New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-04-14
FROM WASHING TON.
THE KANSAS REBELLION.


Editorial Correspondence OF The N. Y. Tribune
WASHINGTON, Saturday, April IL, lo56.
Whoever has watched with anxious interest the
progress of the struggle Of Freedom and Slavery
in Congress for the possession of Kansas must have
observed that the great reliance Of the DOugasites
is on the legality Of their position, as cOntrasted
with the revolutionary, rebeliOus reasonable, &C.,
attitude Of the Free. State men. No one could
well imagine that the hackers of the Border Ruff
fans are the same men who, fourteen years ago,
stood up with DOrr for the inaienable right OF the
majority of the white male adults in any community
to change its government at any time, in any way,
not only without law but against law. These gen.
temen are now conservatives" claw and order
men," and utterly scout the idea Of majority
having any rights but such as are conferred on or
secured to them by the existing political organi-
zution.
Now il Kansas were mature and perfect, not
an incipient and provisional commonwealth,
should freely admit, as did in the case of Rhode
Island, the force of this presentment. never did
and / never will agree that mass meeting anony-
nously or unofiically called can assemble in the
Park aud upset the charter of the City OF New
York, no matter how many may see fit to attend
and participate / hold that a Constitution is
something more than the changeable breath of the
multitude, and that it can only be modified or
transformed in legally indicated manner. Prove
that the Border Ruilian assemblage at Shawnee
Mission was fairly constituted Territorial Legis-
lature of Kansas, and will agree that it may have
passed many absurd, tyrannics oppressive acts
without invalidating it's authority.
But if Kansas Meier ,cas duly organized and vi
talized political entity-if the pretended Legisla-
ture at Shawnee Mission was conceived in villainy
and constituted by fraud and yolence-then the
reasoning as to former cases of cashng OF author
tiles does not apply to this. The Rhode Island
charter was detective and Anticipated frame of
government but there was no doubt of its having
been fairly adopted and ratified. TWAS never fouy
imposed-it had simply been outgrown. Reyolu-
tion might overthrow il; mass meeting or clam
bake could not.
Now prove that Kansas has once had legally con-
stituted and heartily accepted authorities and ILL.,
stitutions Of her own and that the Shawnee Mission
Legislature is fairly descended or deducibc from
these. and will bold it not lightly to be set aside.
But If its despotism had no such sanctions-none
but what we're given it by the Missouri invasion,
and swapping OF the ballOt-boXes on the 10th OF
March, '55-then il is absurd to talk OF resistance
to it's mandates as revolutionary or reasonable.
The Free-State men of Kansas have simply ap-
pealed from HerOd to CGsar-from (at best
municipal corporation created by Congress to Con-
aress itself Why should not this appeal be heard
h inCt irsalf nv DENIM
ciation by cavil by pleas OF estope, and by accu-
sations of treason Is it not obviously true, as
Judge CoLLAMER so forcibly urged, that the more
complete the demonstration that there is no redress
elsewhere for the wrongs of Kansas, the more i'm
peratiye is the necessity that Congress should
thoroughly investigate and fully right them
/ hold this proposition to be incOntestable;
Urongs cannot legally destroy rights. They may
temporarily defeat or subvert them, but these are
pone the less existing-none the less rights. Aud
if they be still rights, the National Sovereignty
must be able and should be willing to reGstabsh
them.
How is il, then, that some who profess TO desire
that Kansas shall be Free, should countenance the
cavils of our adversares as TO the Free-State or
ganizaton and its measuresi To me, these seem
to be not only impregnably just but unavoidable
Not to have organized State Government would
have been TO succumb disgracefully helplessly,
pitifully, to the Slave Power and the Border Rui-
fans Call the Free-State organization mere
protest, "moot court" or whatever you please
say il has no law making validity, no power to bind
and loose, until Congress recognizes and sanctions
it, fhen i say, The more reason, the greater
urgency, that Congress shOrld sanction it forthwith.
If it be in any sense irregular, the fault is with the
Border Rufians, who by violence and fraud de-
prived our people of all tie other side now has-the
semblsnce of legality and the possession OF power
Give us back our own
The only important question rightidlly In issue
is one of fact. If he Free State men are, aud for
more ihana year hsv, been, amaOrity OF the People
Of Kansas, and the Shawnee Mission Legislature
was constituted by fraud then those Free State men
are the rightful rulers of Kansas, and there is
nothing between them and the recognition of their
rights but an impudent, atrocous fraud, which 1t
is the right and the duty Of Congress to subyert
and punish. In this case, our men are not rebels
nor pretenders, but their adyersaries are. Then
no more in state of revolution or rebellion
than the People of Wisconsin were while the
usurper Barstow recently pretended to be Gov
. -