The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-05-31

!
| iaI view of the act, we still find moth
i ing in it which can reflect credit on
/ those who were responsible for It's pas
sage. The act involved a breach OF
faith so palpable that its benehciar1es
| and supporters were embarrassed in It's
! defense, while it's opponents, the anti
1 slavery men of the north, were rous-
| ed to an Indignation OF WhlIe neat d.
| this deliberate breaking of q compro-
| mise which for 80 years had been
thought to be as sacred as the provis-
i ions of the Constitution itself The de-
/ claratiOn of the bill opened every foot
OF unorganized territory in the United
| States to the possibility of having i'm
/ posed upon it the institution of human
| slavery, and it remitted the decision OF
| the question to the uncertain, untutor-
| ed floating vote of a shifting pioneer
people forming the population of ter
ritOry not yet Incorporated into a state.
| 1t transferred the decision from the
| congress of the United States, an in
| telligent and dignified legislature, to
/ an unOrganized, disOrganized body OF
men among whom mob violence was
! certain to exist, subject to all sorts of
| improper influence and capable of un-
| scrupulous manipulation. If this be
event? Why is there gathered here so
much of the intelligence and patriot
| ism of the great state of Kansas?
| When we meet to celebrate the Fourth
4 the Declaration of Independence and
| the courage and high-mindedness of
our ancestors that led them to strike
4 off the bond of union with England,
/ and make a nation for themselves
/ When we celebrate the adoption of the
Constitution it is because we regard
| that as the greatest single instrument
/ ever struck off by the mind OF man
/ for the government Of freemen, with
/ the checks and restrictions necessary
/ to the enjoyment by them OF proper
/ political control and the freest civil lib
erty. When we celebrate Appomattox
Day or the birthdays of Washington or
! Lincoln or Grant, we rejoice for what
happened on the day we celebrate. Here
| the case is different. We rejoice today
1 in the fact that the bill which was
| enacted into law 50 years ago instead
| of accomplishing the purpose of those
/ who voted for it, marks the beginning
of the end of a controversy which elm
| mated from our social system the can
Ger of human slavery, and permits US
as citizens of the United States to look
| the world in the face when we proclaim
our natiOrI5I love of freedom and civil
liberty. The Kansas -Nebraka bill was
4 the last great step of the slave power
| before actual secession, which showed
to doubtful and hesitating north the
| political extremity to which the 1nStI-
tuition of slavery could bring its sup
porters; and it aroused the north to a
state of virtuous excitement which
three dacades of abolition propaganda
| had failed to stir.
The Slave Question.
! The first hundred years of the inde-
pendence of the United States embrace
but little more than the history of the
rise and fall of the slave power in this
| country. That history teaches US that
we human beings are so much the
creatures of circumstance that we
should be very charitable in condemn
ing those of our fellows who have been
He'd away from the principles Of right
and justice into a condition of mind
where a distinct vision of those princi-
! pies is blurred by self interest. Origi-
nally the slaves were owned in all the
states of the union; but they disap-
/ peared from those states in which slave
ownership was not profitable, and they
/ increased in those states in which it
was profitable.
Had the slaves been profitable in New
/ England and not in South Carolina, is
it too violent a presumption that the
| geography of the slavery question
might have been reversed? Until Eli
Whitney invented the coffin gin, it was
/ by no means an impracticable and i'm
possible effort on the part of Jefferson
and other leading statesmen of Virgin
/ it to bring about an abolition OF slave
ry; but the increase of the planting
of cotton and its sale enriched the
| southern states, and it was believed
that the cotton crop depended upon the
use of slave labor, emancipation and
abolition in the southern states became
a political impossibility.
In 1884 Jefferson almost secured the
passage of an ordinance through the
| continental congress which would have
excluded slavery from Alabama, Mis-
| SiSsippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and all
! the territory northwest of the Ohio riv-
| er. BY only two votes out of 20 was
this ordinance lost. In 1887, through
the instrumentality of General Rufus
Putnam, and Nathan Dane, and not
without the influence of Jefferson, the
I ordinance of 1887 was passed, which ex-
cluded slavery from the then north
western territory, made up of the fu-
ture states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
| Michigan and Wisconsin. When the
/ Constitution came to be adopted the
anti-slavery party in the south was not
sufficiently strong to prevent the ne
cessity for compromise upon the slav-
cry question, and the Constitution eX-
pressly recognized property in human
beings by making provision for rendi-
tion of such property from one state to
another; and it also expressly recog-
nized the existence of the slave trade
and its legality until 1903.
After 1S00 both Jefferson and Madi-
son seem to have acquiesced in the
spread of slavery in the new states. Be
tween 1900 and 1920 a series of com
promises was effected by which from
time to time there We're admitted to
the Union at the same time a slave
state and a. free state. In 1920 the
question arose of the admission of Mis-
had become strongly developed in the
south, and a heated controversy arose
because the supporters of the slavery
system deemed its extension into Mis-
souri, of the utmost Importance. Ac-
cordingly the Missouri compromise was
enacted, which permitted slavery in
the state of Missouri, but forbade its
existence in all other portions of the
Louisiana Purchase north of the south
boundary of Missouri that is-36 de-
grees and 80 minutes latitude.
End of Compromise.
This compromise which continued in
full force and effect for thfrty-four
years would have been quite sufficient
to meet all eXigencies had it not been
for the Mexican war, a war undertaken