The Washington union., 1858-02-05
From tho New York Times
THE LEcoMPToN CONSTITUTION

The attempt of the administration to secure the admis
sion of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution is not
without very strong and plausible motive. The
President desires to end the Kansas controversy The
affairs of this Territory have occupied too large share
Of the public attention and he sezes with the eagerness
of disgust upon the earliest opportunity to remove the
Kansas question from the field of national politics by
drawing around it the high walls of State organization
When Kansas enters the Union, her interests and
her political contests her rghss and her WRONGS her
stituton and her laws to be national affairs and
become matters of purely local concern CoIgfess and
the Executive to be responsible for Kansas Her
wounds longer aiict the body polite and claim
surgery from the federal head.
Mr. Buchanan has strong personal reasons for eagerly
desiring such cosnnation His official and political
prosperity depend upon II Kansas the focl which
his predecessor split and II lies full and high In his
political channel Tie Sout and the North demand of
him opposite and hostile action In regard to it, He
not satisfy both and long as the subject remains
open and requires action at his hands, long he
tain to offend section the other 1t Is perfectly
natural therefore, that he should desire to Danish It from
the political field, and that he should seize upon the first
opportunity that chance may offer to place Kansas in the
condition of sovereign State and Thus get it off his
hands altogether.
But beyond this personal and party motive the condi
ton and necessities of the country second this earnest
wish of the President The people at large sympathize
with IT, The great mass of the people, in all sections,
would gladly the Kansas question disappear from the
field of national politics They sick of the whole
subject They are iisgusted with the long series OF
wrong, of violence of perfdy, OF anatics, and reck
less folly which constitutes history for the last three
years They have it used long for party ends,
that they have to look upon the whole trouble
the result of party schemes, the deliberate work of
designing men, and have ceased to feel any special inter
est in it's incidents any marked in its issue.
The extreme factions alone interested in prolongng
the contest The natcal abolioniss and the fanatical
disunonsts both hope that strife may grow out of it,
which will involve the Territory arid the whole country
in civil war, and thus bring about their common object,
the dissolution of the federal Union Active leaders OF
he republican party also in the proongation of the
issues to which this question has given se the
securing for the North in 1860 absolute ascendency
the federal government But the of the people dc
| not sympathize with these motives They would gadly
the whole thing end, and would endorse and approve
any measure, not absolutely inconsistent with justice and
the principles of the republican democracy which would
Danish the Kansas question forever from the halls o
Congress.
| Mr. Buchanan relies upon this popular sentiment to
sustain him in forcing upon Congress the adoption of the
Lecompton constitution He thinks that when the deed
! Is done-whsn Kansas has once become STATE matter
under what circumstances or with what constitution, the
whole contest will be ended the question will disappear
from Congress, and the people will gladly turn their at
! tention to other topics.