Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-10-13

: Atchison and Stringfellow, with their missouri
e followers, overwhelmed the settlers in Kansas,
: browbeat and bullied them, and took the govern
g mont from their hands. Missouri votes elected
the present body of men, who insult public intelli
!, gence and popular rights by styling themselves
4 the Legislature of Kansas This body of men
{ are hepng themselves to fat specuiations by To-
, eating the seat of government and getting town
t lots for their votes. They are passing laws dis
franchisng all the citizens of Kansas who do not
believe negro slavery to be Christian institution
and national blessing. They ore proposing to
t punish with imprisonment the utterance of views
inconsistent with their own. And they are trying
. to perpeuate their preposerous and Internal ty-
ranny, by appointing for term Of gears creatures
!, of their own, as commissioners in every county,
to levy and collect taxes, and to see TINT the laws
they passing are faithfully executed Has this
age anything to compare with these acts in au-
| dacity
| "T The free State men of Kansas have resolved
not TO submit to this daring usurpation of non
resident oligarchy. They have called a conven-
! ton of tho people of Kansas, to meet in Septem-
ber next and frame constitution for their govern
ment This movement will be supported by
thousands in Kansas, and it will rally and bring
to their aid the northern States that have been tor
the time staggered and confused by the untoward
events in Kansas. The next Congress will find,
then this issue before them-a free State consti-
tuition presented by one portion of the people of
Kansas, and the 2roslavery territorial laws OF the
present fraudulent legislature. The House of
Representatives of the next Congress will be large
| ly free soil or anti-Nebraska. The pro-slavery
laws of the bogus legislature will be rejected-and,
without Congressional sanction they are not valid
the contest will then be accepting the consti-
t tuition presented by the free State people The
free State constitution may pass the House. but
not the Senate. But the effect will be as disastrous
to Missouri and the South Kansas will be left to
3 anarchy. The slavery that is there will flee from
it, and perhaps even the slave property of western
Missouri give way under the panic, and seek
safety in the cotton fields and sugar plantations of
t Texas.
} cit has been the common opinion with thought
less persons and thick bullics Mt the west
that the northern and eastern men will not fight.
Never was a greater mistake The of New
England and the middle States do not ike to fight.
They would rather work, plough build towns
railroads. make money, and raise families, than
fight. But fight they will, fneed be. Romember,
: the sons of New England shed the first blood In
. the American Revolution, and they were the last
to furl their flags in that terrible struggle They
have never dsgraced the country by cowardee.
and they will not. They are Americans, with
spirit, courage, endurance and deep love of liberty
to animate them. The free State men in Kansas
} will fight before they will be disfranchised and
trampled upon. Mark the word"
), There is much truth here but the most serious
part of the evil, serious to North and South alike
is merely limited at and not dwelt upon as 1t de-
serves. is ths that the repeal of tho Compro-
mise the practical triumph of party, which
is the worst in its principles, and the most danger
GUS in its designs, of any party that ever arose in
the Republic. We refer to the fllibustering pro-
pagandists Of slavery, whose unquestonablc pur-
pose it is to rule the Union, if they can, and if
they cannot, to set up southern slave confederacy
for themselves. They are few in numbers as yet
though great in influence, but they have of late
grown rapidly in both, and will be prodigiously
strengthened by success in Kansas. Let us sketch
thn MS md of hriaflv
in order to show tho bearing of their schemes.
When the Constitution of the United States was
formed slavery existed in nearly all tho States,
but it existed an acknowledged evil, which it
was hoped the progress of events would, IN the
course of few years, extingush. With the ex-
ception of South Carolina, there was not State
in which some decided efforts had not been made
towards its alienation and ultimate removal. 1t
was this feeling, to wit, that it was evil, and
that it would soon be abated, which excluded all
mention of slavery by name from the Constitution,
and which led to the adoption of such phraseol-
ogy, in the parts referring to the subject that it
does not necessarily imply its existence. The
Constitution was made for all time, while the max
crs of it supposed slavery to be but transient
fact and the terms of it consequently were adap-
ted to the larger purpose, and not to the temporary
exigency. a jurist from the interior of China,
who knew nothing of the actuul condition of our
country or Justinian could he arise from the dead
woulo never learn, from the mere reading of that
instrument, of the existence Of slavery He would
read of persons held to service" and Of certain
''other persons" who were to be counted only as
threefiths, in the distribution of representative
population: but lie would never imagine them,
unless expressly told species of property. The
general sentiment was averse to slavery, and the
; men Of the Revolution were unwilling to recognize
it, except in an indirect and roundabout way,
and then, only, as they expected, for limited
period.
For many years previous to the Revolution, n
similar feeling prevailed throughout the South as
well as at the North, that slavery was q most up-
, happy inheritance from colonial times and that it
ought TO be got rid of If it could. The most in
, tense expressions of disapproval that have ever
been uttered against the system, may be quoted
, from the writings of those who were born and
brought up under it and whenever it was de-
Tended, it was defended on the ground, not that it
was right or even desirable but that it was inev
table. 1t is fastened upon u.s." said the South,
, "and we must do the best with it that we can
We are like men in morass, who cannot spring
at once to the firm land, but who must work their
way thither, gradually, as they able. We trust
that Providence has some good end in thus afiiict
ing us-what it is we do not see-we discover GER
tain incidental goods in our strange relations but
look to God to Justify his own dealings with US in
f this wretched business" This was the pervadng
tone; few regarded slavery as anything less than
f a curse and none held it to be permanent con-
dition As foI the domestic trade in slaves, it was
generally execrated John Randolph, as late as
1916, denounced it on the floor of Congress as
heinous and abominabe,' inhuman and illegal,
and Governor Williams, of South Carolina, in one
of his messages. spoke Of it as "a remorseless and
merciless traffic." tho result of "insatable ava
rice" and condemned "by enlightened humanity,
wise policy, and the prayers of the just"
But the miraculous extension given to the cotton
trade by the contriyance of the gin and by the
manufacturing industry Of Great Britain produced
a vast change in the opinions of the country. AS
the slave system spread to alarming extent. and
the hopes of its ultimate extinction diminished, it
was found necessary by the Shareholders in order
to justify to their consciences their adherence
to it, and to shelter their own conduct from the in
dignant moral censure of the world, to invent
some plea which should be plausible at least if not
woll-founded In pursuance Of this need, they re-
sorted to the Bible to show that slavery was d.
vinely allowed, and could not be, therefore, in
itself wrong. They rapsscked physiological sci