you has my hearty approval. Fiercely as it has been assailed, it has its foundation deep in the doctrine of true republicanism. Under these doctrines the whole Union, North, South, East and West, has invited us to come here and mold our own institution, as to us it shall seem good. We have accepted the invitation, and with "POPULI VOCE NATA" On our banner, we are prepared to give one more proof of the ability of our people for self-government, by going to the ballot-box - there conceding to each other the right of free discussion and opinion which we claim for ourselves, and sacrificing to the all-powerful will of the majority, all our interests and feelings and prejudices whatever question may be involved in the decision. Thus and thus only can we discharge our duty to ourselves - show our appreciation of the principle of our Territorial bill, and contribute to its permanency as a means of easy solution, for all future time, of a dangerous and exciting question in our National Councils.

Thus, with law and order reigning in our midst, mutual tolerance strengthening our hands and accelerating our progress - fanaticism disarmed and the Union sustained by a cheerful and determined observance of the constitution that binds it together - by preserving unimpaired the purity of the ballot-box and deciding there as freemen should, the questions which the nation has properly referred to it, each man calmly, fearlessly and dispassionately expressing his opinion and casting his vote in conformity to the dictates of his conscience and understanding and by bowing submissively to the will of the majority when properly ascertained, we shall have done our whole duty and may expect to reap its pleasant fruits.