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QUINDARO CHINDOWAN
A FREE-STATE PAPER
VOL.I QUINDARO, KANZAS, No. 35, February 13, 1858
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J.M. WALDEN..............EDITOR
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ITEM- Good morning, sister housekeepers! It is a Monday morning; one of those bright Monday mornings, that in our Eastern homes used to bring out the piles of soiled linen, the wash-tubs, big kettles, sparkling spring water, and bustling importance of the energetic housekeeper.
And have we not heard gentlemen authors, editors, and husbands abuse this blessed day, as if it were a foretaste of that "judgement to come," when the soiled soul should be arraigned and stand with no such grateful appliances for purification? Indeed we have. But our word for it, the bachelors and Benedicts of a new country, like this, will soon learn to think with becoming respect, of the good old washing days, wehn they had no care but to "put their things into the wash" and got their dickies and socks done up without sweating their own brows "fetching water," or paying ten cents or a "bit" apiece to escape participation in the labor.
And would not our housekeepers, who have been subjected, for a few weeks, to the inconveniences of homes, involving increased needs for washing-duty--be delighted to meet the old time washing-day with its spring at the door, or pump in the wash-room, big arch kettle, washbenches, tubs, pounding barrel, soft-soap and Yankee wash-board, with the nice clothes-line and bars? Ah, yes, sisters, and as we have shared richly in the experience of these changed conditions of Monday's toil; it is in perfect keeping for us to repeat the lesson we have learned, in a few comforting suggestions on the disciplinary elements of washing-day.
But first let us confess, that our present train of thought was suggested by a sermon we heard Sabbath morning, on "the disciplinary elements of Christianity," in which the speaker wisely recognised christian discipline, as the foundation of all human excellence.
Are we irreverent in thus associating divine truths with washing-day duties? For ourself, gentle reader, we have no respect for a religion that worships in High places only. Six sevenths of our time has the all-Father given us, to pursue the avocations that lay the foundations and create the conditions of temporal prosperity. These avocations from the kitchen to the National Cabinet must be presented with grateful reference to God, and a tender consideration for all the human interests involved, or we, as individuals, fail of that christian discipline, without which we can neither worship God, nor properly respect ourselves. We have no respect whatever, for a Christianity, that turns up its sacred nose at a wash-tub, or desecrates the lowly altars of toil to a hard-favored humanity.
Whenever the worker worships through his toil, both himself and his calling are elevated above princes and palaces, that know not God and love not man. One of the most efficient preachers of the Gospel we ever heard, was a plain old washer-woman, an every day christian, whose wash-bench was her desk, and her very pounding-barrel a reproof to all unrighteousness. Her cheerful industry brought sunshine, wherever she came and when any attempt was made to persuade her from her arduous and ungrateful sphere of labor, her unvarying reply was replete with the sustaining power and conscious dignity of a christian life, "be it ever so lonely"--"cleanliness is next to Godliness." The old lady had quarried from the same vein of practical christianity, as Henry Ward Beecher, when he exclaimed, "There is more Gospel in a loaf of bread, than a dry sermon, for the starving poor."
There is true christian wisdom in applying ourselves to the creation and preservation of those temporal conditions of the body, which are most congenial to the christian spirit. Neither grown persons or children are, in the main, as amiable, self-possessed, and accessible to good impressions, when dirt and hunger goad them into conscious discomfort.
Indeed, we have often seen persons in such conditions lose their self-control, and exhibit irritability, and want of consideration for others, who were habitually cheerful, pains-taking, and considerate, in the tidy garb and cleanly surroundings necessary to their cense of confort. But the indulgence of such feelings, is not "enduring as good soldiers;" is, indeed, a criminal poisoning of this springs of human happiness. All these seemingly untoward conditions of life, when necessarily incurred, offer us the noblest compensations, furnishing the happiest occassions for the acquisition of that power of cheerful adaptation to circumstances, which is the fruit of a truly christian discipline, and qualifying us for a higher apppreciation and keeper enjoyment of blessings, when restored. Thus from temporary ills we win permanent good, and learn a lesson of life-long use--that true riches consist not in what we have, but in what we enjoy.
Such, sister Housekeepers, are the truths, that, like Aarons and Hurs, bear up our hands on a washing-day, which brings with it a supply of few of the usual concomitants of that day, except the soiled linen and mud-tracked floors.
POLITENESS
(For the Chindowan)
Politeness, as defined by Webster, is "Ease and gracefulness of manner, combined with attention to the convenience of others." It is not, as too often supposed, something foreign to the mind of man, and engrafted upon it, but it is the legitimate action of certain essential elements of his nature, having its origin in the social feelings and an innate sense of propriety, which no amount of training could inculate; and its exhibition would be far more general but for the inharmonious development resulting from a false system of eduation.
All wish to please, and have some desire to make others happy; therefore it is not strange that we should seek to become polite, but it is strange that instead of cultivating nature, and educating those attributes of the soul in which politeness originates, we should study it as an art, and resort to external rules for its attainment.
Volume upon volume of arbitraty rules for the regulation of our conduct in society has been published, and what has been the result? Art has trampled down nature; the mechanical has taken the place of the spiritual; and fashion superseded politeness. The two are often confounded tho' intrinsically different in their natures and effects.
Politeness is the natural and spontaneous outbirth of the human heart in words and deeds of kindness to all.--Fashion or conventionalism is the shell without the kernel--the body without the spirit of politeness. The former is alike mindful of friends, strangers and enemies; the latter always "waits for an introduction" and the sanction of established usage. Politeness favors no class; rich and poor, high and low, have an equal claim to her attentions, upon the ground of a common humanity. Conventionalism, on the contrary, pays great respect to caste, and never allows herself to be contaminated by contact with "the culgar herd."
Thus, while the former tends to promote equality and unity in interest, by calling forth kind and benevolent emotions and binding individuals together by a common bond of sympathy, the latter favors aristocracy, closes up the natural avenues of the heart, checks the warm interchange of feeling, and alienates man from his brother.
How important, then, that we make a just discrimination between them, and seek to cultivate those qualities of mind and heart which are wellsprings of true politeness, and contribute so much to our own advancement and the happiness of others! Rules, when trusted in, have ever betrayed man into a blind dependence upon outward forms, and robbed him of the spirit; but we know there is one which at all times, in all stages of society, and in the most trivial as well as trying circumstances may be received as the magnet of our lives. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them."
ITEM-We are under obligation to Mr. Putman, agent of Richardson's Express, Jefferson City, for the despatch and care which, if there had not been a mistake in the direction, would have landed our missing Trunk some six weeks since, at Quindaro, instead of Leavenworth. We have it safety now, have "paid charges," and will certainly call on Mr. P. again in like need, from which may a good Providence and Steamboat Porter's save us, in all time to come.
SIGNIFICANT
The Charleston Mercury winds up a most despairing shriek for Slavery and Kanzas, as follows:--"Let us then be up and doing, and if we cannot make her (Kanzas) a slave State, Make her at least Democratic."
SIGNIFICANT
From Mrs. R.S. Nichols' department of the Hunterdon (New Jersey) Gazette, we copy the following description of the unseasonable weather experienced in May, of the present year. There is both truth and poetry in it.
Spring--The season in which plants rise and vegetate; the vernal season.--Dictionary.
We deny it. Spring is a misnomer for that portion of the year that follows close upon the heels of Winter, or more properly, that lies between Summer and Winter. The seasons are all wrong--there is something out of joint; not the rheumatism, however, for that is in joint, so those say who should know, and we are quite willing to take their word for it, when backed by groans and wry faces. Spring, the season when plants rise and vegetate, indeed! If they had written it thus,--Spring, the season when winds rise, and frosts, and colds, and neural-gias vegetate, there would have been some sense as well as truth in it; but plants! nonsense! unless they are oyster plants, we don't believe a word of it. The poets have exhausted their flowery vocabularies in praise of this most perverse and fickle season. They have personified her as a bright and beautiful maiden, dressed in green, and wreathed in garlands, and represent her as something very fair and bewitching indeed; and those poor, miserably beguiled beings, the painters, have followed in the poets' track, and have given to us resplendent pictures, as humbugging as they are lovely, of that same sweet young lady. All we have to say, is, that we never knew anything in life half so unpleasant or uncomfortable as the young woman in question. She is what the fascinating Mantalini would have called a moist, chilling, aggravating body; in short, a most torturing "pure and angelic rattlesnake!"--that's what she is. Leafy spring! That's another one of their fictions. Why the very trees and shrubs are bare as a whiplash, and the poor little hyacinths and crocuses that have ventured to put their noses through the ground, look for all the world as if they had the ague, and that nothing would give them so much pleasure as to be able to shake, which they generally do, and quake too, in these cold and biting winds. Then there are the poor birds, that have been most villainoulsy taken in by these old legends about balmy spring (heaven save the mark!) they must come back a month or two too soon, and wring-our hearts with their piteous little notes as they sit shivering and chirping, and trying to make believe they are happy, on the leafless twigs and branches. It is said they have a language of their own, and we are almost willing to be qualified, that we heard several veteran black birds swearing in round phrases, one frosty morning, last week; at least, if we did not, it was something like it as could be; and christain, as we are, we could hardly find it in our heart to blame them, either. Just think of it. Here we are in May. Good gracious! what monstrous stories have been told about this month. There is not a poet that ever breathed, from Shakespeare down to the smallest fledgling of some prolific poet's corner in a country newspaper, but has thought him or herself called upon to respectively lash themselves into a frenzied state of falsehood in regard to that ungrateful month. The sonnets that have been written to her alone, to say nothing of those devoted to tearful April and to stormy March, would fill several lying volumes, we regret to have it to say. And what, pray, must be the feelings of a warm, enthusiastic soul, that has sat by a cosy library fire, and read these mendacious verses, until he or she has believed them, and ventured forth to find the flowery meadows and turfy glades there spoken of? Yes what, we ask, must be that poor soul's feelings? Suppose you enquire, wehn they enter the house with red noses and racked shoulders, upon their return from Maying!
Bother the poets! Spring is a humbug; there's no such season. Its all a chimera, a falsehood, a dream.
AN OFFICIAL "SELL"
The Chicago Tribune relates a ruse employed by the authorities of that county, to relieve themselves of a surplus of company, on the day designated for the execution of Jackson for murder. The court had issued a supersedeas, by which the execution was postponed; but the crowd only regarded the announcement of this as a sham, to get rid of them. How the thing was finally managed, is thus given:
"During the forenoon numers of persons collected at different hours, in the Court Hours Square from motives of curiousity, but the police managed to disperse them with little difficulty. In the afternoon, however, from one to two o'clock, between two and three thousand persons collected about the Court House, and in the street around the square, and all the efforts of the police, short of a resort to actual force which was not deemed advisable, failed to disperse them. Under the circumstances a ruse what resorted to by the officers to get rid of the troublesome populace, which succeeded admirably. The large covered wagon, drawn by a stout horse, used for the purpose of conveying paupers to the county farms, was brought close to the jail enterance, and guarded by a strong force of policemen. Of course the crowd gave this proceeding their immediate and undivided attention. Everybody was on tip-toe to get a glimpse of the prisoner, and every position from which the movement of the officers could be overlook was instantly occupied. In a few moments, the figure of a man, eveloped in a large cloak, with a slouched hat on, emerged from the jail, surrounded by a half a dozen deputy sheriffs. "Here he is"--"where?"--"Why there"--"that's him"--and a dozen similar expressions came from five hundred pair of lips at once. The man in a cloak, who was no other tan a deputy sheriff, was placed in the wagon, and two or three officers got in with him, and the procession started, followed by the crowd which exhibited a determination to be "in at the death," worthy a company of fox hunters.
By dint of threats, expostulations, and not a few blows, the crowd was kept back from the wagon, and it moved slowly up Randolph street. The street was filled with people, who splashed through mud and water, utterly regardless of all decency, and making as much noise as they conveniently could. After the wagon crossed the bridge, the driver made a bold push, and, aided by the policemen, got in advance of the main body of the people, and turning up canal street, commenced putting his animal through. The crowd followed as fast as they could, tumbling into ditches and shouting like wild men. After turning up Kinzie St., and going nearly a half a mile on the Milwaukee plank road, the driver managed to dodge the crowd by going through an alley, and taking a back street to town.
After searching for the wagon awhile, the crowd returned to their homes, and thus ended the farce."
CUCUMBER BUGS
Dr. Heckerman, of Tiffin, writes: Most gardeners are very much annoyed by these bugs, which prey alike upon the cucumber, melon, pumpkin and squash--the latter being its favorite. Various plans have been devised for their protection, such as soot, & c. A method which I have practiced with nearly entire success, is to form a mixture of equal part of finely ground black pepper and wheat flour, and dust the plants, while the dew is upon them with this mixture, using an ordinary flour or pepper box. It is a fact generally known, that black pepper is so obnoxious to most insects, that few will approach or stay in its presence. The object of the flour is to combine with the pepper, and with the water or dew to form a paste, which will adhere to the leaves for many days unless washed off by heavy rains; in which case the application should be renewed.
We will tell our readers a better way with less trouble and sure to kill every kind of bug that destroys vines. We have practiced it these ten years adn with entire success. These bugs all lay their eggs in patches on the under side of the vine leaves. It is only necessary to visit the vines every other day for some ten days, and pinch them out, or break them off the portion of the leaf to which the eggs are fastened, and the original pair will die without posterity. The labor is very little and the good housewife will find it a benefit to herself to spend so much time among her vines each evening or morning as will suffice to keep out the bugs.
ITEM-We learn from the Cincinnati Daily Commercial, that John Joliffe, Esq. of that city, was met and beaten and insulted in the street in Covington, Ky., on the 30th ult. by Gaines, the infamous owner of the slave woman Peggy, who murdered her own child, when re-captured on the Ohio side of the river, to save it from slavery. Mr. Joliffe made no attempt at resistance, but was dogged to the ferry by Gaines and his companions who called him a d--d Abolitionist, threatening his life and the like. He was finally rescued by the Police. Mr. J's offence, was having acted as counsel to Peggy in the suit instituted against her freedom of her master.
Transcribed by Melissa Patton. 2/4/2002
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THE EVE OF ELECTION
From gold to gray, our mild sweet day
Of Indian Summer fades too soon;
But, tenderly, above the sea,
Hangs, white and clam, the Hunter's moon.
In its pale fire the village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;
The painted walls whereon it falls,
Transfigured stand in marble trance!
O'er fallen leaves the west wind grieves,
Yet comes the seed time round again;
And morn shall see the State sown free,
With baleful tears or healthful grain.
Along the street the shadows meet
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The moulds of fate that shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal
Around I see the powers that be,
I stand by Empire's primal springs;
And princes meet in every street,
And hear the tread of uncrowned kings!
Hark! through the crowd the laugh runs loud,
Beneath the sad, rebuking moon;
God save the land, a careless hand
May shake or swerve ere morrow's noon!
No jest is this; one cast amiss
May blast the hope of Freedom's year.
Oh! take me where are hearts of prayer,
And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!
Not lightly fall, beyond recall
The written scrolls a breath can float:
The crowning fact, the kingliest act
Of freedom, is the freeman's vote!
For pearls that gem a diadem,
The diver in the deep sea dives;
The regal right we boast to-night,
Is ours through costlier sacrifice.
The blood of Vane, his prison pain,
Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod;
And her's whose faith drew strength from death,
And prayed her Russell up to God!
Our hearts grow cold, we lightly hold
The right which brave inca died to gain;
The stake, the cord, the axe, the sword,
Grim nurses at its birth of pain.
Your shadows rend, and o'er us bend,
Oh, martyrs, with your crowns and palms,
Breath through these throngs your battle songs,
Your scaffold prayers and dungeon psalms!
Look from the sky, like God's great eye,
Thou solemn moon, with searching beam,
Till in the sight of thy pure light
Our mean self-seekings meaner seem
Shame from our hearts, unworthy arts,
The fraud designed, the purpose dark;
And smite away the hands we lay
Profanely on the sacred Ark.
To party claims, and private aims,
Reveal that august face of Truth,
To which are given the age of Heaven,
The beauty of immortal youth.
So shall our voice of sovereign choice
Swell the deep bass of duty done,
And strike the key of time to be,
When God and man shall speak as one!
THE GOVERNORS ON KANZAS AFFAIRS
GOV. CHASE, OF OHIO,
In his message delivered in Columbus, on the 4th instant, holds the following language in relation to Kanzas affairs:
"The same desposition to extend the range of Federal power in desparagement of State sovereignty and popular rights, has been conspicuously manifest in the action of the Federal government in regard to the Territory of Kanzas. Grom the day that Territory was deprived of the safeguard of the Missouri prohibition, by the passage of the Kanzas-Nebraska act, the whole action of the Federal government seems to have been directed to the establishment of slavery within its limits.
Instead of committing, in good faith, to the people of the Territory the formation and regulation, all the influence of the national administration has been exerted of the subjugation of the people to the will of the propagandists of slavery. The whole practical effect of the Kanzas-Nebraska act has been the substitution of Presidential intervention for slavery, instead of Congressional intervention against slavery.
Without resistance or rebuke from the national administration, the actual residents of Kanzas were driven from the polls at the first Territorial election, and a pretended Legislature was imposed on an unwilling people, by the fraud and force of invaders from an adjoining State.
The people, harrassed and outraged beyond endurance by the tyranny of the usurping Legislature and its insturments, who were countenanced and aided by Federal office-holders, sought relief in a State organization. Through a convention assembled at Topeka, they framed a State consitution, and, after its ratification by the popular vote, sought admission under it into the Union. Their prayer for such admission, though granted by the House of Representatives, reflecting the will of the people, was denied by the Senate, reflecting in this the will of the slave interest.
Every Federal officer in the Territory, who manifested any sympathy with the people, was, from time to time, removed, and bodies of troops were sent to compel submission to usurping power.
A few months since under an act which practically desfranchised a vast majority of the citizens, a pretended election was held for members of a convention to frame another Constitution.
This convention was constituted, as was intended, exclusively of the partizans of slavery. It framed, of course, a slave State constitution, and provided for its transmission to Congress, without previous submission to the people for ratification. It proposed indeed to submit to poplular judgment the question of slvery or no slavery, but so framed the terms of submission that no matter how the people might vote, slavery would in any event exist in the new State if admitted into the Union under that constitution.
Happily, subsequent to the election of the constitutional convention, the period for the second election of a Territorial Legislature arrived, and at the election then held the actual residents of the Territory succeeded in electing a majority of its members in both branches. The people mocked and insulted by the proceding just narrated, now invoked from the Secretary of the Territory, acting as Governor, the convocation of the body. Ofr compliance with this just demand, the Secretary was removed from office. For expressing himself in opposition to the admission of the Stateinto the Union under the constitution of the convention, and without previous submission to the people, the Governor of the Territory fell under such displeasure of the administration, that he was constrained to resign his position. If the power and patronage of the Federal government can secure the admission of Kanzas into the Union under this slave State constitution, thatpower and patronage will, without a doubt, be active, employed to that end.
In all this the people of Ohio have a deep and vital interest. It is beyond question that a vast majority of her electors are opposed to that interposition of the Federal government in behalf of slavery. I trust that the General Assemembly will give emphatic expression to the sentiments of the people.
It cannot fail to arrest attention that all these encraochments of the Federal government upon State sovereignty, and upon the freedom of the Territories, arises from a determined purpose on the part of those who control its action to extend the domain, and enlarge the power of slaver. Under this influence the ancient and original policy of slavery prohibition was overthrown and reversed by the Kanzas-Nebraska act. Under this influence the whold pwer of the national government has been exerted to force slvery upon the reluctant people of Kanzas. Under this influence, also, persistent attempts are made to subjugate the people of the free States to Federal domination, through the administration of the fugitive slave act. Under the inluence, finally, the Federal Judiciary has promulgated the revolting doctrine that the constitution of the Union establishes and guarntees slavery in all national territory, and consequently that there is no foot of our widely extended domain, outside of States whose constitutions prohibit slavery, where the free laborer can find a home exempt from the intrusion of that very peculiar institution.
This rapid progress of despotism cannot fail to arouse and fix the attention of a reflecting people. It forces upon the country momentious issues between two opposite systems of government--two opposite theories of the constitution. These issues are radical and vital. Shall the governament of thes country be administered by the people for the people or by a privileged class, for a privileged class? Is the constitution in fact what is now clamed to be, the bond and guaranty of slavery? or be what the fathers of the Republis believed it to be, the shield and safeguard of liberty? Does it establish slavery everywhere, outside of the slave States? Shall the power which it confers be used for the extension and perpetuation everywhere of human bondage, or of human freedom?
It is not doubtful where, upon these issues, the majority of the people of Ohio will be found. Their traditions identify them with freedom and free institutions.--The mainspring of their prosperous progress is in the prohibiton of slavery by the ordinance of 1787. It is this prohibition, transfered into her constitution, which has attracted within her borders the free laborers of so many lands, who have so largely contributed to that wonderful development of endergies and resources which inspires, at once, fervent gratitude and honest exultation. The people of Ohio will never, by their action, charge the founders of their institutions with ignorance of the true principles of popular government, nor contribute by their sufferages to the extension or continuance of an evil and wrong from which they have been so happily delivered by the wise forecast of the fathers of the Republic."
NATHANIEL P. BANKS
Governor of Massachusetts, in his Inaugural Address, Jan. 7th, 1858, said:
"The recent sad history of Kanzas challenges our attention. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, and the creation of territorial governments, opened to settlement a country occupied chiefly by Indians, and in which slavery had been prohibited by southern men as a condition of the admission of Missouri. The repeal was effected under the pretext of establishing the right of self-government, which is now for the first time denied, and the calamities that have occured since have resulted from that act of ineffable wrong
At first the election in Kanzas, and invasion was made by armed men, who usurped the legislateve pwer. It is shown by unimpeachable testimony, that of 6218 votes given in 1855, there were 4908 given by men not citizens or residents. The Governor of the Territory denounced the invasion and the fraud, and refused certificates of election. He was removed, and the first act of his successor was to acknowledge the validity of the election and to declare his intention to enforce the laws of the Legislature, admitted to be unconstitutional and barbarous. The people thus deprived of their rights, asembled by delegates at Topeka, formed a State constitution, and petitioned for admission to the Union. This action, though irregular, was not without precedent; but neither the government of the United States, nor the parties invading, who had deprived them of their rights, could upon any just ground take advantage of their own wrong, to defeat this first act of the people, upon pretext of irregularity. The constitution failed to obtain the assent of the Senate, and the State was not admitted. The violence and crime that have since ravaged the Territory, under the Legislature which denied to the people, the right of electing local or county officers, are well known.
During the past year another constitution had been formed at Lecompton. The convention did not represent the people nor were its delegates elected by them. It has been officially reported to the President by the late Governor of the Territory that "the delegates who signed the constitution represented scarcely one-tenth of the people;" that "nearly one half of the counties of the Territory were disfranchised, and, by no fault of theirs, did not and could not give a single vote in the election for delegates." The convention refused to submit to the people the constitution, which recognizes slavery, for an affirmative or negative vote. With an additonal pro-slavery clause, adopted by the parties who made the constitution, it is now sent to Congress, and your Senators and Representatives are called upon to vote upon the admission the State under that constitution.
It is not now the question of slavery alone, but to that is superadded the question of the right of the people to vote either in election of delegates, or upon the constitution intself. Many citizens have sustained the government in its Kanzas policy upon its solemn pledges that the constitution should be submitted to the people. To sustain now, the denial of this right, is to repel in the most decisive manner the doctrine of popular sovereignty.
Nothing but hte direct intervention of federal influence can force through Congress the Lecompton constitution; and if the government, with the sanction of the people, can force upon Kanzas a constitution conceived in fraud and violence, it will be the weighteiest blow ever given against free governments."
JAMES W. GRIMES
Governor of Iowa, in his Message delivered January 1858, says:
"The condition of affairs in Kanzas, certainly demands your consideration.
Notwithstanding the grossest frauds and the most unequal legislative apportionment, the people of that unfortunate Territory have declared by an emphatic majority in favor of freedom. No candid mind can now boubt that at least four-fifths of the bona-fide citizens of the Territory desire to erect it into a Free State.
But the more evident it is that the people do not desire slavery fastened upon them, the more desperate are the efforts of the slavery propagandists to thwart the popular will. WE have seen within a few weeks, a small number of persons pretending to be the representatives of only a small minority of the people, proclaiming what they call the Constitution of Kanzas. Thatconstitution recognizes slavery as already established, makes provision for its protection, and undertakes to bind, posterity against its abolition. The attempt is made to subvert every principle of popular government, by fastening this constitution upon the people without their consent. Conscious that it would be overwhelmingly defeated if fairly submitted for their approval or disapproval, they are denied the privilege of determining for themselves the character of the institutions under which they are to live. They are not permitted to settle for themselves any of the important questions connected with their judiciary representation, taxation, internal improvements, education, finances, state indebtedness or personal rights. For the purpose of reveting slavery upon them, a blow is thus struck at the very foundation principle of popular government. Had a similar attempt been made by the recent constitutional convertion, it is true, proposed a separtate article which was submitted to the people, and which if adopted, establishes slavery in Kanzas upon a more barbarous system than is known to any of the slave states in the Union. But no one was permitted to vote either for or against this separate article until he first voted FOR the constitution. He was not allowed to vote against it. Thus, whether the separate article was adopted or rejected, if the constitution which could not be voted against, is permitted to stand as the organic law of the State, Kanzas must become a slave state.
We cannot be indifferent to the efforts of the people of Kanzas to perpetuate Freedom in that Territory. We ought not to be indifferent. No people are deserving of freedom who do not sympathise with those who are struggling to attain it. The people of Kanzas as are the champions of popular government everywhere, are bringing to the test the great principle enunciated by our revolutionarey fathers, that government derives its power by the consent of the governed.
If the Recent constitutional convention of Kanzas, defended as it was by federal bayonets against the just indignation of the people, can succeed by trick and fraud in fastening an obnoxious constitution upon them, and take away from them the power to amend it until salvery shall become strengthened; there is an end to free government and American liberty."
JOHN A. KINO
Govern of New York, says in his message, January 5, 1858:
"The condition of Kanzas continues to absorb public interest. It is to the shame alike of Truth and of Liberty, that it must be said that in the treatment of this question, there has been studied disingenuousness and deliberate perversion of facts. Even the President of the U. States, after having pledged himself, as the party he represents had pledged themselves, that no constitution should be deemed obligatory which had not been submitted to the people for ratification and still professing to uphold and stand by what it so delusively characterizes as popular sovereignty, nevertheless affirmed, in his message, that it has "been fairly and explicityly referred to the people whether they will have a constitution with or without slavery," while in that same Message it is stated that slavery, and the right of property in slaves, exists in Kanzas "under the Constitution of the United States;" and when by the very form in which the question is submitted, the Constitution recognizing the existence of slaves, must be accepted, whatever the vote or the wishes of the people as to Slavery may be. What grosser mockery of substantial popular sovereignty can well be devised that the submission of only a single section of a Constitution, involving all the rights and the liberties of the people? And what more palpable abuse of language than to speak of such a submission as "fair?" Of what Free State in this Union would the people thuse submit to be cheated of their right to decide upon a Constitution in all its parts? Or what theory of Freedom can consist with such a dishonest scheme for forcing an obnoxious instrument upon an unwilling people?
In view of these most unwarrantable proceedings, and after the emphatic and repeated declarations by the President of the United States, and after the yet more extraordinary opinions--not judicial decisions, nor entitled to any respect as such--pronounced by some of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, as to the constitutionality of Slavery, I feel called upon by what I owe, not less to the well-ascertained sentiment of the people of this State, than to my own self-respect; to repeat here, what in my first Message I assumed as the deliberate conviction of the Free States, that "Slavery in the States where it exists, exists by virtue of the local law alone, and that it neither exists nor is confirmed there, nor anwhere, by the force and effect of the Constitution of the United States."
I have faith in the principles at issue in this controversy so strong s to feel assured that the freemen of Kanzas will not submit to the great wrongs meditated against them; and my faith is alike strong that the men of the free States will sustain the cause of Freedom of Kanzas as though it were their own, and at their own doors."
GOV. WM. F. PACKER
Of Pennsylvania, in his Inaugural Address, said:
"This last phase of the Kanzas question, which is upon the constitution framed by a Territorial Convention, is peculaiarly for the judgment of Congress, to which the power of admitting new States is confided by the constitution of the Union. The representatives of the people and of the States in COngress assembled, will meet that question under all the responsibilities which are imposed upon them by their oath of office; and with full information upon matters of fact important to the formation of a final judgment. Events are constantly occurring in the territory which will afford matter for Congressional debate, and may affect the ultimate decision.
To the people of Pennsylvania, the admission of a new State into the Union--into the confederacy of which she is member--must be at all times a subject of high interest. And I pelieve I express their sentiments as well as my own, in declaring that all the qualified electors of a Territory, should have a full and fair opportunity to participate in selecting delegates to form a Constitution preparatory to admission as a State, and, if desired by them, they should also be allowed un unqualified right to vote upon such Constitution after it is framed. Of course those who then fail to vote, in either case, cannot complain that the proceeding goes on without their participation. It is to be hoped, that congress will make such a provision for other Territories that the present difficulty will have no repitition in the future."
NEOSHO--THE STRUGGLE YET TO COME
The South made a great mistake when it snapped so eagerly at the bait offered by Northern demagogues, and by the repeal of the Missouri compact made slavery a permanent element in national politics. The more sagacious of Southern statesmen must have foreseen the result in some measure. But there were very few, South or North, who could have predicted at the time, what is likely soon to be made evident to all, that in its rebound no more deadly blow ever has been, or could have been, aimed at the system of American Slavery than the repeal of the sacred compact by which a portion of the national territory had been perpetually reserved to free labor. Out of this seeming evil, and real crime on the part of its perpetrators, the retribution of Devine Providence will educe a paramount good, in the exposure of the true spirit and influence of Slavery, and in the overthrow of its political supremacy. We are confident of this, not only because we believe in a Providence that superintends the affairs of government and politics, as well as of individual life; but because of the forecast shadows of coming events that begin to show distinct from and outline.
"There's a divinity that shapes our end, Rough-hew them how we will."
The aggressive spirit of Slavery, which struck down at one astounding blow, the solemn compact of 1820, has awakened at the North a corresponding aggressive spirit against Slavery. it is not in human nature that it should be otherwise.--We feel, and justly, that the South has no regard for compacts and compromises except so far as they subserve its own peculiar interests. And the general feeling at the North, even amon the most conservative classes, now is, that we will go no further than the strictest construction of the letter of the Constitution demands in support of Slavery forbearance towards it. Beyond that, we meet aggressions with aggressions in behalf of freedom and free labor. If the Missouri compact had not been broken down, Slavery would quietly have taken possession of the territories south of the Missouri line, and the whole country would have silently acquiesed. Now, the determination of the free States is, to exclude slavery from all the national territories if we can--to contest every inch of ground, and surrender not another acre to negro ??? without a struggle. This feeling is just and manly. It is no breach of good faith either in letter or spirit. It is ??? acceptance of an issue that, has been forced upon us by the Slave oligarchy, and they are worsted and driven to the ??? in the encounter, they will but reap the natural fruit of their own folly.
In losing Kansas and Nebraska the South has lost all it hoped to gain by the Nebraska-Kansas swindle. It is destined to lose yet more. The next struggle even now impends in the beautiful Neosho country, south of Kanzas. Already the slave propagandists have laid the plans for its organization, and its speedy introduction as a Slave State. Slavery has the advantage of a strong foothold in the territory, in the occupation of a considerable portion of it by the Choctaw and other Indians, many of whom are pro-slavery in opinion. It is proposed to make citizens of these Indians at once, and thus give them control of the territorial government. But the friends of freedom are not listless spectators of these proceedings. Already some of the hardy pioneers of Kansas, who have come to ?? the figh for what they have endured in it and whose patriotism has been cast by the mould of a hard experience into the most relentless hatred of Slavery, begin to talk of moving South into the Neosho contry to begin the war there. Kansas is getting too peaceful for them. They hunger for the glory of redeeming yet other territories to free labor. And they will do it. It is impossible to avade this new territorial struggle between the great elements marshalled against each other by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Slavery will do its worst to make Neosho a Slave-State. But if the Northern emigrants determine to take possession of it they can do it. The foul play of the general government today may, as in the case of Kansas give the first tokens of success to the Slave party, but in the end the indominable spirit of freedom will win the day. The struggle is just upon us; it is much nearer than many imagine. The friends of freedom will hardly have space to take breath, after the final victory that is ??? to come in Kanzas, before the new call ??? the conflict in Neosho will be burst upon them. The contest must not go by default, and it will not, for the freedom of Neosho opens the way for the freedom of northern and western Texas, and place a cordon sanitairealong our western border, against which the advancing wave of oppression shall fret itself in vain. The North has notcourted the contest, but it will not shun it, and it will not be defeated. It will gloriously vindicate the rights stricken down by the conspiratory of 1854.--Springfield [Ills] Republican
CONCERNING A "GREAT MAN"
Our telegraphic dispatches from the West inform us that Pate is coming-- PATE! A few days ago the TRUSTAN POLK one of the U. S. Senators of Missouri distinguished himself by reading in the Senate, from the Missouri Republican, a review of Gov. Walker's letter of resignation, which was from the pen of no less a personage, so the telegraph informed us, than Mr. Pate--H. CLAY PATE! The papers of "the party" throughout the Union, are making conspicuous the pronunciamento against ROBERT J. WALKER of--PATE! The Washington Union, Philadelphia Pennsylvanian, and the Lecompton organs genrally, are giving much emphasis to the communications printed in the Missouri Republican, of PATE! We must some time have been familiar with this name of PATE! Let us see, ah, yes--we do know that name--Pate, Pate, certainly-- H. Clay Pate at that. Some years, four or five years perhaps, ago, the door of a lodging room, in the third story of an obscure building of this city, was labelled with startling letters (letters that an Irishman might call very loud,) "H. CLAY PATE, AUTHOR!" Behind this door were the quarters of a slight young man who had thrust distinction upon himself, by publishing at his own expense, a book! The frontispiece thereof was a wood cut of the "author," with a facsimile of the autograph of that illustrious individual. We weigh our words when we say that we never saw a more luxuriously ridiculous thing in or out of Punch. McLELAN's best designs of Doesticks and his friend Damphool, would not compare with it. The matter of the valuable volume, however, was all that could have been inferred from the frontispiece. It was made up of several mournful attempts at "tales," and a mass of essays perptrated at college, introduced by a prodigious exhortation to all youngmen of the country, to go straightway and take a college course at the institution of the workmanship of which the "author" was a blossoming specimen.-- Would that we had kept our copy of the volume. But, upon our word, we don't think we could be so cruel, if it were before us, as to re-produce in these columns, ?extracts from it.? No,no--"If the court understand herself, and she think he do"--we couldn't ??? even considering that the ??complete line missing?? Gov. Walker's letter of resignation and all United States ??? for ??? been ???ing the ??? to the ??? dignified deliberative body in the world." ??? we couldn't. But the young man had been growing older since he set up for ??? author," and perhaps has been taught to ??? of the ??? of North America, and ??? in several of the rural districts a ??? against the "Scarlet" ???. For a time he was an ??? ??? of Pat Taylor in the campaigns conducted by that remarkable metaphysician against the Babylonish monstrosities, which, like ??? from the slime of ages, were about to crawl over "this fair land of ours," and spoil its sweetness with their foul and pestiferous,&c., &c. After gallivanting the Sainted ??? about for a time, he disappeared, and ??? he turned up as the Kanzas correspondent of the Missouri Republican, having, during the perioud of his absence been in and about his old home in Virginia where he had provided himself with a young nigger, whose services were required in the double duty of polishing the "author's" boots and furnishing an illustration of his Southern principles.--The first thing of note recorded in the correspondence of the Republican was, that the high-toned corespondent declined to make a trip to Lawrence to see what was going on there, giving as a reason that he could not get along without his nigger, and that that article would be but precarious property in the vicinity of the rascally Yankees. The next thing of especial moment waws the "author's" account of the immortal "battle of Black Jack," an action perhaps the most important in the Kanzas war. The "point" was, that PATE with a company of the chivalry made an attempt to take that pesky Free Soiler, "Old Brown of Ossowatamie;" but Brown took them! The history of this military opperation is dilicious. Pate, while raishing his troops for the attack on old Brown; was amounted on a fine horse, had a splendid sword gird upon his thigh, while his waist was bounde in the martial folds of a scarlet sash,and he galloped about the streets of Westport, calling upon true hearted patriots to turn out. he went forth. he met the enemy. He led his men into a ravine where old Brown had them at his mercy, and after a few shots, he surrendered. And the heartless old Brown took from him his fine horse, his gay sash, his slver mounted sword and sent him back to Missouri, mounted upon a poor little jackass. He is said, when riding into Westport upon this congenial animal to have borne a striking resemblance to a Shanghai rooster in a hard rian. But he has his reward. For his gallant services in surrendering to old Brown, he was appointed postmaster at Westport, of which position he still enjoys the honors and emoluments. The telegraph has at a flash given the whole country the important intelligence; that he is now on his way to Washington. His mission is, undoubtedly, to bring to bear his vast abilities, force of character and stores of information, is putting through the Lecompton Constitution, in which document, as he is an office holder, resident in Missouri, but living near the "border," and probably owning a "claim" beyond it, he may be presumed to take a special, perhaps almost paternal interest. As an inculent of his labors, we doubt not, he contemplates the completion of his destruction of the late Governor of Kanzas, by adding to his review of that ex official's letter of resignation, the terrors of his personal frown. The telegram of last evening announcing the coming of Pate, could not have failed to cause a fluttering in Washington. We hope that DOUGLAS bore up manfully, though we do not see how he could help showing agitations at the knowlege, that among his foes he soon must number the redoubtable Pate, whose prestige won at the battle of Black Jack, sticks to him so closely that we should not feel called upon for an emotion of surprise, if the succes of our hero author were as flattering in the endeavor to subjugate the "factious majority" of the people of Kanzas, as when he rode forth in all the pomp and circumstance of war to take Old Ossawatamie Brown.--Cincinatti Commercial.
Transcribed by Sarah Jump.March 25, 2002.