The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1868-02-21
"LEcoMpToN" REVIVED.


"LEcoMPToN' REVIVED.
The 80 called republican party sprang
from the seed planted in 1854 in the terrific
ry of Kansas. In view of the political events,
Il il desirable to revert, briefly, to the history
of the plant; to recall the manner in which
it terminated and grew.
The Kansas N ebraska bill was an act to
enable the people in those territories to frame
and organize state governments. Under that
act, the most fierce and violent political
struggle took place in Kansas which has
ever occurred in this country, previous to
the recent civil war. The act affirmed to
the people the right to fashion their organic
law in accordance with their own wishes,
freely and without restraint from any pre-
existing law of congress, and subject only to
the federal constitution. The contest was
thus opened between the advocates of slav-
cry on one side and the opponents of slavery
on the other. The leaders on either side
sought to triumph through the agency Of
emigration. New England by her emigra.
ton societies, poured upon the plains of
Kansas thousands of men, bred in the bit
terest hostility to the peculiar institution"
and carrying with them all the fervor of re-
ligious fanaticism in their demand for free
state" Thus it was soon found that the free
state men in Kansas greatly outnumbered
their opponents. The latter had no hope of
carrying their ends but by politial trickery.
The packed convention of Lecompton was
| the beginning of the political trickery that
was intended to defeat the popular will and
| the scheme devised in that convention tc
bring in Kansas as state under a constitu-
ton which had not been submitted to the
1 .x,Na III L.
its consumma,ion. Congress refused to ad.
because the people of Kansas had been de-
MED the opportunity to pass upon it. The
entire republican vote in congress at that
time was cast against the admission, for that
reason. The whole republican party at tina,
time stood arrayed against 1t, on the same
ground.
The document went back to Kansas, and
was submitted, after fashion, to the popu.
lar vote. BY dint of stuting ballotboIes
with the names of pretended voters taken
from a Cincinnati directory, the result was
declared to be in its favor. But congress,
and the republican party, again refused to
admit Kansas with the Lecompton constitu-
ton, on the ground that the election lad
been carried by unfair means, and that, in
truth, the popular voice in Kansas was
against that constitution.
1t is important that the history { that
political contest should be Remembered a.
this juncture. 1t is important that a. men
who have acted, from conscientious mptives,
with the dominant political party, sholld re-
vive their recollection of the attitude which
their party then assumed.
For the Lecompton question is abut to
he revived. 1t was brought before The L nit
ed States senate on Wednesday, BY Mr. Sher-
man, of Ohio, in bill TO recognize ne va
hdity of the blacks tan thing, called q
| constitution, In Alabama. Ii is nc pre-
] tended, as the 'border ruffians' prended
in the case of Kansas, that the Oakland
tan thing called a constitution has received
the popular approval in Alabama. lis not
pretended, even, that it has been apprCved by
a majority of the so-called loyal" nhabi
tants of Alabama Ii is known and osnced-
ed that it has not been. 1t is KNOW and
conceded that an enormous ma ority of the
people of Alabama are against it; aid tina,
q majority of the registered voters an, upon
every presumption Of logic and law, against
it. Senator Shermans bill is predicted onl!
on the assumption that the thing, allied q
constitution, "has been ratified by majority
of the qualified persons roting on ae ques-
tion." The very language employe By the
, senator is declaration that it has ut beer
ratified at all. 1t has been voted OF only
by majority ofthe minority ofnegoes thai
, voted at all which, as congress authe rad
ical party held in the case Of Leompton
was no ratification.
, The bill of Senator Sherman is propo
sition that the party which opposed and de
. feated the "Lecompton infamyr sail nov
. adopt that infamy in its political cred; tina
6 the thing, called a constitution, cCnocted by
a packed convention of ignorance ad bru
tally at Montgomery. and repudiatd by q
, majority Of "loyal' inhabitants, and by more
than three fourths of all the inhab ants o
Alabama, shall be recognized as vaid; anC
that Alabama shall be admitted ner II By
! the party which was brought fifth, ant
, nourished, and elevated to stren,th anc
power upon the very violence of It's outcriei
against the preparation of like iFiamy. at
> tempted by faction of desperate YJhticianl
twelve years ago!
Human records furnish no more remark
able instance of history repeating self. Blu
it may be, in the inscrutable plan If Provi
denee, proper that the dynasty Of Jacobin
ism in America should fall By the SAM
, crime which gave il rise that the politician
who vaulted to power, upon the cy of pop
ular freedom and right, should sinS into his
torical infamy for themselves perpetratinI
|. the identical crimes they pretended to de
B nounce and abhor.-C Chicago Tines l4th.