“Let us not forget that it is not the want of generous sentiment, but of sufficient information, that prevents the American people from being united in action against the aggressive policy of the slave power. Were these simple questions submitted to-day to the people of the United States:—Are you in favor of the extension of slavery? Are you in favor of such extension by the aid or connivance of the federal government? And could they be permitted to record their votes in response, without embarrassment, without constraint of any kind, nineteen-twentieths of the people of the free States, and perhaps more than half of the people of the slave States, would return a decided negative to both.
“Let us have faith in the people. Let us believe, that at heart they are hostile to the extension of slavery, desirous that the territories of the Union be consecrated to free labor and free institutions; and that they require only enlightenment as to the most effectual means of securing this end, to convert their cherished sentiment into a fixed principle of action.
“The times are pregnant with warning. That a disunion party exists in the South, no longer admits of a doubt. It accepts the election of Mr. Buchanan as affording time and means to consolidate its strength and mature its plans, which comprehend not only the enslavement of Kansas, and the recognition of slavery in all territory of the United States, but the conversion of the lower half of California into a slave State, the organization of a new slavery territory in the Gadsden purchase, the future annexation of Nicaragua and subjugation of Central America, and the acquisition of Cuba; and, as the free States are not expected to submit to all this, ultimate dismemberment of the Union, and the formation of a great slaveholding confederacy, with foreign alliances with Brazil and Russia. It may assume at first a moderate tone, to prevent the sudden alienation of its Northern allies; it may delay the development of its plot, as it did under the Pierce administration; but the repeal of the Missouri compromise came at last, and so will come upon the country inevitably the final acts of the dark conspiracy. When that hour shall come, then will the honest Democrats of the free States be driven into our ranks, and the men of the slave States who prefer the republic of Washington, Adams and Jefferson—a republic of law, order and liberty—to an oligarchy of slaveholders and slavery propagandists, governed by Wise, Atchison, Soulé, and Walker, founded in fraud and violence and seeking aggrandizement by the spoliation of nations, will bid God speed to the labors of the Republican party to preserve liberty and the Union, one and inseparable, perpetual and all powerful.
“Washington, D. C., Nov. 27, 1856.”
The Kansas Struggle.
It was the removal of the interdiction against slavery, in all the territory north of 36° 30′, by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise which gave legality to the struggle for Kansas, and it was the doctrine of popular sovereignty which gave an impartial invitation to both sides to enter the struggle. The aggressive men of both parties hurried emigrants to the Territory. Each accused the other of organized efforts, and soon in the height of the excitement these charges were rather confessed than denied.
A new question was soon evolved by the struggle, for some who entered from the South took their slaves with them. The Free State men now contended that slavery was a local institution and confined to the States where it existed, and that if an emigrant passed into the territory with his slaves these became free. The Southern view was, that slaves were recognized as property by the National Constitution; that therefore their masters had a right to take them there and hold them under constitutional guarantees, the same as any other property; that to assert anything else would be to deny the equality of the States within their common territory, and degrade them from the rank of equals to that of inferiors. This last proposition had such force that it would doubtless have received more general recognition if the North had not felt that the early compact dedicating the territories north of 36° 30′ to freedom, had been violated. In answer to this proposition they therefore proclaimed in their platforms and speeches, and there was no other logical answer, “that freedom was National, and slavery Sectional.”
We cannot enter upon a full description of the scenes in Kansas, but bloodshed and rapine soon followed the attempts of the opposing parties to get control of its government. What were called the “Border Ruffians” by the Free State men, because of active and warlike organization in Missouri and upon its borders, in the earlier parts of the struggle, seemed to have the advantage. They were supported by friends near at hand at all times, and warlike raids were frequent. The Free State men had to depend mainly upon New England for supplies in arms and means, but organizations were in turn rapidly completed to meet their calls, and the struggle soon became in the highest degree critical.
The pro-slavery party sustained the Territorial government appointed by the administration; the anti-slavery party repudiated it, because of its presumed committal to slavery. The election for members of the Territorial legislature had been attended with much violence and fraud, and it was claimed that these things properly annulled any action taken by that body. A distinct and separate convention was called at Topeka to frame a State constitution, and the Free State men likewise elected their own Governor and Legislature to take the place of those appointed by Buchanan, and when the necessary preliminaries were completed, they applied for admission into the Union. After a long and bitter struggle Congress decided the question by refusing to admit Kansas under the Topeka Constitution, and by recognizing the authority of the territorial government. These proceedings took place during the session of 1856–7, which terminated immediately before the inauguration of President Buchanan.
At the beginning of Buchanan’s administration in 1857, the Republicans almost solidly faced the Democrats. There still remained part of the division caused by the American or Know-Nothing party, but its membership in Congress had already been compelled to show at least the tendency of their sentiments on the great question which was now rapidly dividing the two great sections of the Union. The result of the long Congressional struggle over the admission of Kansas and Nebraska was simply this: “That Congress was neither to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States,”[[6]] and it was specially prescribed that when the Territory of Kansas shall be admitted as a State, it shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery as the constitution adopted should prescribe at the time of admission.