The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1858-05-14
AFTER THE STORM-HEAVING AND
PITCHING OF THE OCEAN.
[From the New York Hera

oSOHh thO "A'S'
tracied hurricane, the waves still swelling
bounding, rolling and foaming mountains
high, dashing with remorseless fury against
the resounding rocks, or tumbling IN terrific
breakers along the sandy shore? 1t is sub
lime spectacle; but the storm having gone by
the danger is over. And so it is with the
Kansas agitation. After tempest of wind
rain, hail, thunder and lightning, of four years
duration, in which many goodly craft has
gone to the bottom, and from which not O
single vessel exposed to the pitiless elements
has escaped without damages, more or less
the clouds have broken away, the sun shines
out again, and
The wind is down, though still the waves run high.
Thus the howling, rayng and shrieking oi
| the opposition journals over the Kansas set
tlement effected by Congress will pass for
nothing more than the pitching and tossing
of the angry waves of the sea, after the tenn
| pest which has lashed them into fury has
passed away. Yet little while, and this
Kansas agitation will thus subside like the
roaring ocean into the calm repose of sum
mer morning.
The bill which has been passed by Con-
gress gives the coup de grace to Kansas as the
controlling issue of party politics. OF course
the black republican politicians and journals
will move heaven and earth to influence the
people of Kansas to reject this peace offering,
with the delusive hope of thus reviving this
exhausted sectional quarrel throughout the
country; but we apprehend that they will ut.
terly fail in their calculations. Taking into
the estimate the facts, that with the accep-
tance of the Lecompton constitution Kansas
comes into the Union at once as State; that
she thus secures at once three millions and a
half of acres of the public domain; and that
the free State party, with a two-thirds ma
jorty in the organic State Legislature, will
thus have the power at once to send two free
State Senators to Congress, and to provide
forthwith for new consttution-we 90 not
believe that the Lecompton constitution will
be rejected We do not believe that the peo-
pie of Kansas will cast away the solid sub
stance for the mere shadow of "popular sove.
reignty."
But suppose that they do reject this land
ordinance of Congress, and that thus, with
the rejection of the Lecompton, they accept
the alternative of providing a new constitu-
ton, does anybody suppose that either Con-
gress or the administration will be bound by
the restrictions oftbe present law, should it be
found expedient to Disregard thepl The act
of the present sessiourequiring $4,000 popu-
lation as "the condition precedent" to the
formation of a new constitution, may even at
the next session be repealed; and we hazard
little in saying that it will be repealed should
Lecompton be rejected and new constitn-
tion presented as the instrument of the peo-
pie of Kansas under which they desire nd
mission into the Union. We will not beg
the question by pleading that, even at the
next session, Kansas may have the full ratio
of people required for new constitutions but
we say that, should the administration deem
| it expedient to recommend the admission Of
Kansas under new constitution, with her
existing population, the thing will be done,
We predict, too, that the administration will
deem it sxpedient so to net, should Lecompton
be rejected by decisive popular vote.
Thus, whether the people of Kansas accept
or reject the Lecompton constitution, Kansas,
for all purposes Of political agitation, is done
for. We think they will accept Lecompton,
but their rejection of it will just as concu-
sively settle the whole trouble. Numerous
and violent were the complaints made from
various quarters against the Missouri COM
promise, but it gave pence to the country and
siIenced the sectional agitators for quarter
of a century. So in 1850 the compromises
of that year were met with the most violent
denunciations from Northern and Southern
utras. The fre-eaters of the South at
tempted a sectional revolution against the
admission of California; and in the North
John Van Buren, led off in crusade against
the Fugitive Slave law; and yet by the year
1852 the people, North and South, were so
well satisfied with those peace measures of
Henry Clay that upon that platform they
elected poor Pierce to the Presidency almost
by reclamation, over the greatest living soldier
of the age.
The people of the United States are n
practical people, and when great political
question is settled they drop it, They do
no, care to waste their time in fighting mere
shadows and empty distractions. They will
accept this Kansas compromise, as settle
ment requiring only the final action by the
people of Kansas, yea or nay, to put it at rest
forever. Kansas has occupied the field long
enough, and rev issues connected with our
foreign and domestic policy will now come
into the foreground. Simultaneously the
country has had to bear the pressure of the
slavery excitement, financial revulsion, and
religious revival epidemic, and now we all
need reposc, and we have every reason to eS-
pect il. Kansas is out Of the way; the revul-
sion has done its worst, we ore slowly re-
covering from its disasters, ard our religious
epidemic is rapidly cooling down. So now,
what with the pruning of speculaiols and