Daily Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1857-1858, 1857-07-14
From the Richmond Examiner. DsOcra Ju.e SO, 1851
he Kansas Experiment, a Failure and
Humbugs

N. that Z never |
Behold in the condition of Kansas the results of
one grevious error committed at the start Her
history is but the history of one great political
and its lamentable consequences. We do not refer
to the appointment of Reeder, as the first Cover
nor-ofa Northern man to rule over new terri
tory growing up beside Southern State. That has
been the Had of woes enough indeed, but of woes
of minor rank.
Nor do we impeach the great principle of popu-
lar sovereignty in the territories, egitmateiy ap-
piled and nationally instituted. we ailude to the
monstrous folly that has been committed of invest
inc the actual government of a great territory,
larger than Virginia. large all New England, the
vpFy garden spot and territorial centre of vast
republic in q handful of Adventures spectators
and vagabonds Variously resident from an hour to
year. with majority oil whom aDo'hers nan
dollar would not be safe, much less the august at
tributes of political sovereignty. Our people de-
pIore with elevated sef-compacency the disorders |
and commissions viii have made the popular gov
eminent of Central and Southern America re-
proach to the name of REPUBLIC; uut We consider |
not that in our vain effort to erect sovereign re-
publcs in our portion of the continent, from SIM
liar materials of our own race, we have brought
more grievous discredit upon our own experiment
of self-government Popular institutions must
soon become a by-word and scandal over the face
of the earth if we continue deal out the royal
orerogatves of political sovereignty to the rrepon
sble rabble with the prodigaity and indiscrimina-
ton that have marked conduct through the
present decade.
The obvious principles of policy which should
govern in the education of territory and its erec-
ton into State, land they were the principles OBJ
served in the early period OF the conederacy.) are
two. / The territory should remain, up to the
hour of its admission into the Union as State, in
the condition of absolute warGship aud subordna-
ton to Congress in order to which it is requisite
that the whole territorial organization, Executive,
Judicial Legislative, should be derived directly
from the federal fountain of authority; that Legis
laton for the territory should proceed from Con-
gress all subjects but those of police and probate;
and that legislation on these local subjects should
be entrusted not to territorial Legislature, elect
ed by territorial voters but according to the early
prs ctice, to a legislative Council composed of
Governor and of Judges appointed by Federal
Executive. The whole theory of the early forms
of government for the territories was, that the
emigrants into them were too new, transient and
unsettled, and too deeply engrossed in the extra
ordinary labor of planting their individual fortunes
in their abode, to afford to spare the time
quisite for the government of the State; not to
mention the loose organization of society and the
utter impossibility of making judicous selection
of public servants, from a horde of Heterogeneous
strangers and adventurers. The theory was, that
no stable government could be erected before So
ciety had been planted and had taken root in the
soil before the institution of the Family had had
time to spread out it's branches and by thousand
matrimonial and social embraces and ntertwinings
| formed community of consistent fabric end com
| mon purpose. To expect a popular government to
flourish before the Family founded or the first
elements of fixed Society were visible, seemed to
the early statesmen of our confederacy idle and
| vain as to expect forest tree to grow Suspended
| in mid air without roots in the soil; or to expect
| boy not arrived in his teens to be endowed with
! all the attributes of matured man, such in
our modern day ascribed to the precOcI0us sClons
| of Young America.
9 The other measure of policy which our early
" statesmen observed towards the territories, was,
to discourage a change from the territorial cond-
ton to that of the sovereign State until the popu-
! atiOn had arrived a number proportiouate to the
! dignity of a commonweath-bada Appropriated, for
| instance, the constituency represented by each
member of the popular branch of Congress. The
effect of this conservative policy, in securing tran
| guilty to the territorial population, and shielding
| them from the arts and practices of demagogues,
! aspiring to new Scholarships and the offices and
honors of a precocOus State, readily be imagn-
ed and can be realized with more lively apprecia
ton if we contrast the territorial history of any o.
the early territories Ohio for instance, with that o.
| Kansas
What, but the scenes we have witnessed in Kan
| sas might have been expected from the new poll
cy of entrusting nearly all the high func tions o
] government for immense and beautiful country
with the loose, migratory rabble of squatters spec
| ulators and adventures, contemplate in numbe
violent in character, who occupy that il-starreC
| territory
adopted to refer the determination of the domestic
ms ttutions of the States to the people of th
territories in organizing their State governments
but we bave abused, outraged and prostituted the
principle, by allowing in our latter day, the specu
| lating rowdy rabble in the territories to conduc
popular governments of their own during the Who'll,
| infancy of these communities, to emerge into tn
condition of States before society is half matured
aud thus lash themselves into such pitch of psrti
san excitement during their premature exercise o
IL,
about to frame their organic institutions, of acn
with the dispassionate elaboration and judgmeu
essential to the work.
We of the South are cutting high fantastic caper
over the speeches of WALKER, ascribing to him tn
results of radical errors committed by Congress il
the beginning, and making him the scape-goat c
sins in which the whole nation are implicated, @
which he is only the expression and embodiment
What is the state of the case in Kansas? BefOr
yet the country contained hundred residents, W
set il off bymetes and bounds, erected it into
ritory, ordained Legislature TO be elected by pop
ular vote referring the high functions of sovereign
~ to its prospective inhabitants, and turned owe
to their hands the sectional question which, NOR
than all others, convulsed the Union. Emigrant
went there indeed to settle, but the two sections
the Union sent their volunteers there to fight on il
soil the battle of the sections For time the prox
unity of Missouri gave US the odds and ouL-vo
ed, out-bullied aud out-tought the North. AS lon
as the battle was between hundreds on either side
the ascendency and the victory were with the South
But the South had not emigrants and political sol
diers to spare by the thousands aud the very trout
les of Kansas kept out OF aud far away from it's boz
ders the emigrant stakeholder having a persona
stake ia the institution.
The populous North in time out-vied the Sout
and put larger number OF political soldiers int
the territory than the South was able to oveF-ba
ance. Il did more its emigrating foreigner
who felt 20 interest in politics, poured in also, il
tent upon cheap lands and grand speculs tions. Tn
fever of politics soon began to be outstripped b
the fever of gain and thrift. The zeal of the South
ern champions for slavery, in which they had n
personal stake, cooled off apace. The Sgudts
Sovereigli, Whilom organ OF the "border rutiians,
WAS sold out to abolitionists and the proceeds in
vested in land claims instead of negroes.
noted border rufian leader went into bushes
partnership With the notorious JIM LANE. Til
lion and the lamb lay down together. The politics
soldiers of the North refusing vote in the cleo
lions ordered by tbe laws of Congress- two sets @
candidate presented themselves from what ha
been the ''prc-slaVery" party, but what was no'
more FLY described by the anti-Topeka party
Each of the two sets Of candidates became YER
sweet" upon the free State voters. As the abb
litionsts claimed the Topeka constitution 70 be tn
Law OF the territory, though it had been ratified b
! out l. 100 votes the Democratic party, prOtestiu;
that seventeen hundred residents OF last year shout
not give law to thousands of the residents of thi
year, proposed, as q popular cath, TO submit th
constitution they should frame 10 sill the bona nd
residents. Such are the radical issues OF the car
vass, and such the beteF-skeger serub-race Of par
ties, to which the Inflated tritory Is given oVei
The South fancies she has party there when sh
has none; and she is looking on At the farce an
1 ali -. uuFa