THE NEBRASKA BILL IN THE HOUSE. their own Governor as well as Legislature,—which was rejected; Yeas 10;14 Nays 30. 233 people of these Territories to choose | we have seen reported by Mr. Douglas to the Senate, and adopted by that body, repealing the 8th section of the Missouri act, and insert instead the following: So far, the bill had been acted on as in Committee of the Whole. On coming out of Committee, Mr. Clayton's amendment, above mentioned, was disagreed to-22 to 20—and the bill engrossed for its third reading by 29 to 12—and, at a late hour of the night -or rather, morning-passed: Yeas 37; Nays16 14: whereupon the Senate, exhausted by struggle and excitement, adjourned over from Friday to the following Tuesday. 15 16 In the House, this bill was not taken up for more than two months after it had passed the Senate. There were scruples to vanquish, objections to remove or to soften, and machinery to adjust, in order to give the measure a chance of success. Meantime, the hum of public dissatisfaction rose louder and louder, and members who were soon to face Northern constituencies were reasonably reluctant to vote for it, unless the Democratic majorities in their districts were well-nigh impregnable. A House bill (nearly a copy of that of Mr. Douglas) having been reported" by Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, from the Committee on Territories, Mr. English, of Indiana-a most unflinching Democrat-from the minority of said Committee, proposed to strike out the clause which 14 Messrs. Chase, Fessenden, Foot, Hamlin, Norris, Seward, Shields, Smith, Sumner, Wade -10. 15 March 3d. 16 Messrs. Bell, of Tennessee, Houston, of Texas, and Walker, of Wisconsin, who had voted against Mr. Chase's amendment above cited, and Mr. James, of Rhode Island, who had not voted "Provided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent the people of tuted legislative authority, from passing said Territory, through the properly constisuch laws, in relation to the institution of their locality, and most conducive to their Slavery, as they may deem best adapted to happiness and welfare; and so much of any existing act of Congress as may conflict late their domestic institutions in their with the above right of the people to reguown way, be, and the same is hereby, repealed." It is highly probable that this proposition. could not have been defeated on a call of the Yeas and Nays in the House-which was doubtless the reason why it was never acted on. 18 The House bill was never taken up, save at a late day," so as to enable the Senate bill to be moved as an amendment. There was a violent struggle in the House for and against closing the debate on this measure, and it was finally agreed that said debate should terminate on Saturday the 20th. And now, Mr. Alex. H. Stephens, of Georgia, originated, and was enabled to execute, a parliamentary maneuver which, if recognized as legitimate, must prove an important aid to party despotism and a screen to vicious legislation through all future time. The right of a majority to prescribe a reasonable limit to discussion-to afford on it at all, now voted Nay. Messrs. Bayard, of Delaware, Cass, of Michigan, Thompson, of Kentucky, Geyer, of Missouri, Thomson, of New Jersey, who did not vote for or against Gov. Chase's amendment, whereon we have given the Yeas and Nays, were now present and voted for the bill. Yeas 112; Nays 99; the Previous Question again ordered and sustained; and the bill finally passed: Thus the Yeas 113; Nays 100. opponents of the measure in the House were precluded from proposing any amendments or modifications whatever, when it is morally certain that, had they been permitted to do so, some such amendment as Gov. Chase's or Mr. English's would have been carried. fair opportunity for debate, but in- | thereupon called the Previous Quessist that it shall close at a definite tion, which was seconded: Yeas and not too distant day and hour- 116; Nays 90; when his amendhas become a part of our parliament- ment was adopted-Yeas 115; Nays ary law. But the right of a minority 95; the bill ordered to be engrossed to seek to improve what it deems a vicious and mistaken measure-to | soften, if it may, objectionable features which it is unable wholly to remove is still sacred; and it has accordingly been established, after much experience of the evils of the opposite rule, that even a vote of the House, enforcing the Previous Question on a reluctant, struggling minority, does not cut off amendments which may have already been proposed, but only arrests debate and brings the House to vote successively on all the propositions legitimately before it, including, it may be, the engrossment of the bill. But Mr. But Mr. Stephens, when the hour for closing the debate in Committee had arrived, moved that the enacting clause of the bill be stricken out, which was carried by a preconcerted and uncounteracted rally of the unflinching friends of the measure. Of course, all pending amendments were thus disposed of the bill being reported as dead. Having thus got the bill out of Committee and before the House, Messrs. Stephens & Co. voted not to agree to the report of the Committee of the Whole,19 thus bringing the House to an immediate vote on the engrossment of the bill. Mr. Richardson now moved an amendment in the nature of a substitute (being, in effect, the Senate's bill), and 19 Yeas (for agreeing) 97; Nays 117. 20 VIRGINIA.-John S. Millson-1. NORTH CAROLINA.-Richard C. Puryear, Sion H. Rogers-2. TENNESSEE.-Robert M. Bugg, William Cullom, Emerson Etheridge, Nathaniel G. Taylor-4. LOUISIANA.-Theodore G. Hunt-1. The Free States contributed 44 votes-all cast by Democrats to the From the support of this measure. Slave States, 12 Whigs and 57 Democrats sustained it. Against it were 91 members from Free States, of whom 44 were chosen as Whigs, three as "Free Soil" proper, and 44 as Democrats. So that precisely as many Democrats from Free States voted for as against the final passage of the Nebraska bill. Only nine members from Slave States opposed it, of whom but two" had been regarded as Democrats; and of these Col. Benton was not so regarded thereafter. Of the Whigs who so voted, but two 22 were returned to the next House. The bill had thus passed the House MISSOURI.-Thomas H. Benton-1. OTHER 21 Messrs. Millson, of Virginia, and Benton, of Missouri. 22 Messrs. Puryear, of North Carolina, and 23 May 24th. Etheridge, of Tennessee. MISSOURI ATTEMPTS TO MONOPOLIZE KANSAS. tempt to amend it was voted down, and the bill ordered to be engrossed, by 35 Yeas to 13 Nays. It was immediately passed, and, being approved by President Pierce, became a law of the land. The struggle which ensued for the practical possession of Kansas was one which Congress had thus clearly provoked and invited. When the bill organizing Kansas and Nebraska was first submitted to Congress in 1853, all that portion of Kansas which adjoins the State of Missouri, and, in fact, nearly all the accessible portion of both Territories, was covered by Indian reservations, on which settlement by whites was strictly forbidden. The only exception was that in favor of Government agents and religious missionaries; and these, especially the former, were nearly all Democrats and violent partisans of Slavery. Among the missionaries located directly on the border was the Rev. Thomas Johnson, of the Methodist Church South, who was among the few who had already introduced and then held slaves in the territory which is now Kansas, in defiance of the Missouri Restriction. He was a violent politician of the Missouri border pattern, and in due time became President of the Council in the first Territorial Legislature of Kansas-elected almost wholly by non-resident and fraudulent votes. Within the three months immediately preceding the passage of the Kansas bill aforesaid, treaties were quietly made at Washington with the Delawares, Otoes, Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, Shawnees, Sacs, Foxes, and other tribes, whereby the greater part of the soil of 235 Kansas lying within one or two hundred miles of the Missouri border was suddenly opened to White appropriation and settlement. These simultaneous purchases of Indian lands by the Government, though little was known of them elsewhere, were thoroughly understood and appreciated by the Missourians of the Western border, who had for some time been organizing "Blue Lodges," "Social Bands," "Sons of the South," and other societies, with intent to take possession of Kansas in behalf of Slavery. They were well assured, and they fully believed, that the object contemplated and desired, in lifting, by the terms of the KansasNebraska bill, the interdict of Slavery from Kansas, was to authorize and facilitate the legal extension of Slavery into that region. Within a very few days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, hundreds of leading Missourians crossed into the adjacent Territory, selected each his quarter-section or larger area of land, put some sort of mark on it, and then united with his fellow-adventurers in a meeting or meetings intended to establish a sort of Missouri preëmption upon all this region. Among the resolves passed at one of these meetings, were the following: abolitionist as a settler of this Territory. "That we will afford protection to no "That we recognize the institution of Slavery as already existing in this Territory, and advise slaveholders to introduce their property as early as possible." Information being received, soon after this, that associations were being formed in the Eastern States, designed to facilitate and promote the migration of citizens of those Before the passage of these resolves, at least one person, who had strayed into the Territory with intent to settle there, and who was unable to convince the "Border Ruffians," already in possession, that he was one with them in faith and spirit, was seized by them, placed in a canoe without oars, and sent floating down the Missouri. The first company, about thirty in number, of Eastern emigrants, under the auspices of the New England Emigrant Aid Society, reached Kansas before the end of July, and located on the site now known as Lawrence.24 Two weeks later, they were joined by a second and larger company, numbering sixty or seventy. While these were still living in tents, but busily employed in erecting temporary houses, they were visited by a party of Missourians, one hundred strong, who were reinforced next day by one hundred and fifty more, who pitched their camp just across a ravine from the young canvas city, and sent over formal notification that "the Abolitionists must leave the Territory, never more to return to it." The settlers must have all their effects gathered together preparatory to leave by ten o'clock. The time was afterward extended to one o'clock, with abundant professions of a desire to prevent the effusion of blood. The Yankees, meantime, had organized and armed as a militia company, and were quietly drilling amid their tents, sending civil but decided answers to the repeated messages sent to them. Finally, having satisfied themselves that they could only prevent bloodshed by letting the Yankees alone, and going about their own business, the ruffians broke up their camp by piecemeal and stole away, at evening and during the night, back to their dens in Missouri. President Pierce. appointed Andrew H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, Governor, and Daniel Woodson, of Arkansas, Secretary of Kansas, with judicial officers of whom a majority were from Slave States—one of them taking a number of slaves with him into the Territory. These officers reached Kansas, and established a Territorial Government there, in the autumn of 1854. All of them were, of course, Democrats; but Gov. Reeder's soundness on the vital question was early suspected at the South. The Union (Washington), President Pierce's immediate organ, promptly rebuked these suspicions, as follows: "A gentleman in Virginia calls our attention to the fact that the enemies of President 24 So named after Amos A. Lawrence, Treasurer of the Society. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY RAMPANT IN KANSAS. 237 25 He received 2,268 in all, to 570 for all others. David R. Atchison, then a U. S. Senator from Missouri, in a speech in Platte County, Mo., a few weeks before the election, said: Pierce in the South lay particular stress upon | Whitfield, an Indian agent, the his appointment of Gov. Reeder as proof of Missouri candidate, had 597 of them. his willingness to favor Free-Soilers, and asks us whether, at the time of his appointment, Gov. Reeder was regarded as a sound national Democrat. It is in our power to answer this question with entire confidence, and to say that, down to the time that Gov. Reeder went to Kansas to assume the duties of Governor of the Territory, there had not been, so far as we have ever heard, or so far as the President ever heard, a breath of suspicion as to his entertaining Free-Soil sentiments. He was appointed under the strongest assurances that he was strictly and honestly a national man. We are able to state, further, on very reliable authority, that, whilst Gov. Reeder was in Washington, at the time of his appointment, he conversed with Southern gentlemen on the subject of Slavery, and assured them that he had no more scruples in buying a slave than a horse, and he regretted that he had not money to purchase a number to carry with him to Kansas. We have understood that he re peated the same sentiments on his way to Kansas. We will repeat what we have had occasion to say more than once before-that no man has ever been appointed by Presitime understood by him to be a faithful adherent to the Baltimore platform of 1852, on the subject of Slavery. If any appoint dent Pierce to office who was not at the ment was made contrary to this rule, it was done under a misapprehension as to the appointment. We may add that the evidences of Gov. Reeder's soundness were so strong that President Pierce was slower than many others to believe him a Free-Soiler after he had gone to Kansas. It is, therefore, the grossest injustice to refer to Gov. Reeder's appointment as proof of the President's willingness to favor Free-Soilers." "When you reside within one day's journey of the Territory, and when your peace, your quiet, and your property, depend upon your action, you can, without any exertion, send five hundred of your young men who will vote in favor of your institutions. Should each county in the State of Missouri only do its duty, the question will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we are defeated, then Missouri and the other South ern States will have shown themselves recreant to their interests, and will deserve their fate." The city of Atchison, named after this distinguished Senator, was founded 26 about this time by gentlemen of his faith, who established The Squatter Sovereign as their organ. .One of its early issues contained the following significant paragraph: "We can tell the impertinent scoundrels of The Tribune that they may exhaust an ocean of ink, their Emigrant Aid Societies spend their millions and billions, their representatives in Congress spout their heretical theories till doomsday, and his Excellency appoint abolitionist after free-soiler as our Governor, yet we will continue to lynch and hang, tar and feather and drown, every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pol An election for Delegate from lute our soil." Kansas was held near the close of November. There were probably less than two thousand adult white males then resident in the Territory; yet 2,871 votes were cast, whereof 1,114 were afterward ascertained to have been legal, while 1,729 were cast by residents of Missouri. At one poll, known as "110," 604 votes were cast, of which 20 were legal and 584 were illegal. John W. 25 A Tennesseean; last heard from in the Confederate army. Gov. Reeder, in the early months of 1855, had a census of the Territory taken, which showed a total population of 8,501, whereof 2,905 were voters and 242 slaves. He thereupon ordered an election for a first Territorial Legislature and for certain county officers, to be held on the 30th of March, which took place accordingly. All of border Missouri was on hand; and the invaders had 26 On the Kansas bank of the Missouri; some thirty miles above Leavenworth. |