The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1858-12-16

and House Of Representatives.
When we compare the condition of
the country at the present day with what
il was one year ago, at the meeting Of
Congress- we have much reason for graf
itude to that Almighty Providence
which has never failed to interpose for
our relief at the most critical periods
Of our history. One year ago the sec
tional strife between the North and the
South on the dangerous subject of slave
ry, had again become so intense as to
threaten the peace and perpetuity of the
confederacy. The application for the
admission of Kansas as a State into the
Union, fostored this unhappy agitation
and brought the whole subject once more
before Congress. II was the desire Of
every patriot that such measures Of leg
islation might be adopted, as would re-
move the excitement from the States,
and cOnfne it to the Territory where it
logihmately belonged. Much has been
done, I am happy to say, towards the
accomplishment of this object during
the last session of Congress
SLAVERY THE LAW OF THE TERRITORIES.
The Supreme Court of the United
States had previously decided that all
American citizens have an equal right
TO take into the Territories whatever is
held as property under the laws of any
of the States, and to hold such property
there under the guardianship Of the Fed
ernl Constitution, so long as the terrific
al condition shall remain.
This is now a well established posi-
ton, and the proceedings Of the last
session were alone wanting to give it
practical effect The principle has been
recognized, in some form or other, by
an almost unanimous vote of both
houes of Congress, that a Territory has
right to come into the Union either
as a free or a slave State, according to
the will of a majority Of its people
The just equality of all the States has
thus been vindicatcd, and a fruitful
source of dangerous dissension among
them has been removed.
Whilst such has been the beneficial
tendency of your legislative proceedings
outside of Kansas, their influence has
nowhere been so happy as within that
Territory itself Left to manage and
control its own affairs in its own way,
without the pressure of external in
fuence, the revolutionary Topeka Or
ganizotion and all resistance to the Ter
ritorial Government established by Con-
gress, have been finally abandoned As
a natural consequence that fine Terrific
ry now appears to be tranquil and pros
porous, and is attracting increasing thou
sands of immigrants to make it their
happy home.
READS KANSAS A LECTURE.
The past unfortunate experience Of
Kansas has enforced the lesson so often
already taught, that resistance to lawful
authority, under our form of govern
ment, cannot fail in the end to prove
disastrous to its authors. Had the peo-
pie of the Territory yielded obedience
to the laws enacted by their Legislature,
it would at the present moment have
contained a large additional population
Of industrious and enterprising citizens,
who have been deferred from entering
its borders by the existence of civil
strife and organized rebellion.
1t was the resistance to rightful au-
thOrity and the persevering attempts to
establish a revolutionary government
under the Topeka Constitution, which
caused the people of Kansas to commit
the grave error of refusing to vote for
delegates to the Convention to frame a
Constitution, under a law not denied to
be fair and just in its provisions
This refusal to vote has been the pro-
life source of all the evils which have
followed In their hostility to the Ter
ritorial government, they disregarded
the principle absolutely essential to
the working of our form Of government,
that a majority of those who vote
not the majority Of those who may re.
main at home, from whatever cause
must decide the result of the election
For this reason, seeking to take advan-
tage Of their own error, they denied the
authority of the Convention thus elect
ed TO frame a Constitution.
The Convention, Notwithstanding
proceeded TO adopt a Constitution, un-
exceptionable in its general features
and providing for the submission of the
slavery question to a vote of the people
which, in my opinion, they were bound
TO do, under tho Kansas and Nebraska
act, This was the all-important quos.
tion which had alone convulsed the
Territory; and yet the opponents Of the
lawful government, persisting in their
first error, refrained from exercising
their right to vote, and preferred that
slavery should continue, rather than
surrender their revolutionary Topeka Or
ganization
A wiser and better spirit seemed to
prevail before the first Monday of Jan
uary last, when an election was held uu-
der the Constitution. A majority of the
people then voted for the Governor and
other State officers, for a member Of
Congress and members Of the State
Legislature This election was warmly
contested by the two political parties in
Kansas, and a greater vote was polled
than at any previous election. A large
majority Of tho members Of the Legis-
lature elect belonged to that party which
had previously refused to vote. The
Anti-Slayery party were thus placed in
the ascendant, and the political power of
the State was In their own hands Had