Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1860-08-18

hhuSaS, yeJ one general view must not be
omitted. On the assembling of the
XXXIYth Congress, Dec. 1855, two op.
posing claimants for seat as Delerate
from Kansas appeared at the bar of the
House, while Senators and Representa-.
tive from the embryo state Of that name
besieged the halls of both branches. Mr..
Reeder, whom President Pierce had ap.
pointed Governor, had returned accredited
as DELEGATE; aud as Senator also whenever
Kansas should be admitted into the family
of States. He and bis associates brought
tidings Of unprecedented outrage and wrong
of Legislature wrested from the hands
Of the people in whose name and behalf it
was to act constituted by conspiracy, in.
vasion, force, and fraud in the interest of
their deadiest enemes--of all the forms
of republican sway prostitnted to the ends
of subjugation and oppression-of free cti.
zens murdered, families hunted from their
homes by night into the bleak prairie and
compelled thence to look on the devasta-
tion Of all their possessions-of a Federal
Governor removed for sympathizing with
the People rather than their invading op-
pressors-Of Federal power welded to the
uttermOst against the defenseless settlers,
and in favor of the maraudng, desolatiDg
uSurpers and invaders. Never before or
since was there so fragrant aud formidable
a case of vilaiuy and rapne cloaking itself
under the forms of government and law
OF wIcEedness rampant and insoleut--of
robbers and assassins calling on the govern
ment to chastse peacea BILE citizens as rcb-
els and outlaws. OF this gigantic atroci-
ty, this organized crime, there was no more
untiring upholder than Stephen A. Doug
las, then an eager candidate for the pend.
ing Democratic Presidential nomination at
Cincinnati. For six long months, he miss
ed no opportunity TO malign the Free set
tiers, who then as now composed large
majority of the people of Kansas, and to
pettifog. with all the blended ingenuity and
audacity of bis nature, the canse of the
nsurpng, ravagiug Border Ruffians. He
sinned in the face of the clearest light
for not only were the facts plain on the
face of the matter as it unfoded itself from
day to day, but Reeder and Parrott, and
Delany, and Roberts (all lifelong Demo
crats) were at hand, pouring into his ear
the prayers and entreaties of down.tram-
pied, long-suffering people. Yet Stephen
y. Douglas fought them day by day, month
after month-fought them by reports. by
speeches, by votes fought them by scorn-
fully rejecting their prayer to be admit ted
as state, and tins enabled to govern and
defend themseveS-fought them by using
all his influence to keep Gov. Reeder out
Of bis seat as Delegate, and keep the Mis-
souri, usurper, Whitfield, in Thought them
through his servitorS in the House voting
against every effort to institute an official
inquiry into the facts of the case as pre-;
limnary to establishing the right and IN
doing the horrible wrong. Every Douglas
Democrat in the House resisted to the last
The investigation finally carried, and among
the votes recorded against it are those of
VIM. A. Richardson, Mr.. Douglass ablest
and most devoted lieutenant in bis present
struggle, and James C. Allen, now Gas Mr..
Richardson was 10 '56) the Douglas Demo
cratic candidate for Governor of Illinois
And so from first to last-with the single
and honorable exception of the Lecompton
strnggle-Mr. Douglas has fought the bat
ties OF the invaders and oppressors of Kan
saS with unsurpassed devotedness and en-
ergy. He has fought them as one who un
derStood well their and their enemies rela
tive weight with Democratic Convention;
and, even during the late session, when
Kansas presented herself with an unexcep
tionable Free Constitution, SO regularly
framed and so overwhelmingly approved
that not whisper III its disparagement
could be breathed, and when Mr.. Douglass
single vote might have carried that Con-
stitution through the Territorial his own)
Committee, and his voice might perhaps
have procured for it the sanction of the
Senate, as it already had received that Of
the House by an overwhelming majority,
yet no word 10 its behalf issued from his
lips, and they were coldly remanded by
Democracy into Territorial dependence,
though she was invited, urged, bribed to
come in as slave state two years ago.
These be thy gods, Popular Severe gnty y