The Kansas herald of freedom., 1855-09-22
The Consequence of Lawlessness.

totally differing in political sentiments
one uphoidiug the oligarchy that con
trolls the affairs and tramples upon the
peoples sovereignty of Kansas. the 9th
er deploring the aecursed madness o
the day--that matters are gloomy
enough in Western Missouri. Busines:
is dull. Commerce is stagnant. Mon
ey is exceedingly scarce, and panic
peryades the people. The fifty thous-
and emigrants that eht this season Il
have poured over into Kansas are mol
there. The prairie sod remains unbro-
ken. The sound of the axe and the
whoop of the husbandman are not heard
Western Missouri towns are not thronged
with settlers buying their outfits and
their equipments of husbandry. The
farmers find no market for their horses
mules, oxen, and cows. There is nc
new and large trade springing up in
Kansas. The much vaunted Kansas
towns lie neglected, a moekery to theil
owners and laughing stock for all men
'Dead-dead-dead, may be written on
all the country-so deep and disastrous
has been the fall from the high and fond
hopes of the past year
sIn May last the editor of the Intel
ligencer was in Kentucky, and he met
numerous of the most respectable and
wealthy farmers of that State, such as
form 80 large portion of the population
of Missouri, who inquired earnestly
about the condition of things in Kansas
and Western Missouri. They spoke of
the intention they had of removing to
Kansas or Western Missouri, but said
they had abandoned it utterly, for the
reason that they would never think of
taking their families to region where
law was set aside, presses. mobbed, and
men driven from the country by irres-
ponsible and unknown bands of regula-
tors. They preferred the rule of law to
anarchy. In a recent trip through sew
eral southwestern States we found that
the same circumstances were most in
dustriously and fatally used to divert
emigrants TO those States, and to preju-
dice Missouri and Kansas with every
class of people. The most aggravatin.
stories of insults and outrages commit
ted by Missourians ON the persons of
emigrants from the Old World or free
States, who are found ascending the
Missouri river, are circulated in the
newspapers all through the free States !;
and'it is impossible to conceive OF the
deep hatred thus generated toward OR
whole State in the northern part of our
Union.
Between these fires Missouri is lead
ing on her languid existence. st. Louis
is retarded in a most woeful way. Our
railroads creep at snaiPs pace. We
build ten miles while Western States
build one hundred. In every depart
mentof life we feel the paralysis. In
stead of bouncing forward, buoyant,
strong and rejoicing, We sit with dull
eyes, and heavy spirits, and listening to
the tick of death-watch.
Certainly continues the SPECTATOR
such was sure to be the result of the
high-handed lawlessness perpetrated by
Stringfellow & Co., and to
this day unrebuked by the National Ad-
1t could not be otherwise,
and none but men as unbridled in pas
sion as they are deficient in Judgment,
would have expected any different con-
sequences. Southern men, as well as
Northern. who probably lack the cour-
age openly to oppose their fellow slave
holders, do. nevertheless, retain pru-
dence enough not to remove their fam
lilies and properties within the reach of
such law-defying violence. They know
that the law which was successfully set
at defiance, is but feeble restraint in
all time thereafter. Its moral power is
weakened if not destroyed,
and rejecting men will not risk the CON
sequences. And it any portion of the
of the United States have any
in the maintenance of the SUI
premecy of law and of the authority of
Government, it is surely that portion
living South of Mason and Dixon's line.
This they naturally and intui;ively feel,
and hence they shrink from going where
such supremacy aud authority are un-
even though their own friends
may be welding for the time an irresisti-
BILE but illegal authority.
''Far the wiser course for citizens of
The slaveholding S atcs to pursue, il
they desire to make Kansas slave State,
would have been by eonciliatory course,
md by setting the example of obedi-
ence to the laws. and to popular SOW
Had they come into the Ter
ritory on equal terms with immigrants
from the free States, showing themselves
equally law-abiding and fraternal in
spirit, emulating their fellow citizens of
he North in earnest efforts to improve
he Territory, and resolved : to bring
slavery into only fair and manly con-
est with free labor, permitting as well
IS claiming all latitude of speech and
thought upon the subject, none of the
Effects which the st. Louis Intelligencer
% justly deplores would have followed,
md Kansas would have been ere this
thriving Territory on the high road Of
becoming a prosperous State. As it is,
he friends of slavery being witnesses, |
he peculiar institution in the hands |
# demagogues. threatens to prevent its
aver becoming either.
..The Inselligeneer is right too in the
uttered with some warmth |
but showing that there are
'ome men at the South who both disap- |
prove and deplore the repeal of the Mis- |
'ouri Compromise, and trace that mea-
'ure. as Gov. Hunt does 10 the action |
i political demagogues, with President