Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1856-10-31

3. The second proviso was " That any person
lawfully held to service in any other State or
territory OF the United States and escaping
INTO either the Territory of Kansas or Nebras-
ka may be reclaimed, and removed to the
person or place where such service is due,
under any law of the United States which
snail be in force upon the subject" This
ProriSo was of no consequence any way. 1t
neither added to, nor took away any thi ne
from the fugitive slave law-that law not
having its existence or force from the Kansas
Nebraska act, but from another act passed
in 1850. A repeal Of the entire Kansas.
Nebraska act, without any proviso whatever,
would not have altered it in the least, and
this provlso added nothing to its force.
4. 1t ordered a ncto Legislative election. and
forbade the new Legislature to pass various
Ubiquitous acts which the bogus Legislature
had passed. 1t destroyed all the criminal
prosecutions pending in the courts of Kansas,
on charge of treason, or of any alleged yio.
lation or disregard of the acts of the usurp-
ing body, and ordered all such accused ner-
sons to be set free without delay and il
forbade any more charges of treason or anv
criminal prosecutions to be made on any such
accounts. 1t provided however. that o,he,
suits, civil and criminal, at law and in chan
Gerry, pending and undetermined in the courts
of the Territories of New Mexico and Kansas
at the time of the passage of this act, (Dunn's
billy should go On to completion-and that
various civil officers should continue in Office
in the Territory till others should be appoint
ed or their Offices abolished
An examination of these points shows at
once, that under no condition ,ohaterer, did
the bill establish slavery in Kansas or any
other territory, for a long or for a short time.
1t did however proride that if certain persons
fa,rtnHy held 10 Serrice in either of said
territories should be permanently removed
before Jan. |, ls5s-a year and a half dis.
tant,-or if a child should be born in the
territories of a female ldwf1ly held 10 serrice,
within the same time, this act should not
emancipate them from any service they might
have owed if the act had never been passed.
Whether they could be emancipated by any
other act, Of course must be left for courts
to decide, This prorision for leaving a few
persons just where they were before, was az
tached, be it noticed, to a man clause of the
act, which clause suept slavery, as a uhole.
out Of The territories at once, and gave them
back to freedom, as by the Missouri Compro-
mise act they were solemnly devoted to be
forerer.
So too, the bill allowed a short existence 10
50 justices of the peace, constables, sherifs
and all other Judicial and ministerial officers
in Office when the act should take effect and
allowed certain suits already instituted to be
carried on to completion but it smoto the
bogus legislature to ath,-freed from bond
age the men who had been confined under
Ubiquitous charges for treason, took way
the tyrannical power of the officials tempo.
rarily left in Office, and disenabled the new
legislature from following the example of
their infamous predecessors. The obiec-
tionable features of those p~rovisos were out
of the reach of amendment, or of proposal to
amend them, because of the previous ques-
''Nh' ~ Dill husG Dt luhtH WIFI lIS ue-
fects or not at all. The Republicans did as
any honest, discerning and sensible legisla-
tors, loving freedom and hating oppression,
to do. They submitted to its tempo
and hmited defects. that they might Sc
cure the great and lasting good which it
would secure. To have refused to provide
for the liberty Of the untold millions who are
to occupy thos, vast territories for ages to
come, because tho bill left the condition of a
persons unaffected by it for a year and a
half, would have been a folly and a wrong.
The Republicans, with one or two exceptions,
voted for the bill. The Democrats as united.
ly voted against it.
The bill passed the House, yeas IS nays
"A. The Democratic Senate did not act upon
it at all, and thus the bill was killed.