The true Democrat., 1856-01-15
From the Cincinnati Enquirer. A Historical Retrospective Glance.

A historical glance back at the events of the last two years exhibits one of the most rema1- kable instances of popular folly ever displayed upon the theater of American politics The account of it will read strangely enough in ftl- ture years. In January, 1854, those parts of our country now known as Nebraska and Ban. sas were organized into territories. A section was put into the bill giving the people the pow CT, through their territorial legislature, to man. age their domestic affairs and local concerns in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States. It was taken for granted that the immigrants who would go there were capable of f-government, and therefore ought to be intrusted with it.
 But, incredible as it may appear, after the popular passions and prejudices of the time have subsided, this simple proposition old as the American gOvernment-yea, as old as the in- alienablc rights of man-the justice of which we have maintained with the sword and incor- porated as the fundamental principle of ourIpo- litical polity, led to an excitement almost un- precedented and encountered fierce and des- perate opposition. The political waters were stirred from their nmost depths, and the whole land was convulsed with agitation. Extraor- dinary Congressional manifestoes were issued to the people from Washington, denouncng as tratorous and applying every conceivable term of reproach to all those who thought the peo- pie of Kansas and Nebraska ought to govern themselves. So to think they magnified into political crime as infamous as the treason of BENEDICT ARNOLD! Nearly all the represen- tatives of the old federal whig party in Con- gross, true to their federal and tory traditions, which dstrust the capacity of the people for self-government, and destitute as they always were of political sense or judgment, went at once into the crusade against popular sover- eighty.
 Even portion of the democrats in Congress-, men who professed to adhere to the doctrines of J JEFFERSON and JACKSON, baked and hesitated as to whether it was best to allow Kansas and Nebraska to make their own laws, and denounc- ed the proposal with great warmth and bitter ness. A large portion of the people in the free States seemed to be smitten with political ln- sanity in their hostility against this just and de- mocratic proposition. Meetings were gotten up, in which MT. DOUGLAS, who introduced the bill, and others of its leading advocates, were burnt in effigy.
 In New England tho old bells in the princi- pal towns, which tolled when American victo- ries were won over the British in the last war, again gave forth their dolorous dirge. The clergy turned politicians, and from their Vati- can-pulpits thundered communication against all who favored the measure. The staple of their sermons was DOUGLAS and Nebraska" whom they denounced with an invective even corser and more virulent than their lay cotem- porarles They sent on a famous memorial to the United States Senate in which they pro- tested, in the name of the Almighty against that provision of the bill which allowed the people popular sovereignty. Distinguished and eminent statesmen who attempted to justify their course before their constituents were in- suited and hissed down by crazed and fren- zied populace.
 The old federal whis and abolition press, never noted for refinement or courtesy to its political opponents, by its violence and ferocity, its coarse and shameless abuse and lying mis- representation, to transcended all its former sf-