Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1855-12-07
The Thirty.FOurth Congress,

The Thirty.FOurtb Congress.
If the pubic voice is quiet about the pro-
habls action Of Congress it is not because the
public mind is at ease. From one end of the
Union to the other it is felt that the session
is to he one OF immense Importance. yet no
one dares Predict with confidence what it
will do. Whatever highsoundlng phrases
the Presidents Message may contain, no one
is certain Of his actual conduct, beyond this,
that he will yield from week to week to the
greatest pressure which shall he made on
him and he will consider that to he the
greatest which holds out to him the greatest
probability Of a re- nomination. In some way.
TOO, he will be made to believe that aiding
and comforting the slaveholding faction of
the nation is the only way to reach that re-
suit. Fire-eating Davis will swear that there
is no al course. Crafty Gushing will ad-
nit 1t and Marcy will hardly have frmness
enough to deny it, But the modus opcrandl.
the precise way of doing it. will have to be
settled and unsettled, and settled again, az
! circumstances arise.
The slave power has no uneasincss about
the Senate Its only trouble is with the
House. Decisive as the anti-slavery ina jo,ty
will be in that body, if all will draw true to
their professions and according to the wishes
of their constituents, it is idle TO deny that
there is danger that the cause of justice, of the
rights of man and the rights of the free
states, will be surrendered by some for tn e
sake Of selfish individual and party ends
The readiness of the Pierce Administration
to corrupt wherever it can find the men to lie
corrupted, is to he taken for granted. What
1t has done before, it will do again iii can.
Offices aud money are still at lis disposal,
aud hr must have been dull scholar in poll
teal history who believes that the 34th con-
.rcss il destitute of corruptible materials
For the present all must wait patiently
till the curtain is fairly raised and the actors
reveal the play by their one conduct On
the great question at issue (there is but one,
whatever political schemers assert, the De-
ccmher number Of Putnam's Magazine has
stirring article, from which we give few
paragraphs below.
The Coming Session.
On the fortunes and fate Of Kansas the
chief interest Of the session will undoubtedly
be concentrated. Other questions, other
mea Sures, will from time to time Tit across
the scene hut all in suhOrdination TO the
great Kansas struggle. Patent agents will
bore, and feast, and hrihe, to secure exten-
siuns Of their mammoth monopoliss; pension
agents and SPECTATORS in old soldiers claims
and bounty warrants will hang about the
scenes of their past triumphs, hoping yet 60
con ure ~ some preteNt on which another
hundred millions OF public lands may be-
thrown into the gambling mill and ground
out into grist for them and toll for the nomi-
nal benehciaries, steamships. amply bal
lasted with coin, prOyisloned with turtle and
canvas backs, aud fabricated with TOkay and
Johannesburg, will take on board a ma lority
of both Houses, and sail right through tho
treasury at full thirteen knots per hour but
the country will heed these no more than the
plotting and prating Of president-makers,
while laying their preliminary wires, until
the question OF Freedom or Slavery for Kan
sls shall have been decided, That question,
in its present aspects, we propose here TO
elucidate.
We need not, surely, retrace the general
ground which has already been so thorough
ly traversed IN these pages and elsewhere.
We caunot,deem 1t necessary 10 argue further
that Washington, Jefferson, Madison Nun.
roe, Crawford, j. q. Adams, and all the
eminent men of tho country, from the peace
of 1852 down To the year ls4S, every one of
them clearly committed, by his act ci bis
published opinions, 10 some form OF other Of
assertion that Congress has power to exclude
slavery from the Federal Territories, were
not ignorant Of the vital provision, aua in
tent OF the Constitution. lift really remained
for an aspirant ion the Presidency, distracted
by the conflicting dangers OF alternating the
North or OF mortally offending the South, to