White Cloud Kansas chief. [volume] (White Cloud, Kan.) 1857-1872, 1857-09-03
From the Lavrsnee RspubIisaa.
The Progress Of Villainy.

AC4S
Legislature.
This superintendent, as will be seen. is the,
work of William G. Matthias. Speaker of the
last Bogus House of Representatives, and Thorn
as Johnson, President Of the Bogus Council.
The excuse OF the Governor, as given by his
Lecompton organ, fer not making the appropri-
alton as directed by law is his igaorGnee Of the
statutes I" which he had sworn to support. A
pretty excuse, truly, for Governor, and that
Governor Robert J. Walker, to make! He mar
ches upon the peaceful city of Lawrence with a
regiment of dragons, because the people Of
Lawrence have done something which, by
stretch of Gubernstorial Imagination, conflicts
with these bogus statutes, and. yet he himself in
a matter most seriously affecting the rights Of
every man in Kansas, pleads ignorance of these
same enactments! But to the apportionment
itself.
We thought StantOn's appOrtionment Of mem
bers to the Bogus Constitutional Convention
about as miserable piece of business as a Dem
ocratic official ever took in hand, but this appor
tionment casts his completely into the shade.
We will take the Council first. And on this
apportionment for the Council observe:
/. That it is so arranged that cUery member Of
the Council ereept one is to be voted for in pOr-
ton Of Kansas BORDERING ON Missouri! Leav-
enworth is border county, and has three Coun-
cilmen. Atchison, another border county, forms
the second district, and has one. The third and
Co., J;,k-s L., Al.
Councilmen. This associates Doniphan, Dor
der county, with Brown, Nemaha, Marshall,
Pottawatomie, Riley, and all that part of the
Territory Of Kansas which lies west of Marshall,
Riley and Davis Counties" lying in the interior.
Johnson, a border county, is joined with Doug
las lying directly west of it, and forms the sixth
district having three Councilmen. The seventh,
eighth and ninth districts are combined and have
two Councilmen. This joins Bourbon and Nc
Gee, both border counties, with some sirteen in
terror counties. The tenth and final district has
one Councilman, and is composed of Lykins and
Linn Counties, both border counties, associated
with large extent of interior Territory. The
object Of this arrangement is apparent at 8
glance. 1t isto give Missouri the best facilities
imaginable for controlling the election. All that
she has to do is to repeat her game and pour
over invading hOrdes into the border counties,
and the work is done. For instance, this county,
Douglas, having prepOnderance of Free State
men ten to one, is joined to- Johnson County ~
ing on the border. The two counties together,
form district; and the district, not the separate
counties, has three Councilman. Now to carry
this district, it is only necessary that MissOurians
enough should come over into Johnson County
to overbalanee the vote cast by Douglas county,
and the work is done.
So take DoRiphan, Brown, Nemaha, Marshall,
POttawatomie, Riley Counties, ETC., having TO-
gether two Councilmen; and, here again, it is
only necessary that enough invaders cross the
river and vote in Doniphsn County to overbal-
ance the rest, and thus carry that district And
in similar manner twelve out of the thirteen
members Of the Council, may be carried by the
Missourians without invading any but the border
counties. 1t viii be much more convenient for
them than it was at the election of March, 1855.
They need not visit the interior at all. Il can
all be done on the border. That such was the
intention Of those who made this infamous dis
tricting is clearly apparent.
II. 1t should be especially noted that twenty
two counties, or the whole of Kansas lying south
of the Kaw river, excepting only Douglas and
Jackson Counties, have apportioned to them on
ly three members Of the Council! These coun-
op,b -hoI-
strongholds as Topeka, the whole OF the Neosho
valley, Anderson County, ETC.; indeed the Free
State sentiment, as every one knows, is well
nigh unanimous in this whole southern section
of Kansas. OF course, it would not do to give
them any fair representation. Accordingly, they
are DISTINGUISHED, or what amounts to the same
thing: Some of these counties have over thou
sand votes; and, in fact, according to the census
just completed, nearly one half Of all the nhab-
itants Of Kansas live in this portion which is
summarily cut of with but three members Of
the Council.
We venture to say that similar act of inius-
tice and fraud, II praeticed in any one of the
States, would cause revolution within its Dor
ders in less than two months. But the people of
Kansas are expected to endure everything with
out murmur. Tyranny, if only labelled "Dem-
ocratic," is to be submitted to without word.
The rule of wise monarch would be infinite
ly preferable to this harassing .despotism forced
upon US at the point of the bayonet, and e1ulting
to call itself " Democracy!'
But We turn from the apportionnent for the
Council to that for the House of Representatives.
And here, again, the NEST astonishing evidences
Of fraud meet us.
OF the thirty-nine members of the House,
twenty-nine are assigned, as in the case Of the
Council, to districts iutting up to the Missouri
border. -
LeayenwOrth County has 8; Atchison 3; Don
iphan 6;-each of these is border sounty.-I
Douglas is again joined TO johnson border
county; and the two, forming single district
have eight members Some seventeen interior
counties are associated with Bourbon and MCGEE
border eOunties-and have three members.
Linn, a border county, has two; Lykins, another
border county, has also two. Thus, as We have
before said, twenty-nine out Of the thirty-nins
members are appOrtioned 50 as to be convenient
ly accessible to fraudulent votes along the Mis-
sour border. No man can doubt that such was
the deliberate intention Of those thus dissricting
the Territory.
But in the Tenth Representative District,