The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-02
NEBRASKA, September l, 1856,


We were told, in Congress and elsewhere,
before the passage of the Kansas Nebraska bill,
that Slavery would never 90 into Kansas, that
the country was not adapted to slave labor, and
that no one wished to make it slave territory !;
but that the only object was to establish the
principle of "squatter sovereignty" No0 it is
boldly declared that the bill was passed for the
express purpose of making more slave terri
tory; that Kansas must be given to Slavery,
while Nebraska would be left to Freedom. But
apparent success enlarges the desires of South
ern despots, snd the ominous whisper begins to
be heard, that Nebraska too must be sacrificed
on the altar of Despotism. The distant NUT
terings of the thunder are already heard and
when Kansas lies bleeding, conquered, and
hopeless, the storm will burst in terror upon as,
and another scene in the dark drama of " We
will subdue you" will be enacted. If Kansas
is lost, South Platte Nebraska at least is also
lost, and all the Territory, if Southern despots
will it.
Slavery exists in the Territory. A ProSla-
very Democratic Executive, assisted by SUBJ
servient Judiciary and Press, can sway the
elections by the aid of Northern traitors and
Southern white slaves, control public opinion,
almost silence the expression of liberal senti-
ments, and do almost anything which lawless
the elements of despotism are hers, and it only
requires . favorable combination of circum-
stances to set all in a blaze, and produce here,
as in Kansas, desolation, death, and lawless
violence.
Said Southerner to me, some time since,
in Nebraska City, when 1 said, that if the Mis-
sourians came there, they would receive well
come of cold lead, "Not so fast; there would
be as many here to assist as to fight them !"
and he was right. There are very many here
who only wait favorable opportunity to assist
in propagating the peculiar institution.
There is not paper in the Territory which
does not virtually uphold the South, and coun-
tenance the outrages in Kansas. One of them,
in referring to the emigrants who were disarm-
ed, robbed, and turned back, on the Missouri,
says they "were discharged and sent back"
u poor man from the South said to me, when
4sked him if free country was not better for
him than slave country, that he I" did not
know" Such are fit tools for lordly aristocrats,
living commentaries upon the benefits of Gold
Coast barracoon jurisprudence" Well may
oligarchists say that servitude is the natural
condition of the majority of mankindl
Our enemies here, and some who are no
doubt friends, cry out, "No agitation" while
covertly every effort is made to prepare for the
perpetuation of the institution" which now
exists here. Northern men are becoming &C.
customed to the sight of slaves, and are told to
look at Slavery here, and then Judge of it in the
South. "Surely, those negroes are treated well
enough" Slavery is not so bad, after all"
"We'll first endure, then pity, then embrace"
; Thus nearly everything is working for the
South. Public opinion is ruled; the express
SIGN of preference for Freedom is often sup
pressed by the bugbear of Abolitionist." The
Rcfians are ready to invade our fair country,
and many hold themselves ready to assist them
by every means in their power. The cause of
Free Kansas is our cause victory there will
be victory here; defeat there will be ruin and
desolation here. The coming Presidential cleo,
ton will decide our fate. May God speed the
right. L. c. TAYLOR.