The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1856-04-19
synopsis Of Mr.. Stewards Speech on the Kansas
| Question.
U. S. SENATE, APRIL 9.

ing is synopsis of his speech: =
He went into an extended review of the
whole Kansas difficulties. He first consid-
cred the peculiar relations of Kansas to the
Union, and the pledges given by Congress
when the Territory was organized, that the
people there should be left free to establish
or exclude themselves under the protection
of the United States. He recapitulated the
act of the Border Ruffians, and their usur-
pating the legislature, and proceeded:
These high handed actions were consum-
mated for the express purpose of establish
ing African slavery as a prominent institution
within the Territory by force, and in viola
ton of tie natural rights of the people,
solemnly guaranteed to them by the Consti-
tuition of the United States, has been Access
sorry to these transactions, with full compl
city in regard to the purpose for which they
were committed and adopted
The usurpation and made it his own, and
is now maintaining it with military arm of
the Republic. Thus Kansas has been reyC-
lutionized, and she now lies subjugated and
Frustrated at the foot of the President IF
the United States, while he, with the agency
of foreign tyranny established within her
borders, is forcibly introducing and establish
ing Slavery in contempt and defiance of the
organic law.
These extraordinary transactions have
been attended by civil connections, in which
property, life and liberty have been exposed
to violation. These connections still con-
tinue to threaten not only the Territory
itself, but also the adjacent ones, with the
calamities of civil war; l am fully aware of
the gravity of the charges against the Presi-
dent of the United States which this state
meDt of the condition and relation of Kansas
imparts.
shall proceed without fear and reserve to
make them good. The maxim that a sacred
veil must be drawn over the beginning of all
governments, does not hold under our sys-
tenn. l shall first call the accuser into the
presence of the Senate, then examine the
defence which the President has made, and
last submit the evidence by which he is cons
victed. The people of Kansas know whe-
Their these charges are true or false they
have adopted them, and on the ground of the
high political necessity which the wrongs
they have endured and arc yet enduring, and
the dangers through which they have already
passed, and the perils to which they are yet
exposed, have created, they have provision
ally organized themselves as State, and
that State is here now by it's two chosen
side at the doors of Congress, applying to
be admitted into the Union as means of
relief indispensable for the purposes of free
dom and safety. This new State is the
Presidents responsible accuser.
The President of the United States, with
out waiting for the presence of his accusers
at the capitol, anticipated the accusations
and Submitted his defence against Congress.
Mr.. Seward then examined the Presidents
annual message of Dec 80, 1855, and special
message of Jan. "a, 1856, commenting with
great severity on therein put forth, contra
dieting them with the historical facts recor-
ded and verified i'll many instances by the
Presidents own friends. He defended the
Northern States against the charges that
they were sectional agitatOrs and enemies of
the Constitution, and closes this part of his
speech as follows:
challenge the press to the proof in be-
half o! Massachusetts, although lave only
the interests common to all men and Ameli-
cans in her great fame. With one corporate
or social evil of which she is conscious, and
conscious also of inability to heal it is, its
ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, vice, crime,
public disorder, poverty or disease affecting
the minds or the bodies of her people. There
she stanls-suvey her universities, cole
yes. academies and observatores, primary
and Sunday schools, penal codes and peni-
tentaries, descend into her quarries and
walk over her fields and through her gar
dens, observe her manufactures of thou
sand various fabrics, watch her steamers
ascending every river and inlet on her own
coast and her ships displaying their canvas
on every sea, follow her fishermen in their
adventurous voyages from her own bays to
the icy ocean under either pole, and then re-
turn and enter her hospitals which cure or
relieve suffering humanity in every condition
and at every Period of life from the lying-in
to the second childhood ard which not only
restore sight to the blind and hearing to the
deaf, and speech to the dumb, but bring
back wandering reason to the insane and
teach even the IDIOT to think. Massachusetts,
is model of States worthy of all honor,
and thought she was least conspicuous of all
States in the establishment of republican in
situations here, she is conspicuous still for
the municipal wisdom with which she has
maGe them contribute to tie welfare of her
people and to the greatness of the Republic
In behalf of New York for which it is my
right and duty to speak, | defy the Presi-
dental accuscr. Mark her tranquil magma
nimity, which becomes a State for whose de-
livery from tyranny, Schuyler devised and
labored, who received her political Constitu-
ton from Hamilton, Ter intellectual and
physical development from Clinton, and her
missions in humanity from Jay. AS she
waves her wand over the Continent, trade
forsakes tie broad natural channels which
conveyed it before to the Delaware and Ches-
areake Bays, and the Cults of St. Lawrence
and Mexico, and, obedient to her command,
pours itself through artificial channels, into
her own once obscure seaport. She stretches
her wand once again towards the ocean and
the commerce of tic continent concentrates
itself at her feet, and with it strong and full
floods OF emigration crowd in, contributing
labor, capital, valor and enterprise to perfect
and embellish our ever widening Empire
When and on what occasion has Massachu-
sets or New York officially and Illegally in
truded themselves within the jurisdiction of
sister States to modify or reform their insti-
buttons No, sir? Their faults have teen
quite opposite; they concede too much and
too often for their own dignity and inference
in federal administration to the COMPLAINTS
in whose behalf lie arraigned them. thank
the President for the insult which, though
so deeply unjust, was perhaps needful to
arouse them to their duty in this great emer-
gency.
Mr.. Seward defended at much length the
doings of the Kansas Aid Societies, and JUS
titled their efforts and those Of the Kansas
settlers to keep slavery out Of the Terrific
RES. He attacked the President with much