The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-09-04
FREE KANsAs-GOvERNOR REEDER

An immense meeting was held in the Taber-
nacle, New York, on Tuesday, the Goth ultimo,
to hear speech from Governor Reeder. The
following extracts from his able and eloquent
appeal in behalf of Kansas will be read with
interest by all. Even the ultra Pro.Slavery
Day Book admits that the speech was able and
we'll delivered:
snow, what is the remedy for this state of
things? Is there any man within these walls
who supposes that all these outrages, all these
murders, all this trampling under foot the right
of selfgovernment, is for the State of Kansas
If SO, he is in error-exceedingly, grossly in
error. Let him see the Territory of Kansas.
two hundred miles wide north and south, ex.
tending nearly nine hundred miles, to the sum-
NIT of the Rocky Mountains. Let him look
beyond that, to the shores of the Pacific. and
he will find that there is territory there to make
some five or six States as large as PENINSULA.
MIA. And will any man tell me that if Kansas
be not saved, he is going to save those embryo
States, each further and further out of our
| reach, each with one more slave State inter.
veningf Is it not obviously more than proba.
BILE that if we lose that State of Kansas, we will
lose that whole tier of States out to the Pacific
And if that be 30, will any rejecting man tell
me how much of the Territory of New Mexico
we will get? No, my friends, they will oil be
lost. This entire Territory this half CONT
| nept- capable of making some ten or dozen
States, Is, In that event. all lost to this great
North. This Is a momentary question in many
| respects. Let me direct your attention. yery
briefly, to a few of them. These Northern
States may be lkened to tub under foun.
tain, all the time yelling over with surplus
| population, streaming off to the West, and ma
king their homes there further and further
back as each Territory is opened for settlement
That surplus stream of population is running
past like vast river, which, if it could be con.
| centrated in one track, would build up State
| in five or six years. And will any man deny
that slave labor and free white labor cannot
| exist together? This is a conceded PROPOSE
| ton "a proposition admitted by everybody,
| North and South. Where the one Is, the other
will not be. Well, then, ssppose you dedicate
| this half continent to the negroes, you shut off
this entire stream of Northern emigration.
| You close the gates of that whole West-Kan-
sas, Deseret, and New Mexico-all, all is closed,
and you turn back this human tide, to throw
itself in recoil upon the States of the North
and the Northwest, You deny this great ter
ritory to the laboring man. You say to the
laboring man that this great territory shall be
dedicated to the negro, and the gates closed
upon the white man. Have you-have the
laboring men of the North-considered the i'm.
portance of this great question to them? The
drayman, the holman, the mechanic, the day.
laborer, the hackman-every man, in short,
who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow
or who, by the vicssitudes of this country, may
have to labor in the sweat of his brow-every
man who expeces to have posterity-hss deep,
an abiding interest in it. Suppose that great
Northwestern territory were in question, in.
stead of Kansas. Suppose this had occurred
twenty years ago there, and that the gates of
that territory had been shut against the free
emigration from the North. Suppose the mil.
lions who now swarm over the surface of Ill
nois, Wisconsin, Michigan, we're all thrown
back on these Northern States, what would
be the condition of the laborer? This is not
matter OF theory--it is not matter of dispute
but it has been demonstrated. 1t has been
demonstrated in ireland and in China, and the
result would be the same everywhere. Our
laborers 60 out West to lessen the supply of
labor here, to appreciate its wages, and its uses,
and its vsiue. Suppose you thray back this
vast tide OF human emigration; suppose YOU
refuse to allow a Northern laborer to OCCUPY
the Territories ofthe West. What thenP Labor
thickens up. All the paths of labor at home
are filled, and filled, and filled in, until they are
choked up far beyond the demand. The wages
of labor depreciate. There is no emigration.
There is no depletion. And at last the vast
mass of unsought labor becomes one fostering