Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1855-10-27
MI. Pierce's Apology.

Syracuse in the last week of August, referring
TO this proceeding, declared that call the
power of the federal and territorial govern
ments should be cxerted to redress these out
RACES and vindicate the rights of the people"
Mr.. Pierce has taken six weeks to digest this
reprimand given by an assembly of his friends,
and has at length answered through the columns
of the Washington Union, in It's sheet OF last
Saturday, Mr.. Gushing, it is supposed, holding
the pen. The apology takes the form OF a re-
ply to the Buffalo C0mmercIdt AdrertaSeT, but
in reality is an attempt to break the force of
the rebuke administered by the Syracuse Con
v~ention.
The defence of Mr.. Pierce is this. First,
that the settlers of Kansas provoked the Mis-
%sourians to commit these outrages. Secondly,
that the President had no power to do any
thing in the matter. We will consider each
branch of the defence in its turn.
Dir. Pierce's first position is thus stated
He 1.-THE Presidentl saw, as every impartial man
must have seen, that as soon as the Kansas bill became
law. the purpose was avowed by abolitioniSts to defeat its
great principle by securing the hasty immigration into the
territory, through the Influence of capital, Of an anti
slavery population, The Kansas law was ba' ed upon the
printi,ie Of allowing the bona tde settlers-thOse VINO
came Of their own accord to ma runieo ID 70 nufsue
their avocations as permanent inhabitants, and with no
preconceiyed purpose to affect the political complexion of
the territOry-to allow such inhabitants to adopt or reject
slavery, AZ they might decide. The spirit and object Of
the law were liable to be perverted and defeated in two
ways--the one by the mode of hurTying in anti-slavery
settlers, as charged upon the abolitionists the other by
the mode of attending the elections, and controlling the
ballot box by force, a. charged upon the Missourians.-
The former mode war as much calculated to excite and
e~xssperate the South as the latter the North"
Again, speaking of those who do not look
at both sides of the question, Mr.. Piercc's apol-
egist proceeds
"Gov. Reeder fell into the same error when he returned
70 Pennsylvania, shortly after the elections in kansas
In his speech to his ~neighbors in Easton. he denounced
with bitterness the violence and force of the Missourians,
hut he wholly overlooked the the conduct eff the Massa-
chusetts abolitinnists, on which the Missourians based
their plea of justification. In the late democratic conven-
ton at Syracuse the same error was cOmmitted-the out
RACES charged upon the Missourians were strongly censur-
ed, but the interferenccs of the aboiti0nists which had
provoked those outrages were entirely passed over"
Mr.. Piercc'S ~apologist strangely overlooks
the true history of the settlement of Kansas.
There was q provocation earlier than the one
he mentions earlier than the occupation of
the territory by the free emigrants from the
northern states. The first provocation was
given by the friends of slavery when they
passed the Nebraska bill against the remon-
s~trances of the people of the northern states,
and took away from them a territory which
had been yielded to freedom by a solemn COM
pact, never, as the parties who made it under
stood, to be violated in all time. All allusion
to this commencement of the quarrel, the great
original wrong, for such the North viewed it,
and views it still, is cunningly omitted by this
pretender to impartiality, who looks at both
sides with such an affectation of candor.
This is not the only fraud in the apology
which we are Analysing. 1t calls the entrance
Of northern settlers into the territory, by a
concert of action among themselves, a provo
cation. Provoeation to what? Certainly
not to violence. 1t was a perfectly peaceful,
legal rightful proceeding. Any one who pleas
cd had a right to become a resident of Kansas ;
he had a right to persuade others to go with
him he had a right to become a member of
an association for providing the means of send
ing out a company of his neighbors to settle
the country. This was what they did they
retaliated by means which the law permitted,
and which took away no mans right. The
Nebraska bill was a challenge to the friends
of slavery and the friends of freedom to do
their best, in a peaceful and legitimate way
The friends of freedom accepted it, and made
an attempt to ~colonize the country-a feeble
one, we allow-so feeble indeed, as to have
disappointed those who cherished the eXpecta-
ton that it would lead to great results. The
friends of slavery had the same course before
them, and they might have retaliated in the
same manner. To call the residence of a few
quiet persons sent out by an emigration society
a provocation to armed violence, as the Union
does, is q shameless, ~senseless abuse of terms.
So stands the matter it was the South that
gave the provocation and it has no right to make
its own provocation a preteXt for its own acts
OF violence. But admitting that the Missou-
rians have, by lawleSs force, INSTRUCTED the
real residents of Kansas i'll the exercise of their
legal rights, the Union denies that Mr.. Pierce
could interfere. 1t says:
1.-THE law organizing the territory of Kansas defines
che powers and duties of the President, and We have ex-
amined it in vain for the authority under which he could
have guarded the ballot-box against fraud or violence
That be should have been apprised in advance of any
such occurrences is in itself a prepQsterOus assumption
but, even if that had been possible, we have been wholly
ut fault in our efforts to locate the executive power to
interfere In such a case.
1.-THE President shrinks from no scrutiny, however
rigid, to which his policy az to Kansas can be subjected.
To heap abuse upon him upon the assumption either that
he has been the partisan Of the Pro-slavery or the anti.
the effects of all such manifestations of passion or mean
ness he will be ~etfectually shielded by a just public senti-
ment. His whole duty, under the Kansas law, required
the President TO take the steps therein designated to or
ssnize the territory upon the principle of learing the PEG
pie perfectly free to form and regulate their ocn domestic
Institutions in their orrn ,ray, subject only TO the c0nstitu
ton of the United States"
If the President has looked in vain to find
any authority to interfere in securing to the
residents of Kansas the right of suffrage,
which the organic law of the territory pro-
fesses to secure to them, he has looked very
negligently. 1t is time we had a President
better acquainted with the laws of his coun-
try. The Untcn admits that it was the inten-
ton of the law that the people should frame
their own domestic institutions, and that it was
the duty of the President to see that they
we're left perfectly free" to do it. The Pres
ident is commander-in-chief of the army ; he
may order detachments of the United States
troops to whatever part of the Union or its
territories he pleases. The Law empower him