Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-10-06


irruption upon Kansas is without precedent in oui
history. Seventynno years of our national life
have rolled by Territory after Territory has been
annexed or settled and added to the galaxy Of
States, until from thirteen we have increased to
thrty-two; yet it never before entered into the
head of any statesmen, North or South, to devise
| plan of acquiring exclusive occupation of Ter
/ ritory by State colonization. To Massachusetts
belongs the honor Of its invention, and we trust
she will survive its defeat. But she is not the
Massachusetts,, we must do justice to her past his
tory to say, that she in the time of her Adams
her Harcocks, and her Warrens nor yet is she
where she stood in more recent times, when her
Websters and Choates, and Wnthrops led the van
of her statesmen. Her legislative halls are filled
with ruthless fanatics dead to the past and reck-
less to the future her statutebooks are polluted
with enactments purporting to annul the laws OF
Congress-, passed in pursuance and by reason OF
the special requirements of the Constitution: and
her senatorial chairs at Washington filed by a
rhetorician and bigot, of whom studies to
disguise in the drapery of classical elocuon the
most hideous and reasonable forms Of tanaticism
while his colleague is pleased 50 harrangue q city
rabble with open and a9ulterated dsunionism,
ASSOCIATED with the oracles of abolitionism and
infdelty-a melancholy spectacle to the descend
ants of the compatriots, of Benjamin Franklin
! No Southern slaveholding State has ever at
tempted to colonize Territory. Our public lands
have been left to the occupancy of such settlers
as soil and climate invited. The South has sent
no armies to force slave labor upon those who
preferred free labor. Kentucky sprung from Vir-
ginia as did Tennessee from North Carolina, and
Kansas will from from Missouri-from contiguity
of Territory and similarity of climate. Emigra-
tion has followed the parallels of latitude and
will continue to do so unless diverted by such 'or.
ganizations as Emigrant aid Societies and Kansas
Leagues.
| If the Massachusetts, Legislature, or any
other State have the right to send army of
Abolitonists into Kansas, they have the same
right to transport them to Missouri. We are not
apprised of any provisions in the constitutions or
laws of the States, which in this respect distn-
guishes their condition from that of a Territory
We have no laws, and we presume no slaveholding
State has, which forbds the emigration Of nom
slaveholders. Such laws, if passed, would clearly
conflict with the Federal Constitution. The South
ern and Southwestern siaveholding States as
open to emigration from n-slaveholding States
as Kansas. They differ only in the price of land
and the density of population. Let us suppose
then that Massachusetts should turn her attention
to Texas and should ascertain that the population
of that State was nearly divided between those
who opposed Slavery, and that one thousand votes
would turn the scale in favor of emancipation and
acting in accordance with her worldwide phant
thropy. she should resolve to transport the thou
sand voters necessary to abolish Slavery in Texas,
how would such n movement be received there
Or to reverse the proposition, let it be supposed
population, should. undertake to transport thou
sand shareholders to Delaware, with view to tsrn
the scale in that State, understood to be rapidly
passing over 20 the list of free States, would the
gallant sons of that ancient State small she is
territorially, submit to each interference? Now.
the institution of Kansas are as much fixed and
as soemnly guaranteed by statute as those of Del
aware or Texas. The laws of Kansas Territory
may be abrogated by succeeding Legislatures; but
so also may the laws, and even the constitutions,
of Texas and Delaware. Kansas only differs from
their condition in her limited resources her small
population, and her large amount of marketable
lands. There is no difference in principle be-
tween the cases supposed; if justifable and legal
in the one, it is equally in the other. They differ
only in point of practcability and expediency
the one would be an outrage, easily perceived,
promptly met, and speedily repelled the other is
disguised under the forms of emigration, and
meets with no populous and organized community
to resent it, We are apprized that it is said that
the Kansas Legislature was elected by fraud, and
constitute no fair representation of the opinions of
the people of the Territory. This is evidently the
excuse of the losing party, to stimulate renewed
efforts among their friends at home; but even this
is refuted by the record. The Territorial Govern
or of Kansas gentleman not suspected or char
ged with partially to Slavery or to its advocates,
has solemnly certified under his official seal that
the statement is false; that large majority of the
Legislature were duly and legally elected. Even
in the district where Gov Reeder set aside the cleo
tions ordered for llegaliy the subsequent returns
of the special elections ordered by him produced
the same result, except in single district. There
is, then, pretext left and it is apparent that
to send an army of Abotionists to Kansas to de-
stroy Slavery existing there and recognized by her
laws, is no more to be justified the part of the
Massachusetts Legislature than it would be to send
a like force to Missouri, with the like purposes.
The object might be more easily and safely accom-
plished in the one case than in the other, but in
Doth cases it is equally repugnant to every prin-
ciple of international comfy and likely to prove
equally fatal to the harmony and peace of the
Union.
We conclude, then, that this irrupton upon
Kansas by Leagues under the patronage of the Mas
sachusetts Legislature, is to be regarded in no
more practical in its aims, and therefore more
dangerous, thu n any form it has yet assumed. We
have shown it to be at variance with the true in
tent of the act of Congress by which the Territory
was opened to settlement; at variance with the
spirit of the Constitution of the United States, and
with the institutions of the Territory already re-
cognized by Law; totally destructive of that fel-
owship and good feeling which should exist among
citizens of confederated States Tuinous to the Sc
curty, peace and prosperity of neighboring State
unprecedented in our political annals up to this
date, and pregnant with the most disastrous conse
puences TO the harmony and stability of the Union.
Thus far its purposes have been defeated but re-
newed efforts are threatened. Political conven-
tions at the North and Northwest have declared
for the repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska Law and,
failure in this direction. are stmu-
lating tho Ant-Savery sentiment to fresh exer-
Iions for abolitionizing Kansas after the Massa-
chusetts fashion. We have discharged our duty
in declaring the firm belief of the spirit by which
they will be met IL civil war and ultimate dis
union are desired, renewal of these efforts will
be admirably adapted to such purposes. Nilsson.
ri has taken hor position in the resolutions adopted
fha L n0fo nd hat a..
ton she will not be likely to recede. 1t is based
upon the Constitution-upon justice and equality
Of rights among the States. What she has done,
and what she is still prepared to do, is in selfde
Tense and for selfpreservation and from these
duties she will hardly be expected to shrink With
her everything is at stake; the security of large
slave property the prospect ty Of her citizens, and
their exemption from perpetual agitation and bor-
der feuds; while the emisares of Abolition are
pursuing q phantOm--an abstraction, which II