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cendent in importance; and yet, if I am honored | sition to the usurpation in Kansas, ne denounces
by your attention, I hope to exhibit it clearly in
all its parts, while I conduct you to the inevita-
ble conclusion, that Kansas must be admitted at
once, with her present Constitution, as a State
of this Union, and give a new star to the blue
field of our National Flag. And here I derive
satisfaction from the thought, that the cause is
so strong in itself as to bear even the infirmities
of its advocates; nor can it require anything be-
yond that simplicity of treatment and modera-
tion of manner which I desire to cultivate. Its
true character is such, that, like Hercules, it will
conquer just so soon as it is recognised.

My task will be divided under three different heads; first, THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS, in its origin and extent; secondly, THE APOLOGIES FOR THE CRIME; and thirdly, the TRUE REMEDY.

But, before entering upon the argument, I must say something of a general character, particularly in response to what has fallen from Senators who have raised themselves to eminence on this floor in championship of human wrongs; I mean the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. BUTLER,] and the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. DOUGLAS,] who, though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from his seat; but the cause, against which he has run a tilt, with such activity of animesity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though pollated in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote, in behalf ef his wench Dulcinea del Toboso, is all surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality. If the slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic, he misnames equality under the Constitution-in other words, the full power in the National Territories to compel fellow-men to unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the auction block-then, sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight! Exalted Senator! A second Moses come for a second exodus !

as "an uncalculating fanaticism." To be sure,
these charges lack all grace of originality, and
all sentiment of truth; but the adventurous Sen-
ator does not hesitate. He is the uncompromi-
sing, unblushing representative on this floor of
a flagrant sectionalism, which now domineers over
the Republic, and yet with a ludicrous ignorance
of his own position-unable to see himself as
others see him-or with an effrontery which even
his white head ought not to protect from rebuke,
he applies to those here who resist his sectionalism
the very epithet which designates himself. The
men who strive to bring back the Government to
its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery
was national, while Slavery and not Freedom was
sectional, he arraigns as sectional. This will not
do. It involves too great a perversion of terms.
I tell that Senator, that it is to himself, and to
the "organization" of which he is the "com-
mitted advocate," that this epithet belongs. I
now fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little
for names; but since the question has been raised
here, I affirm that the Republican party of the
Union is in no just sense sectional, but, more than
any other party, national; and that it now goes
forth to dislodge from the high places of the
Government the tyrannical sectionalism of which
the Senator from South Carolina is one of the
maddest zealots.

To the charge of fanaticism I also reply. Sir, fanaticism is found in an enthusiasm or exaggeration of opinions, particularly on religious subjects; but there may be a fanaticism for evil as well as for good. Now, I will not deny, that there are persons among us loving Liberty too well for their personal good, in a selfish generation. Such there may be, and, for the sake of their example, would that there were more! In calling them "fanatics," you cast contumely upon, the noble army of martyrs, from the earliest day down to this hour; upon the great tribunes of human rights, by whom life, liberty, and happiness, on earth, have been secured; upon the long line of devoted patriots, who, throughout history, have truly loved their country; and, upon all, who, in noble aspirations for the general good and in forgetfulness of self, have stood out before their age, and gathered into their generous bosoms the shafts of tyranny and wrong, in order to make a pathway for Truth. You discredit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to the door of the church at Wittenberg, and then, to the imperial demand that he should retract, firmly replied, "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God!" You discredit Hampden, when alone he refused to pay the few shillings of ship-money, and shook the throne of Charles I; you discredit Milton, when, amidst the corruptions of a heartless Court, he lived on, the lofty friend of Liberty, above question or suspicion; you discredit Russell and Sidney, But not content with this poor menace, which when, for the sake of their country, they calmly we have been twice told was (C measured," the turned from family and friends, to tread the narSenator, in the unrestrained chivalry of his na- row steps of the scaffold; you discredit those early ture, has undertaken to apply opprobrious words founders of American institutions, who preferred to those who differ from him on this floor. He the hardships of a wilderness, surrounded by a calls them “sectional and fanatical;" and oppe.savage foe, to injustice on beds of ease; you dis

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credit our later fathers, who, few in numbers | ample, I repel also the trite argument founded and weak in resources, yet strong in their cause, on the earlier example of England. It is true did not hesitate to brave the mighty power of that our mother country, at the peace of Utrecht, England, already encircling the globe with her extorted from Spain the Assiento Contract, semorning drum-beats. Yes, sir, of such are the curing the monopoly of the slave trade with fanatics of history, according to the Senator. the Spanish Colonies, as the whole price of all But I tell that Senator, that there are characters the blood of great victories; that she higgled badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there can be at Aix-la-Chapelle for another lease of this exno question. Such were the ancient Egyptians, clusive traffic; and again, at the treaty of Madwho worshipped divinities in brutish forms; the rid, clung to the wretched piracy. It is true, Druids, who darkened the forests of oak, in which that in this spirit the power of the mother counthey lived, by sacrifices of blood; the Mexi- try was prostituted to the same base ends in her cans, who surrendered countless victims to the American Colonies, against indignant protests propitiation of their obscene idols; the Span- from our fathers. All these things now rise up iards, who, under Alva, sought to force the Inqui- in judgment against her. Let us not follow the sition upon Holland, by a tyranny kindred to that Senator from South Carolina to do the very evil now employed to force Slavery upon Kansas; and to-day, which in another generation we consuch were the Algerines, when in solemn conclave, demn. after listening to a speech not unlike that of the As the Senator from South Carolina is the Senator from South Carolina, they resolved to Don Quixote, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. continue the slavery of white Christians, and to DOUGLAS] is the squire of Slavery, its very Sancho extend it to the countrymen of Washington! Panza, ready to do all its humiliating offices. This Aye, sir, extend it! And in this same dreary Senator, in his labored address, vindicating his catalogue faithful history must record all who labored report-piling one mass of claborate ernow, in an enlightened age and in a land of ror upon another mass-constrained himself, as boasted Freedom, stand up, in perversion of the you will remember, to unfamiliar decencies of Constitution and in denial of immortal truth, to speech. Of that address I have nothing to say fasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If at this moment, though before I sit down I shall the Senator wishes to see fanatics, let him look show something of its fallacies. But I go back round among his own associates; let him look now to an earlier occasion, when, true to his naat himself. tive impulses, he threw into this discussion, "for a charm of powerful trouble," personalities most discreditable to this body. I will not step to repel the imputations which he cast upon myself; but I mention them to remind you of the "sweltered venom sleeping got," which, with other poisoned ingredients, he cast into the cauldron of this debate. Of other things I speak. Standing on this floor, the Senator issued his rescript, requiring submission to the Usurped Power of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a mannerall his own-such as befits the tyrannical threat. Very well. Let the Senator try. I tell him now that he cannot enforce any such submission. The Senator, with the Slave Power at his back, is strong; but he is not strong enough for this purpose. He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry, "l'auduce! l'audace! toujours l'audace!" but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the British officer, who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt of his sword he would cram the "stamps" down the throats of the American people, and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulse this country with civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he may set fire to this Temple of Constitutional Liberty, grander than Ephesian dome; but he cannot enforce obedience to that tyrannical Usurpation.

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But I have not done with the Senator. There is another matter regarded by him of such consequence, that he interpolated it into the speech of the Senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. HALE,] and also announced that he had prepared himself with it, to take in his pocket all the way to Boston, when he expected to address the people of that community. On this account, and for the sake of truth, I stop for one moment, and tread it to the earth. The North, according to the Senator, was engaged in the slave trade, and helped to introduce slaves into the Southern States; and this undeniable fact he proposed to establish by statistics, in stating which his errors | surpassed his sentences in number. But I let these pass for the present, that I may deal with his argument. Pray, sir, is the acknowledged turpitude of a departed generation to become an example for us? And yet the suggestion of the Senator, if entitled to any consideration in this discussion, must have this extent. I join my friend from New Hampshire in thanking the Senator from South Carolina for adducing this instance; for it gives me an opportunity to say, that the Northern merchants, with homes in Boston, Bristol, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia, who catered for Slavery during the years of the slave trade, are the lineal progenitors of the Northern men, with homes in these places, The Senator dreams that he can subdue the who lend themselves to Slavery in our day; and North. He disclaims the open threat, but his especially that all, whether North or South, who conduct still implies it. How little that Senator take part, directly or indirectly, in the conspira-kuows himself, or the strength of the cause which cy against Kansas, do but continue the work of the slave-traders, which you condemn. It is true, too true, alas! that our fathers were engaged in this traffic; but that is no apology for it. And in repelling the authority of this ex

he persecutes! He is but a mortal man; against him is an immortal principle. With finite power he wrestles with the infinite, and he must fall. Against him are stronger battalions than any marshalled by mertal arm-the inborn, ineradi

But I pass from these things, which, though belonging to the very heart of the discussion, are yet preliminary in character, and press at once to the main question.

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cable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; | by their concurring votes upon a reluctant North. against him is nature in all her subtle forces; At the time it was hailed by slaveholders as a against him is God. Let him try to subdue these. victory. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, in an oft-quoted letter, written at three o'clock on the night of its passage, says, "It is considered here by the slaveholding States as a great triumph." At the North it was accepted as a defeat, and the friends of Freedom everywhere throughout the country bowed their heads with mortification. But little did they know the completeness of their disaster. Little did they dream that the prohibition of Slavery in the Territory, which was stipulated as the price of their fatal capitulation, would also at the very moment of its maturity be wrested from them.

I. It belongs to me now, in the first place, to expose the Crime against KaNSAS, in its origin and extent. Logically, this is the beginning of the argument. I say Crime, and deliberately adopt this strongest term, as better than any other denoting the consummate transgression. I would go further, if language could further go. It is the Crime of Crimes-surpassing far the old crimen majestatis, pursued with vengeance by the laws of Rome, and containing all other crimes, as the greater contains the less. I do not go too far, when I call it the Crime against Nature, from which the soul recoils, and which language refuses to describe. To lay bare this enormity, I now proceed. The whole subject has already become a twice-told tale, and its renewed recital will be a renewal of its sorrow and shame; but I shall not hesitate to enter upon it. The occasion requires it from the beginning.

Time passed, and it became necessary to provide for this Territory an organized Government. Suddenly, without notice in the public press, or the prayer of a single petition, or one word of open recommendation from the President-after an acquiescence of thirty-three years, and the irreclaimable possession by the South of its special share under this compromise-in violation of every obligation of honor, compact, and good neighborhood-and in contemptuous disregard of the out-gushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored prohibition, in itself a Landmark of Freedom, was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery. It was natural that a measure thus repugnant in character should be pressed by arguments mutually repugnant. It was urged on two principal reasons, so opposite and inconsistent as to slap each other in the face-one being that, by the repeal of the prohibition, the Territory would be left open to the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, without hindrance; and the other being, that the people would be left absolutely free to determine the question for themselves, and to prohibit the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, if they should think best. With some, the apology was the alleged rights of slaveholders; with others, it was the alleged rights of the people. With some, it was

It has been well remarked by a distinguished historian of our country, that, at the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion, the slave interest, hitherto hardly recognised as a distinct element in our system, started up portentous and dilated, with threats and assumptions, which are the origin of our existing national politics. This was in 1820. The discussion ended with the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding State, and the prohibition of Slavery in all the remaining territory west of the Mississippi, and north of 36° S0', leaving the condition of other territory south of this line, or subsequently acquired, untouched by the arrangement. Here was a solemn act of legislation, called at the tune a compromise, a covenant, a compact, first brought forward in this body by a slaveholder-openly the extension of Slavery; and with others, vindicated by slaveholders in debate-finally sanctioned by slaveholding votes-also upheld at the time by the essential approbation of a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his Cabinet, of whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself; and this compromise was made the condition of the admission of Missouri, without which that State could not have been received into the Union. The bargain was simple, and was applicable, of course, only to the territory named. Leaving all other territory to await the judgment of another generation, the South said to the North, Conquer your prejudices so far as to admit Missouri as a slave State, and, in consideration of this much-coveted boon, Slavery shall be prohibited forever in all the remaining Louisiana Territory above 36° 30'; and the North yielded.

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it was openly the establishment of Freedom, under the guise of Popular Sovereignty. Of course, the measure, thus upheld in defiance of reason, was carried through Congress in defiance of all the securities of legislation; and I mention these things that you may see in what foulness the present Crime was engendered.

It was carried, first, by whipping in to its support, through Executive influence and patronage, men who acted against their own declared judgment and the known will of their constituents. Secondly, by foisting out of place, both in the Senate and House of Representatives, important business, long pending, and usurping its room. Thirdly, by trampling under foot the rules of the House of Representatives, always before the safeguard of the minority. And fourthby, by driving it to a close during the very session in which it originated, so that it might not be arrested by the indignant voice of the People. Such are some of the means by which this snap judgment was obtained. If the clear will of the People had not been disregarded, it could not

have passed. If the Government had not nefa- to this conclusion you must yet come, unless riously interposed its influence, it could not have deaf, not only to the admonitions of political passed. If it had been left to its natural place justice, but also to the genins of our own Conin the order of business, it could not have pass-stitution, under which, when properly interel. If the rules of the House and the rights preted, no valid claim for Slavery can be set up of the minority had not been violated, it could anywhere in the National territory. The Senator not have passed. If it had been allowed to go from Michigan [Mr. Cass] may say, in response over to another Congress, when the People might to the Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. BROWN,] be heard, it would have been ended; and then that Slavery cannot go into the Territory under the Crime we now deplore, would have been the Constitution, without legislative introducwithout its first seminal life. tion; and permit me to add, in response to both, that Slavery cannot go there at all. Nothing can come out of nothing; and there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution out of which Slavery canbe derived, while there are provisions, which, when properly interpreted, make its existence anywhere within the exclusive National jurisdiction impossible.

Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely within the limits of parliamentary propriety. I make no personal imputations; but only with frankness, such as belongs to the occasion and my own character, describe a great historical act, which is now enrolled in the Capitol. Sir, the Nebraska Bill was in every respect a swindle. It was a swindle by the South of the North. It was, on the part of those who had already completely enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, a swindle of those whose share was yet absolutely untouched; and the plea of unconstitutionality set up-like the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been enjoyed-did not make it less a swindle. Urged as a Bill of Peace, it was a swindle of the whole country. Urged as opening the doors to slave-masters with their slaves, it was a swindle of the asserted doctrine of Popular Sovereignty. Urged as sanctioning Popular Sovereignty, it was a swindle of the asserted rights of slave-masters. It was a swindle of a broad territory, thus cheated of protection against Slavery. It was a swindle of a great cause, early espoused by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, surrounded by the best fathers of the Republic. Sir, it was a swindle of God-given inalienable Rights. Turn it over; look at it on all sides, and it is everywhere a svindle; and, if the word I now employ has not the authority of classical usage, it has, on this occasion, the indabitable authority of fitness. No other word will adequately express the mingled meanness and wickedness of the cheat.

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The offensive provision in the bill was in its form a legislative anomaly, utterly wanting the natural directness and simplicity of an honest transaction. It did not undertake openly to repeal the old Prohibition of Slavery, but seemed to mince the matter, as if conscious of the swindle. It said that this Prohibition, "being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States and Territories, as recognised by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void." Thus, with insidious ostentation, was it pretended that an act, violating the greatest compromise of our legislative history, and setting loose the foundations of all compromise, was derived out of a compromise. Then followed in the Bill the further declaration, which is entirely without precedent, and which has been aptly called "a stump speech in its belly," namely: "it being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Here were smooth words, such as belong to a cunning tongue enlisted in a bad cause. But whatever may have been their various hidden meanings, this at least was evident, that, by their effect, the Congressional Prohibition of Slavery, which had always been regarded as a seven-fold shield, covering the whole Louisiana Territory north of 36° 30', was now removed, while a principle was de

Its character was still further apparent in the general structure of the bill. Amidst overflow-, ing professions of regard for the sovereignty of the people in the Territory, they were despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty. They were not allowed to choose their Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Attorney, or Marshal-all of whom are sent from Washington; nor were they allowed to regulate the sala-clared, which would render the supplementary ries of any of these functionaries, or the daily allowance of the legislative body, or even the pay of the clerks and doorkeepers; but lef: free to adopt Slavery. And this wa Popular Sovereignty! Time does not allo.. does the occasion require, that I should su. to dwell on this transparent device to cover a transcendent wrong. Suffice it to say, that Slavery is in itself an arrogant denial of Human Rights, and by no human reason can the power to establish such a wrong be placed among the attributes of any ust sovereignty. In refusing it such a place, I do not deny popular rights, but uphold them; I do not restrain popular rights, but extend them. And, sir,

Prohibition of Slavery in Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington, "inoperative and void," and thus open to Slavery all these vast regions, now the rude cradles of mighty States. Here you see the magnitude of the mischief contemplated. But my purpose now is with the Crime against Kansas, and I shall not stop to expose the conspiracy beyond.

Mr. President, men are wisely presumed to intend the natural consequences of their conduct, and to seek what their acts seen to promote. Now, the Nebraska Bill, on its very face, openly cleared the way for Slavery, and it is not wrong to presume that its originators intended the natural consequences of such an act, and sought in

this way to extend Slavery. Of course, they did. | pushed full-grown into the Territory. All efforts And this is the first stage in the Crime against Kansas.

were now given to the dismal work of forcing Slavery on Free Soil. In flagrant derogation of the very Popular Sovereignty, whose name help

atrocious object was now distinctly avowed. And the avowal has been followed by the act. Slavery has been forcibly introduced into Kansas, and placed under the formal safeguards of pretended law. How this was done, belongs to argument.

In depicting this consummation, the simplest outline, without one word of color, will be best. Whether regarded in its mass or its details, in its origin or its result, it is all blackness, illumined by nothing from itself, but only by the heroism of the undaunted men and women, whom it environed. A plain statement of facts will be a picture of fearful truth, which faithful history will preserve in its darkest gallery. In the foreground all will recognise a familiar character, in himself a connecting link between the President and the border ruffian-less conspicuous for ability than for the exalted place he has occupied—who once sat in the seat where you now sit, sir; where once sat John Adams and Thomas Jefferson; also, where once sat Aaron Burr. I need not add the name of David R. Atchison. You have not forgot

But this was speedily followed by other developments. The bare-faced scheme was sooned to impose this Bill upon the country, the whispered, that Kansas must be a slave State. In conformity with this idea was the Government of this unhappy Territory organized in all its departments; and thus did the President, by whose complicity the Prohibition of Slavery had been overthrown, lend himself to a new complicity-the giving to the conspirators a lease of connivance, amounting even to copartnership. The Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Attorney, and Marshal, with a whole cauens of other stipendiaries, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, were all commended as friendly to Slavery. No man, with the sentiments of Washington, or Jefferson, or Franklin, found any favor; nor is it too much to say, that, had these great patriots once more come among us, not one of them, with his recorded unretracted opinions on Slavery, could have been nominated by the President or confirmed by the Senate for any post in that Territory. With such auspices the conspiracy proceeded. Even in advance of the Nebraska Bill, secret societies were organized in Missouri, ostensibly to protect her institutions, and after-ten that, at the session of Congress immediately wards, under the name of "Self-Defensive Asso- succeeding the Nebraska Bill, he came tardily ciations," and of "Blue Lodges," these were mul- to his duty here, and then, after a short time, tiplied throughout the western counties of that disappeared. The secret has been long since disState, before any counter-movement from the closed. Like Catiline, he stalked into this ChamNorth. It was confidently anticipated, that, byber, reeking with conspiracy-immo in Senatum the activity of these societies, and the interest of venit-and then like Catiline he skulked awayslaveholders everywhere, with the advantage de- abiit, excessit, evasit, crupit—to join and provoke rived from the neighborhood of Missouri, and the the conspirators, who at a distance awaited their influence of the Territorial Government, Slavery congenial chief. Under the influence of his malign might be introduced into Kansas, quietly but presence the Crime ripened to its fatal fruits, surely, without arousing a conflict-that the while the similitude with Catiline was again recrocodile egg might be stealthily dropped in the newed in the sympathy, not even concealed, sun-burnt soil, there to be hatched unobserved which he found in the very Senate itself, where, until it sent forth its reptile monster. beyond even the Roman example, a Senator has not hesitated to appear as his open compurgator.

But the conspiracy was unexpectedly balked. The debate, which convulsed Congress, had stirred the whole country. Attention from all And now, as I proceed to show the way in sides was directed upon Kansas, which at once which this Territory was overrun and finally became the favorite goal of emigration. The subjugated to Slavery, I desire to remove in adBill had loudly declared, that its object was vance all question with regard to the authority on "to leave the people perfectly free to form which I rely. The evidence is secondary; but it and regulate their domestic institutions in their is the best which, in the nature of the case, can own way;" and its supporters everywhere chal-be had, and it is not less clear, direct, and peremplenged the determination of the question between Freedom and Slavery by a competition of emigration. Thus, while opening the Territory to Slavery, the bill also opened it to emigrants from every quarter, who might by their votes redress the wrong. The populous North, stung by a sharp sense of outrage, and inspired by a noble cause, poured into the debatable land, and promised soon to establish a supremacy of numbers there, involving, of course, a just supremacy of Freedom.

Then was conceived the consummation of the Crime against Kansas. What could not be accomplished peaceably, was to be accomplished forcibly. The reptile monster, that could not be quietly and securely hatched there, was to be

tory, than any by which we are assured of the campaigns in the Crimea or the fall of Sevastopol. In its manifold mass, I confidently assert, that it is such a body of evidence as the human mind is not able to resist. It is found in the concurring reports of the public press; in the letters of correspondents; in the testimony of travellers; and in the unaffected story to which I have listened from leading citizens, who, during this winter, have "come flocking" here from that distant Territory. It breaks forth in the irrepressible outcry, reaching us from Kansas, in truthful tones, which leave no ground of mistake. It addresses us in formal complaints, instinct with the indignation of a people determined to be free, and unimpeachable as the declarations of a murdered man on his dying bed

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