The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-03-06
WASHINGTON, D. G..
THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN KANSAS.
SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON,
OF MASSACHUSETTS,,
Is THE SENATE, FEBRUARY Is, 1856


rerary Of state the existing of affairs in Kansas.
Mr.. WILSON Mr.. President, the Senator
from Connecticut Mr.. ToUcEYl closes his speech
with the assumption, that there may be those in
the country who do not wish the President TO
preserve order; and he is pleased to say that, if
the Executive does so, their vocation" will be
gone Let me say TO the Senator from Connect
lieut. that the vocation" Of those to whom he
alludes is not fawning abect servility to power.
No, sir, they do not
-~bend power, and lap its milk"
If the Senator from Connecticut alludes to
those who have opposed the uncalled-for and
wanton repeal of the Missouri prohibition; if he
slludes TO those who condemn the policy of the
Administration in Kansas; if he intends to charge
the intelligent, patriotic men who sympathize
with the wronged and outraged people of Kansas,
bravely struggling to preserve their fresides and
affairs, their property and lives against the armed
aggressions of lawless invasions from Missouri,
with disposition TO violate or resist the laws of
the country, to cherish sectional luminosity
and strife, he makes a charge unsupported by
even the shadow of truth; and here, and now to
his face, and before the Senate and the country,
pronounce the charge utterly unfounded. If he
Intends sir to nsinuate charge of that character
against me, promptly meet it, and here and now
before the Senate brand it AS it deserves.
The Senator from Connecticut, with an air of
possessed with the vast knowledge embodied in
these documents sent here by the Executive, the
Senator assumes the air and tone of one entitled
10 speak by authority, and he invites us TO deal
In facts. Sir, he shall have facts; for it so hap
pens that the friends of those who struggling
in Kansas to protect their lives, their property,
their all against unauthorized power and lawless
violence, know something of the facts which
have transpired there. All knowledge, sir, of
affairs in Kansas is not in the keeping of the
Executive and his Senator from Connecticut
The tree of knowledge, sir, was not planted in
the Executive garden; and sometimes think, if
il had been, its forbidden fruits would have been
more secure than the fruits of that tree
plucked by our first parents
The Senator from Connecticut commends US to
the consideration of this correspondence; and
the Senator from California Mr.. WELLER asks
us TO print ten thousand extra copies of il, to be
scattered broadcast over the land. | now say
and / can establish what say before any CON-
mittee of investigation, so that no man can ques-
ton the declaration-that this correspondence
utterly and totally misstates and msrepresents
the state of affairs in Kansas. These documents
sir, made up OF Geographic dispatches, of
letters, of statements, of orders written by Gov
ernor Shannon and others, on the rumors of the
hour in a large Territory, at time when the
people were deeply agitated by all sorts of re-
ports that few the land in rapid succession.
that turned out to be exaggerated or
false-rumors recognised and admitted to be
false by the Governor of the Territory, in his
versaton and in his treaty with the citizens of
Lawrence. Yes, sir, the Senate is now called
upon to print and send over the country, Off
cial documents, these stupendous misrepresenta-
tions of facts. They will carry gigantic false
hood TO the American people He who reads
only these documents has no accurate knowl-
edge, no true conception, of the actual condi-
ton of affairs in Kansas at the time covered by
them.
The year of 1854 opened upon a vast territory,
lying in the heart of the continent, extending
from thirty-six degrees thirty minutes on the
south, TO the possessions Of the British Queen On
the north; from the borders of Missouri, Iowa,
and Minnesota, on the east, to the SUBMITS of the
Rocky Mountains on the west. Over that terri
tory, larger than the empire Of Napoleon when,
at the head of the grand army he gazed upon
that "ocean of flame" that wrapt the minarets
turrets, and towers, of the ancient capital of the
Czars, the Republic on the 9th of March, 1920,
engraved in letters of living light the sacred
words, Slavery shall be and is forever prohib-
itedi" Slavery, with hungry gaze glared upon
the forest and prairie, hill and mountain, lake
and river, of that magnificent region it for
ever forbidden To enter. Fixing its glittering
eye upon that paradise, consecrated by the nation
10 Freedom and free institutions for all, halowed
Power, in the person of the late President of the
Senate, the soul of these border aggressions, de-
manded that this heritage of free labor should be
opened TO the whitening footsteps of the bond
Sir, with hot haste you grasped this
domain of Freedom, and flung it to the Slave
Propaganda Sir, your Administration in an
to the stern protest of the free laboring men
of the country, whose heritage it was, Knocked
them with the delusive promise that the actual
settlers were to shape, mould, and fashion the
institutions of Kansas and Nebraska. Sir, two
years have passed, and your "squatter sovereign
ty" is proved delusion and a cheat Laws
more inhuman than the code of Draco forced
upon the actual settlers of Kansas by armed
invading hosts from Missouri, are now to be
enforced by United States Dragons The Con-
stitution, framed by Convention of the People,
is spurned from the halls of Congress; the Con-
yention that formed it Is pronounced Spurious"
by the Senator from Connecticut; and the people
who ratified it branded as traitors by the
Administration and its subalterns.
BY the theory of the Kansas Nebraska act, Mr..
President, the actual settlers were to decide the
transcendent question, whether Freedom should
bless, or Slavery curse, the virgin soil of those
vast Territories lying in the central regions of
the continent The of the free States-of
Puritan New England, of the great central States,
and OF the Northwest-men who call no man
master, and who wish TO make no man a slave,
Wcic 10 plant upon the SOIL OF Kansas
those institutions that have blessed, beautifed,
and adorned the homes of their childhood The
sons of the South-from regions once teeming
with the rich fruits of fields, now blasted, blight
ed, and withered, by the sweat of untutored and
unrewarded tol-wore invited to plant, if they
could, the institutions that had dishonored labor
in their own native States, upon the unbroken
soil OF Kansas Sir, the people of the North and
the people of the South had a legal and moral
right to go there, when they pleased. how they
pleased, and with whom they pleased; in COM
panies or in single families; under their own di-
rection, under the auspices of Emigrant Aid
Societies, in the North the South.
Sir, the honorable Senator from Missouri Mr.
GEYER, in his remarks the other day upon the
resolution of inquiry submitted by me- made the
extraordinary declaration that the disorders "
which he admits have existed on the borders
"are to be attributed to extraordinary organ
izaton, called an 'Emgrant Aid Society first
attempt in the history of this country take pos
session of organized Territory, and exclude
from il the inhabitants of other portions of the
Union.' ] am amazed that the Senator from
Missouri should make such declaration on the
floor of the Senate. When and how did the
"Emigrant Aid Society" d" attempt to take pos
session of an organized Territory, and to exclude
from il the inhabitants of other portions of the
Union ?" Will the Senator tell us when that
attempt" was made? VIII he tell us where il
was made? Will he tell us how it was made
Here and now | challenge the Senator to give us
one single fact to sustain the declaration he has
so unjustly made against men of stainless purity
The Senator avows that men from his State
shave passed over the borders" but they have
done SO (he tells us) to protect the ballot-box
from the attempt of armed colonsts to control the
elections there" When and how were the bal
lot-boxes assailed by armed colonsts y from
the North call upon the Senator from Mis-