The Kanzas news., 1858-03-27
EMPORIA, KANZAs, MARCH 81. 1858.

about seeking among political parties the
charity of adoption, under the name OF
squatter sovereignty. It was now brought
to the font, and baptized with the more at
tractive appeIlation of popular sovereignty
1t was idle for time to say that, under the
Missouri prohibition, freemen in the Terri
tory had all the rights which freemen could
deslre-perfect freedom to do Eerything but
establish slavery. Popular sovereignty of
tered the indulgence of a taste of the fruit
OF the tree of knowledge of evil as we'll as
OF good--a more perfect freedom. Inso-
much as the proposition seemed to come from
free State, the slave States could not resist
Its seductions, although sagacious men saw
that they were delusive. Consequently, a
small and Intellectual stream of slave labor
was at once forced into Kanzas, engineered
by large number of politicians, advocates
at once of slavery and the Federal admins
tration, who proceeded with great haste to
prepare the means so to carry the first cleo
tions as to obtain the laws necessary for the
protection of slavery. 1t is one thing, how
ever, to expunge statutes from a national
code, and quite another to subvert nation
al institution, even though it be only a
monument of freedom located in the desert.
Nebraska was resigned to free labor without
struggle, and Kanzas became theater of
the first actual national conflict between
slayeholding and free labor immigrants, met
face to face, to organize, through the ma
chinery of republican action, civil com
munity.
The parties differed as widely in their
appointments, conduct and bearing, as their
nPIDPInlQS Tho froo lob 1,f Il
Territory with money, horses, cattle, i'm
plements and engines, with energies con-
centrated by associations and strengthened
by the recognition of some of the States
They marked out farms, and sites for mills,
towns and cities, and proceeded at once to
build, to plow and to sow. They proposed
to debate, to discuss, to organize peacefully,
and to vote, and to abide the canvass. The
slave-labor party entered the Territory ir-
regularly, staked out possessions, marked
them, and then, in most instances, with
drew to the States from which they had
come, to sell their new acquisitions, or
to return and resume them, as circum-
stances should render one course or the
other expedient. They left armed men in
the Territory to watch and guard, and to
summon external aid, either to vote or to
fight, as should be found necessary. They
were fortified by the favor of the admins
tration, and assumed to act with its author
ity. Intolerant of debate, and defiant, they
hurried on the elections which were to be
so perverted, that an usurpation should be
established They rang out their summons
when the appointed time came, and armed
bands of partisans, from States near and
remote, invaded and entered the Territory,
with banners, ammunition, provisions and
forage, and encamped around the polls.-
They seized the ballot-boxes, replaced the
judges of elections with partisans of their
own, drove away their opponents, filled the
boxes with as many votes as the exigencies
demanded, and, leaving the results to be re-
turned by reliable hands, they marched back
again to their distant homes, to celebrate
the conquest, and exult in the prospect of
the establishment of slavery upon the soil
so long consecrated to freedom. Thus. in
a single day, they become parents of State
without affection for it, and childless again
without bereavement. In this first hour of
trial, the new system of popular sovereignty
signally failed-failed because it is impossi-
BILE to organize, by one single act, in one
day, community perfectly free, perfectly
sovereign and perfectly constituted, out of
elements unassimilated, unarranged, and
uncomposed. Free labor rightfully won
the day. Slave labor wrested the victory
to itself by fraud and violence. Instead of
free republican government in the Terri
tory, such as popular sovereignty had prom
ised, there was then and thenceforth hate
full usurpation. This usurpation proceeded
without delay and without compunction to
disfranchise the people. 1t transferred the
slave code of Missouri to Kanzas, without
stopping in all cases to substitute the name
of the new Territory for that of the old
State. 1t practically suspended popular
elections for three years, the usurping Leg
islature assigning that term for Its own
members, while it committed all subordi-
nate trusts to agents appointed by itself. 1t
barred the courts and the juries to its ad-
versaries by test oaths, and made it a crime
to think what one pleased, and to write and
print what one thought. 1t borrowed all
the enginery of tyranny, but the torture,
from the practice of the Stuarts. The party
of free labor appealed to the Governor
(Reeder) to correct the false election returns
He intervened but Intellectually, and yet
even for that intervention was denounced by
the administration organs, and, after long
and unacceptable explanations, he was re-
moved from Office by the President. The
new Governor (Shannon) sustained for a
while the usurpation, but failed to effect the
subiugation of the people, although he or
ganized as militia an armed partisan band
of adventures who had intruded themselves
into the Territory to force slavery upon the
people. With the active cooperation OF
this band, the party of slave labor disarned
the free State emigrsnts, who had now
learned the necessity of being prepared for
self defence. on the borders of the Terrific
~, and on the distant roads and rivers which
led into it. They destroyed bridge that
free labor men used in their way to the seat