The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-02-13
Obto legislature,
FEE. 5, 10 o'clock, A. NJ.

FEB. D, III o CLOCK, A. NJ.
HoUsE.-The following message was
received from the Governor, containing
q communication from certain civil off
GERS in Kansas, which was read at the
clerks desk:
To HE General assembly gtAe State Of
OAio:
1 transmit for the consideration OF
the General Assembly communication
from certain gentlemen holding official
positions in Kansas.
The urgency of the appeal. made by
the communication herewith transmit
ted, induces me to lay it before the Gen
eral Assembly without delay.
1t is authenticated by the signatures
of JAMES II. LANE, Chairman of the Elk
ecutive Committee of Kansas Territory,
of CHARLES ROBINSON, the Governor,
and GEORGE W. DEirzLER, the Secreta-
ry, elected by the People under the re-
Gently adopted State Constitution.
It represents that an overwhelming
force of citizens of Missouri is ergani-
ziug upon the borders of Kansas, with
the avowed purpose of invading the Ter
r%itor,, demolishing its towns, and butch
ering its Free State citizens.
1t appeals for promp: assistance in
terms which cannot fail to command
your most earnest attention.
The object of tie contemplated inva-
sion of Kansas is to compel its inhabi-
tants to submit to the establishment of
Slavery.
The progress of Slavchclding aggres-
sion is very remarkable.
In 1920 the slave power insisted on
the admission of Missouri as a Slave
State, and effected its purpose by en-
grating on the bill for its admission a
perpetual prohibition of Slavery in all
the remainder of the territory acquired
from France, north of the South line of
Missouri, extending westward to our
frontier.
InIS54, the slave power demanded
the repeal of the Prohibition of 1920,
and effected it's object by ENGRAVING on
the Nebraska and Kansas bill which
provided for the repeal, an express dec
laration that the people of the Terrific
ry should be left peri city free to form
and regulate their own domestic institu-
tions, subject only to the provisions of
the Constitution of the United States"
In 1856, the slave power insists that
under this declaration the people of the
Territory have no power at all to ex-
clude Slavery, until, under an enabling
act of Congress, they proceed to form a
State Constitution, preparatory to ad-
mission into the Union.
That this preteusion would be ad-
vanced was forseen and predicted, when
the Nebraska Kansas Bill was under
discussion; and it was, indeed, Indirect
~ sanctioned by the refusal of its sup
porters to adopt al amendment to the
bill, expressly recognizing the right of
the people to exclude Slavery.
Whatever construction, however, may
have been intended by the Slaveholding
supporters of the bill, and whatever
to hat construction may
be afforded by the phraseology of the
act itself, it is certain that, through
out the Free States, the conviction is
nearly universal, that the People of
Kansas, deprived of the protection of
the prohibition of 1920, have, and ought
to have, complete right and full power
to protect themselves against the evils
slavery.
To prevent the people from exercising
this right and power, armed bands, from
the neighboring State of Missouri, inva-
ded the Territory at the time appointed
for the first election of members of the
Territorial Legislature, March 80,
1859 and having taken possession of
the polls, and excluded the legal voters,
themselves the persons who
we're to constitute the Legislature, with
put regard to their place of residence,
in Missouri or Kansas.
The acts of this spurious Legislature
were worthy of its origin. Having ex-
the few Free State members who
held certificates of election, they pro-
to promulgate, in the forms of
Iaw, a serieso of pretended statutes which
have no parallels in the annals of legis-
Iative usurpation. The Governor of