"Editorial: The Rejection of Kansas – 3"
- "If anything can convince the entire mass of the people of the North of the absolute necessity of displacing the oligarchy which bears sway at Washington [Democrats], it will be the relentless tyranny with which it wields whatever remnant of power is suffered to remain in its hands.
No consideration of justice or of public policy is ever allowed to turn it from its settled purpose, of fortifying its own power and promoting its own specific and selfish ends, at whatever expense to the general good.
"The rejection of the bill for the admission of Kansas by the Senate affords a striking instance of this abuse of power.
For four years now the people of Kansas have been struggling for the recognition of their rights.
The resistance they have encountered has cast a lasting reproach upon our institutions.
The slaveholding interest[Democrats] determined at the outset to force Slavery upon them, regardless of existing law as well as of the will of the people themselves.
The whole country has been convulsed with the struggle to which this attempt gave rise.
It was prosecuted with ceaseless industry, so long as there was a possibility of its success.
No means were left untried to accomplish it.
Fraud, violence, perjury, forgery -- every conceivable crime found ready agents, so long as there remained the faintest hope that by their lavish use Slavery might be planted upon Kansas soil.
The Lecompton Constitution seemed to have done the work.
Notoriously the product of the basest and most barbarous crimes -- in open and shameless disregard of the public will -- it had, nevertheless, the saving virtue of recognizing Slavery as a social institution, and a political power, in the new State.
This single fact hushed all murmurs, and quenched every impulse of remorse.
I rendered the immediate admission of the State not only desirable, but a matter of the highest necessity.
[Democrat President] Mr. Buchanan recommended it in a special message.
The Senate voted for it -- every Pro-Slavery [Democrat] Sentor being eager to record his suffrage in its behalf.
The public welfare would brook no delay.
The measure was needed to quiet agitation, to calm the aroused sensibilities of the nation -- to remove this dangerous question.
The effort failed -- not from any misgiving on the part of the Pro-Slavery [Democrat] party, by which it was sustained -- but because there were a few Democrats not quite ready or willing to be dragooned into so flagrant an outrage upon democratic principles and the will of the people most directly concerned.
"Two years have passed, and the scene has changed..."