Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-10-06
lQlOrtestrr DaiIp Spp.


lowing the precise trail where Coils Titus and
Jones with their posse, tramped their unholy
feet on the 2lst of May, 1856. Mr. Seward
was received at the Eldridge House by mayor
Detzer and Gov. Robinson, in reply to whom
he made what he calls his "Kansas speech, y
from which the following extracts are taken
Fello,o Citizens "A long cherished desire OF
mine is fulfilled at last, a long deferred duty
is about to be paid-the desire of my heart to
see the people Of Kansas-the duty that | felt
L owed to the people of Kansas, to see them
i'll their own homes and in their own houses.
have visited your chief cities, Leavenworth
and Lawrence-where the army of mercena-
res sent by the slave states battered down the
hotel under an indictment and conviction in a
court of the United States as nuisance, be-
cause il sheltered the freemen who had come
here to see freedom established in Kansas.
And L have looked, also, upon the Constitution
Hall, in Topeka, where the army of the United
States, for the first time in the his tory of our
nation, dispersed lawful and peaceable as
sembly of citizens of the United States con-
vened to hold counsel upon the best means of
protecting their lives, their property and sacred
honor. You, people of Kansas, whom have
not been able to see in our homes, have come
up here to greet me, from the valleys of the
Kansas, the Big Blue, and the Neosho, and
from all your pralries and valleys.
seem not to have journeyed hither, but to
have tioated across the seattle prairie sea-
under bright autumnal skies, waited by genial
breezes into the free heavens "where | would
be-" am not sorry that my visit has occur
at this particular time, SO sad in its influence,
when nature, who sends its rain npon the I'M
just as well as the just, has for a year with
NUu re uaOial bo, tron, al u,
sas. 1t is well to see ones friends in the thick.
ness and sadness, as well as in the hour of Joy
have beheld the scenes of your former
conflicts l have also looked upon that beauti-
tul eminence on the banks of the Kansas river,
where Lecompton sits lonely widow, (cheers
and laughter, desolate and mourning her am
bilious but unfinished structures showing how
high is the ambition Of slavery, and their desc
lation showing how easy, after all, is its down.
fall, would have seen more of Kansas, if |
had not been interrupted and impeded in my
course hither by the hospitality and kindness
of the people, which | could not turn aside.
L have been excessively retentive at Leav-
enworth and Topeka, refusing to open my lips,
unless my jaws were pried open, because l do
not like to do things by piecemeal, l desire
To speak openly to you, i'll the broad daylight,
In the hearing of the women as well as men of
Kansas; and here, where have renewed the
memories of the contest waged upon this soil,
while L revolt at the implements with which
that contest was waged by the aggressors I'M
der the plea Of popular sovereignty, which left
the people perfectly free to do just as they
pleased, subject to the constitution of the Uni
ted States, which they were left perfectly free
to interpret as they pleased, while the authori-
ties at Washington have never been able to
interpret it to their own satisfaction or that OF
the American people.
When l look at field after field, and cabin at
ter cabin, and church after church, and school
house after school house, where but six years
ago was the unbroken land of savages, | am
prepared here-not expecting to escape being
heard on the Pacific as we'll as the Atlantic
coast-I am prepared to declare, and do de.
clare you people Of Kansas, the most inteli-
gent, and the bravest and most virtuous PEG
pie, which can take the banner of human free
dom when it is trailed in the dust, by the gov
eminent of its choice, and can and will lit it
alott and protect it, and bear it to succe. and
hOnor-and that without bloodshed and VIC
lence.
People of Kansas you are at once the
youngest, the newest peOple-the newest state
as well as the youngest of all the thirty four
American states; you are the poorest and least
favored with political power-for you are
nearly distranchised-and yet you are the
most inf1exible, and the most constant. The
two richest states in the Union are Massachu-
sets and New York. though they are so mere
ly because they are the freest, the wisest, and
the most liberty loving states of the Union.
l apprehend that you scarcely understand,
yourselves, the Importance of the position
you hold in this republic. You will per-
haps be surprised, when l tell you that the
secret of all the interest l have felt in you has
been merely this: that you occupy a pivotal
position i'll the republic Of the United States,
with regard to slavery and freedom. There
is no contest, no difference on this subject,
along the line of the northeastern states, tor
they are all in favor OF freedom; there is no
difference on the line of the southern states,
for they are all i'll favor of slavery. But there
is an eternal strife between freedom and slave
ry, for the establishment OF freedom or slavery
in all the rest Of the United States, that is, all
the United States reaching from the Missouri
to the Pacific. If freedom was to triumph,
there was no point where she could expect to
meet the enemy, except at the very place she
has met there. And if you had been false,
Slavery would have swept along through the
Indian Territory, New Mexico, and the whole
of the country, including the Rocky Noun
tains to the Pacific ocean.
California was impertectly secured to free
dom, and with a compromise. You opened a
new campaign here, and crowned it with
complete victory. Henceforth the battle is
ended henccforth the emigrant from the east
ern states, from Germany and Ireland the free
laborer, in short, from every land on the earth,
when he reaches t Missouri river can safely
pursue his onward path, and under the banner
OF freedom reach the foot of the Rocky Noun
tains and there the hosts of freemen from the
western coast will unite and join him under
the same banner. And everywhere, except on
the Missouri, is a land of freedom. Missouri
stands an island of slavery in the midst of a
broad ocean of liberty. You occupy not only
the pivotal position, but it was your fortune to
attempt this enterprise i'll behalf of freedom at
a critical period of mankind. Slavery was
just then 200 years in the United States. In
the year l776 our fathers gave battle to slave
ry they declared war against it, and pledged
their lives and sacred honor III the service
against it. Practically it was to be destroyed
peaceably, under the constitution OF the Unit
ed States. These good men believed it would
reach its end long before this PERIOD but the
people became demoraliZed. The war went
back, back, BACK, until 1854, when all guaran-
tees of freedom, in every part of the United
States, were abandoned and Kansas, that had
for forty years been perfectly free from TIE
footsteps of the slave, was pronounced by the
highest power OF the government as much a
slave state as South Carolina. The flag of the
United States was made the harbinger, not OF
freedom, but of human bondage.
IL was at this crisis that the people of Kan
sas appeared on the stage, revled, despised
and hated, and lifted the banner of liberty on
high, and bore it manfully forward. defied al
force, and yet counteracted penceably all tht
efforts made to subdue them In three wear,
they not only secured freedom in Kansas. bu
in all the territory Of the United States.
Freedom made Kansas as free as Massachu
sets, and made the federal government, OF
mud nllIr ilAl. AL az AInr.,I, '.