The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1856-05-24
The News from Kansas.

The abolition press has great ha' 'eo' ~
late m the manufacture of horrible news
from Kansas, and the "martyrs 70 lreeoonn
IN that reqion have been multiplying, &C
cord;pc 70 abolition accounts, at an appalling
rate. So far as we are able to gather, from
,be news which we have attempted to ana
I'VE in another column, the present trouble
in Kansas seems to be precisely the same
that caused the furry last fall. The free
state men have set at open defiance the pre-
sent government Of the territory, while the
latter, backed by the l. S, is determined to
enforce its authority to the last point In
doubtedy moderation on both sides would
be infinitely best, but the free state men are
palpably at moral disadvantage, for how
ever real the wrongs they may complain OF,
the course they have adopted is rebellion
and nothing else, and that rebellion, in the
end, must fail.
Much allowance, undoubtedly, must be
made for the excited state Of feeling in Nan
sas, but at this distance the mistakes OF the
free state men seem most strange and unac-
countable We could quote their own pa
pers, and the speeches Of their leaders by
columns to prove that they are largely in the
majority among bona fide settlers in the ter
ritory Then the soil is admitted to be I'M
adapted to slave labor. In the next place, a
slave country requires TO be parcelled out
into large plantations to work slaves to al
vantage, while it is well known that all the
best claims in Kansas are already taken up
in tracts seldom exceeding 200 acres. Add
to this that there exists, and always must
exist strong anti-slavery party in Kansas
"a fact utterly incompatible with the Sc
curity of that species Of property, and the
other well known fact that in all the northern
slave states the whit. population is gaining
so rapidly on the slave population that, but
for abolition intermeddling this alone would
already have rooted out the institution in
Maryland, Delaware, and one or two other
states,-and what chance, with anything like
common sense management, was there for
slavery TO become fixed as permanent in
stitution in Kansas? All the free state cause
needed, was for its friends TO remain quiet
and bide their time. The invasion of border
ruiiians, if half as bad as pretended, was an
noying, it is true; and the acts Of the bogus
legislature, if it was such, were bitter pill !;
but at most these evils could have lasted but
a few years Under the bill now pending in
the L. $. Senate for the admission Of Kansas
as state all this would have righted itself
BY that bill none but actual settlers, with a
residence Of months in the territory could
have voted on the question Of adopting the
state constitution, and, well guarded as the
right of suffrage at that election would be
by the bill, there is little doubt but the qucs-
ton could then have been fairly decided
But should even that election again be
fraudulcntly conducted, Kansas, as an indie
pendent state, would always have the subject
of slavery under its control, and the will of
a majority of its people could no; forever be
stitied. But the coruse of the free state men
i'll setting themselves up in opposition to the
constituted authorities, has well nigh ruined
their cause. What if some of the laws o.
the territorial legislature are unjust or op
pressiye: Is not obedience to a bad law
wiser than rebellion? Time, that rights al
wrongs, would, in few years, by wise ant
judicious management, have seen those law!
repealed or annullcd by the judiciary, ant
better laws substituted. But the fell spiri
Kansas as everywhere else. Slavery i.
wrong" is its cry, land therefore we vii
strike it, no matter how many human law:
we violate" The scriptural injunction t.
lersuade men to be righteous, by peaceablt
means, and kind words and acts, finds NJ
respect with the advocates Of the higher
law. Appealing to Sharp's rifles and force
they have arrayed force against them, and
although their defeat now, which is inevita
bic, may not ruin hopelessly the free state
cause, if it survives and is yet triumphant,
it will not be indebted for that triumph to
the management of its present friends in
Kansas.