The Kansas herald of freedom., 1856-03-29


civil war! It is 8 spark now. A foot
may tread it out. But if it kindles, it
will sweep the prairies in sheets Of flame
The foot that should tread it out was bred
among the New Hampshire hills. But
the shadow Of the Government, black as
midnight, falls upon Free State men its
lur;d smile is with the aggressor. When
God stood among the oppressed, Egypt
was dark and Goshen was light. In oul
day, Rulers cast the blaze of full favor
upon Egypt. and the scorn and black.
ness of their wrath upon Goshen
Who.ztben.are these armed men thai
already confront each other, and between
whom this whole land is called to decide?
How have they come into this Territory
and what are their errands l? On the one
side are the representatives of civiliza-
ton, on the other of barbarism. On the
one side stand men of liberty, Christian
ity, industry, arts, and of universal pros.
perity; on the other are the waste and
refuse materials Of a worn out slave State
population-men whose ideas of society
and civilization are comprised in the
terms a rifle, horse, hound, a slave,
tobacco and whisky; beyond these there
is nothing but an annual uprosrious
csmp-meeting, where they get just
enough religion to enable them to fHd
out that the Bible justi6es all the immeas.
urable vices and wrongs of slavery. The
Free State men come hither with books,
with newspapers, with free schools, with
Lyceums, with churches, and the whole
retinue of benifcent institutions of Christ
ian civilization.
The slave Stale men without books,
without education enough to read if they
had them, without schools or wish fol
them. They came with statutes framed
for making free thought sin, free speech
penitentiary offence, free press pun
ishable with death if it in the least loos-
ems the bonds of oppression.
The men of the North come with rare
industry with mechanic arts, with all
the improved implements of husbandry.
They build towns; they found cities ;
they convert wilderness to garden, and
will transmit to coming generations an
inheritance such as Old England and
such as New England never saw.
The men of The South, reared where
labor was disgrace. .are without mechan-
ic arts, without habits of industry, with
out organizing tendencies, without the
creative force which build up new socie-
ties. They come to curse the land with
system of husbandry which the earth
detests, as well it may, for the foot of the
slave burns the soil like fire. 1t is the
agriculture of exhaustion. 1t Is the
husbandry of impoverishment. If the
South inoculates the State with her lep-
rosy, the plains of Kansas are fairer and
richer to-day as wilderness than they
ever will be again. For slavery robs
first the slave and then the soil 1t sucks
the blood from everything it touches.
And nothing can fatten upon it, except
the cunning few that sit upon the middle
of the web-overswollen spiders-while
the rest swing in the edges thereof, mere
skeleton insects.
The men of the North come upon the
best, and the men of the South upon the
worst errand that ever engaged men.
Peace. and light, and love, and Joy 60
with the one-war, and blood, and cru
city, wasting and despair, go with the
other.
The representatives of civilization have
come lawfully, peacefully, to become ac-
tual settlers. The representatives of bar
barism have come unlawfuliy. violently,
with no intent of residence, but only to
put the sword to the throat of freemen,
and the brand to their dwellings, and then
to leave to the slow immigration of slav-
cry this stained victory.
There never was SO strong an appeal
to public sympathy as that which is pre-
sented in the case of Kansas free settlers.
Their emigration was a mission Of mer-
cy, full of the ripest fruits of Christian
ity. Their conduct has been noble.
They have borne hardships without fall
tering; they have borne outrage and
persecution with patience. returning good
for evil. They have suffered wrongs,
manifold and infinitely provoking, without
retaliation When aggression on one
occasion was pushed SO sorely that their
patience failed, some of the men said,
ave cannot bear such wrong" The
reply made by Pomeroy will become a
maxim of Christian men: "Be patient
your wrongs are your very strength" I"
When the armed day came, and their
adversaries came out to consume them,
then. and only then. they took up arms,
and surrounded their home with living
men, determined not to attack, but never
to surrender.
They stood on free soil. They felt
free hearts beatingin their bosoms. But
no flag of their country waved over their
heads. An army of the United States.
made up mostly of aliens, carried the
flag of their country over to the side Of
their prosecutors. Yet, deserted, be-
trayed and wronged beyond the measure
of any but heroic patience they nobly
redeemed their lives, and. without one
drop of blood split, scattered their foes.
Shall the prayers, the help. the sympa-
thy of the free men Of the North be
withheld, while the bugle is sounded
through the South. and men are gather
ing. and weeks only are left between this
day and that on which battle shall once
more unfold It's wings-not again to be
closed until the earth hss drank blood to
it 6ll?
Bus II. with prompt libersiity. We for-
tify those heroic men who are there. the
eGissaries Of evil will CONS up. look, bs