7 of the Executive, and became,the law of the land. The revolutionary spirit, however, which invoked the burping of the Capitol, did not stop with defeat in all tliree of the departments of legislation. Members of Congress with others, beaten in the Hotfte of Repiesentativps, beaten in the Senate} failing in their threats'and denunciations of the Executive, betook themselves forthwith to plotting schemes to defeat the will of the people as constitutionally expressed. Societies were formed, one of them by members of this House, immediately after the bill passed; money was raised; circulars were issued,—all with the avowed purpose of sending people to Kansas to prevent the peaceful and quiet operation of the wise and beneficent principles of the territorial law—movements having a direct tendency to kindle this civil war of which we now hear. The Capitol fortunately was not burnt—that suggestion did not. take. Digorder did not reign here—that suggestion did not take, But bodies of men were organized—not allowing the legitimate laws of nature, of climate, and of soil to determine the character of the pioneer population from all the States alike whp might choose to make settlement thare. Men were sent out in large companies,' witji ,arms and munitions of war; Sharpe’s rifles- were sent; artillery was sent. ' What for? Did these colonists go to Kansas a$ our forefathers sought homes at Plymouth, St. I Mary’s, Jamestown, and Savannah? Or did they I not rather go ns the traip-bands of (Cortes and Pizzaro went forth thirsting'for the conquest of ) the Montezumas and the Incas? Was not their sole object to effect by force and violence what they had failed to do by legislation ? What other meaning can be put tipon thefollowing manifesto which was published in the “ Herald of Freedom,’’their organ at Lawrence, the head-quarters of these emigrants in the Territory: I; “Come one,eomeall,slaveocrats andnulliflers; we have rifles enough, and bullets enough, to send you all to your (and Judas’s) ‘ own place.’ ‘ If you’re coming, why don’t you come along ?’ ” Was not this a direct invitation to arms ? And whatever troubles or disturbances exist in Kat* 1 sas, let them not be charged to the Kansas bill, | but to those who have sworn in their wrath that I that bill never shall work out its natural and legitimate results, if they can prevent it. As well might the wars about points of doctrine and religious creeds which have disgraced Christendom, be charged upon the heavenly principles of the gospel. Christ himself said that it was impossible but that offenses in this world of wickedness would come. When bad men are at worh, they cannot be prevented. The principles of that bill are-in no way responsible for any outrages or trampling upon rights by parties on the other side of the controversy, got up and provoked in that Territory by designing men outside, for mischievous purposes. And the friends of that bill—- those who stand pledged to its principles-—condemn outrages on either or both sides alike. Blit a word, sir, as to the nature and extent of these difficulties. Are they not greatly exaggerated and magnified ? Let us look at the facts. Some men, it is true, haye. been killed—some on by the torch .of an incendiary—better that the Government should go into dissolution, than that the people colonizing and settling Kansas and Nebraska should be just as free‘as the people of New York, or, as he states it, than that this act of perfidy and wrong should be finally accomplished. Whatwrong did the act contain? Wrong to whom ? to whom was there anything in it either wrong or unjust ? Was it wrong to the people of the South, one larg# section of tf e Union, to permit them to enjoy an equal and fair participation of the public domain purchased by the common blood and common treasure of all ? Was it wrong or unjust to permit the people of New York, Massachusetts, and pther States of the .North going into a new Territory,-to be as free there as they were in their native homes? Was it wrong or unjust to allow all from all the States, who might be disposed to quit the old States, and seek to better their fortunes by cutting down the, forests of the West, turning up its virgin soil, and making the wilderness to blossom as the rose, to enjoy the same rights which their fathers did in the early formation of all our present State constitutions and governments? ■ Whom, I say, did the bill wrong? To whom did it deal any injustice ? Was it the slave, the African, whom his southern master might take there ? How could it be unjust , even to him? Is not his condition as much bettered by new lands and virgin soils as that of his master? Is not expansion of that portion of southern population quite as necessary for their comfort and well-being as it is for the whites? Would you keep them hemmed in. in their present limits, until subsistence shall fail,and starvation shall effect the objects of a misguided humanity? Without stopping here to say a word upon'the subject of southern society, and therelation which the negro there sustains to the white man, either as to the necessity of that relation, or its wisdom or propriety, uoes it work any wrong or injury ‘to the slave to take him from old lands to new lands? Is nothis condition bettered by the change J And have we not new lands enough for all? Your Topeka convention, which formed the pretended free-State constitution now before us, proposed to exclude the negro and mulatto forever from that country. Upon the score of humanity, then, even towards the “poor negro” about whom so much sympathy is attempted to be .excited, I ask, which does him the greater wrong, the Kansas bill, or the project of-your free-State constitution? Who, to him, is the Good Samaritan in this case? The Free-Soil Levite, who would leave him to starve without land to work ? or his humane southern master, who is willing to provide both land and shelter, food and raiment? Where, then, is the wrong of this bill ? It consists in nothing but permitting the freemen of our own race to settle this question of the status of the African amongst themselves, as they in their wisdom and patriotism may think best for the happiness of both races, just as the freemen of our own race did in each of the old thirteen States of the Union. • But, sir, the House did not heed this lec^re of the editor. The bill passed this body; it passed the Senate; it received the constitutional approval
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