The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-09

When the brutal boast of the British officer, that
he would cram the stamps down the throats of
our fathers with the hilt of his sword, is ap-
pauded by their descendants, then, and not till
then will the people OF the free States applaud
your efforts to cram these unchristian, inhuman
and fendish laws down the threats of their
brethren in distant Kansas, with the sabre of the
dragoon-enactments which the Senator from
Delaware Mr.. CLAYTON declares would send
even John c. Calhoun to the penitentiary.
But Senators are shocked at the grant of power
to the Executive, by the proposition of the House
to require the President to preserve peace in the
Territory, to repel invading hordes of armed men,
and TO protect from unlawful seizures and searches
persons and property in and on the national high
ways leading to the Territory. Their comments
upon this proposition, must say, without intend
ing any disrespect to Senator'S have degenerated
into quibbling technicalities unworthy of the
Senate Chamber Do not these Senators know
that the Missouri river is now held in the hands
of organized bands of robbers, whom the law
pronounces, on all our rivers where the sea Gibbs
and flows, to be pirates Do they not know that
the Missouri river was made national highway
in 1920, by act Of Congress? Do they not know
that this grant of power simply clothes the Presi-
dent with the authority to protect persons and
national highway leading into the Territory, from
the unlawful seizures of these river-prates, by
the army, as he is now by law empowered to use
the navy on the rivers where the sea GIBBS and
howsl Senators profess to see, in this grant of
power, authority to establish martial law on all
the avenues of the United States that point
toward Kansas. Sir, think the intelligent peo-
pie of the country will think all this mere quib-
bling. If Senators will read the army acts of
and fha
enacted to execute the revenue laws, when South
Carolina nullihed those laws they will see that
the power conferred upon the President by this
provlso is not greater than is required 10 protect
the people on the Missouri river against armed
hordes of river-robbers and pirates. Senators
will not have forgotten-surely the Senator from
Illinois Mr.. DovGLAs] cannot have forgotten
that company of peaceful emigrants from Chi
cago was arrested, robbed and turned back, by
these pirates that company from Massachu-
sets was also arrested, robbed and sent back
that Governor Robinson was arrested on his way
down the river by these piratical hordes, and
held for days without authority of law
To-day, Mr.. President, that national highway.
the Missouri river, is closed against emigrants
from the free States hold in my hand let
ter written by DIR. S. G. Howe, of Boston. a gen.
tleman whose name is associated with the cause
of liberty and humanity, who fought for Grecian
independence, and who suffered in a Prussian
dungeon for sympathizing with European Demo-
Gratis; and if his philanthropic science has not
opened the eyes of the blind, it has almost made
them forget their misfortune. Dr. Howe, who
has been travelling in Kansas, says:
"The highways and the byways to Kansas are i'm the
hahas OF men VINO are utterly lawless, who are no better
than brlgands. 1t Is bitter mockery 10 say that
may go Oh peaceaby, and if Insulted, or robbed or
beaten, he may go and seek justice at law"
Governor Shannon, the man to whom your
President intrusted the executive power when
the Slave Propaganda demanded the immolation
of Reeder, and whom now your Executive has
flung so ANONYMOUSLY away, distributed the
arms of the United States to bands of lawless
men that are now rowing over the Territory, rob-
bling, plundering, numbering, or lowering on the
frontiers ready to enter the Territory at the call
OF Atchison, that frank, outspoken marauder
chieftain, who at least, to do him Justice,
will leave Rufhans name TO other times,
Linked with one virtue and Il thousand crimesn
The President has recalled Shannon. This
proviso authorizes the President to recall the
arms he distributed to men who are disturbing
the peace of the Territory. The right to do this
is as clear as is the duty to do it.
Mr.. President, the venerable Senator from Michi-
gan Mr.. CAss] INDUCES in the expression of the
hope that the people will rise and rebuke what
he is pleased to call the sectionalism of the House
of Representatives. If that House is sectional
ne-
cause the people are sectional. The people
elected that House, and they supposed they had
secured decisive majority of national men in
favor of arrestng that sectional policy which is
extending over the Continent a local. sectional
institution, which is converting our democratic
Government into the instrument of the most Sec
tonal, domineering arstOcracy the sun in his
course across the heavens now looks down upon
But the people have been deceived BETRAYED. by
baf fbo cd 4.
power which assumes with naughty mien to di-
rect the policy of the Republic. Thank God,
the people-unlike their brethren in Kansas-are
yet free to right their own wrongs. They can
ANONYMOUSLY hurl from their places their faith
less representatives
The Senator from Michigan lNlr. CAss1 should
not lose confidence in the capacity of the people
to preserve their free institutions because they
are rising, in the dignity of freemen to throw of
the domination of that privileged class which
has grasped the reins of power, and uses the
Democratic party as its instrument Power is
passing from the men who have been the obedient
agents of that sectional oligarchy. That such
men, In these days of their waning power, should
lose faith in the people they have misrepresented
is not unnatural. When the Duchess of Orleans
turned away from the French National Assembly
with her son, the royal heir, while the cry 1t is
too late " sounded in her ear, she doubtless
thought the institutions of France were reeling
around her. While the Senator's friend, Louis
Philippe, was tossing in that little skif which
bore him across the waves of the British channel
from his throne, which had gone down beneath
the throes Unpopular liberty, he doubtless thought
that the institutions of France were falling with
the falling fortunes of his family. The dynasty
OF the younger branch of the Bourbons went
down-but France survives. Let not the Sena-
tor from Michigan, let not his associates, indulge
in the illusion that the free institutions of the
Republic will share their falling fortunes When
that prostituted Democracy which the Slave
Power has debauched goes down, as it will 90
down, before the rising spirit of free people
the free institutions of America will survive in
all their original vigor, purity, and splendor.
FORT WARD INSTITUTE.