The Portland daily press., 1885-11-28
SUPPL EN- EN- I.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

American Commonwealth. Kansas. BY
Leveret w. Spring, Professorin University OF
Kansas. Boston: Houghton, Miffiln q 20. !;
Portland: Loring, Short & Harmon'} Flity
years ago Irving thought Kansas would form
a lawless interval between the aboues ol CIV
ilized man like the wastes of the ocean or the
deserts of Arabia. Here" he says may
spring up new and mongrel races, IKE new
formations in geology, the amalgamations OF
the debris and abrasions of former races CIV
ilized and savage, the descendants Of wan
dering hunters and trappers; of fugitiyes
from the Spanish and American frontiers OF
Adventures and desperadoes OF every class
and country, yearly rejected from the bosom
of society into the wilderness Professor
Springs brief historyof the State shows how
poor prophet Irving was, and his MARIA
tive is exceedingly interesting. He exhlo-
its the logic and spirit of the first actual ma
tional conflict between slave holding and free
labor immigrants, rather than attempts an
exhaustive collection of facts He had care
fully examined newspaper files, public docu-
ments, books and manuscripts relating to his
subject, while a large amount of his material
has come from personal intercourse with the
men who helped make the history of Kan
sas. The infamous Kansas-Nebraska legis-
lation arrayed against it, Sumner, Chase and
Seward Other well known men like Samu-
ell Houston, John Bell, Thomas 81. Benton
and Edward Everett were among the dis
senters. But the first named trio, inferior to
none of their associates in ability, and repre-
DOT Of MT
to slavery, passed naturally into leadership.
In Charles Sumner, brilliant scholarly per-
sistent, courageous, impassioned, the fercer
and more extreme phases of anti-slayery-
ism found fitting utterance. Salmon P.
Chase, man of large roundabout intel
lectual mould, came out of Democratic ante
cedents from the influence of which he was
never wholly emancipated. Persuaded that
the Wings would not be reused to take the
field against southern encroachments, he
purposed to recruit the Democratic party for
that purpose. Neither Wings nor Democrats
were prepared to enlist in anti-slavery en-
terprises He then threw himself into the
Free Soil movement with an expectation OF
holding them to the slavery problem by some
balance-of-power tactics. Though, theoreti-
cally, Chase's radicalism did not fall far
below that of Sumner, his cooler and more
practical and judicial temperament gave it
less violent and exasperating expression.
William II. Seward did not rank himself
among abolitionists, though in the debate OF
1850 he pronounced all legislative comprom-
ises radically wrong and essentially vicious,
and enunciated the doctrine of a higher law,
sentiments that would naturally have driven
him into their camp. But a cool, sagacious
conservatism qualified his radicalism, and
held it down to constitutional methods In
bued with unmistakable intuitions of state
manship, he was second to no contemporary
politician in comprehending the present or
in forecast of the future.
The leading traits of ''the people" who
have made Kansas what it is, are seen in
such popular movements as the the Tenn
perance Crusade, the admission of
both sexes to the State University
from the beginning, the service OF
women as county superintendent Of schools
and university regents and professors in the
literary and art circles which exist in many
towns, and the Woman's Social Science Club
which includes Kansas and Western Mis-
souri,.