Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/707

 be by him enforced and executed, even with military force. The measures of redress should be applied to the true cause of the difficulty. Thia obviously lies in the repeal of the clause for freedom in the act of 1820, and therefore the true remedy lies in the entire repeal of the act of 1854, which effected it. Let this be done with frankness and magnanimity, and Kansas be organized anew, as a free territory, and all will be put right.

Treating this grievance in Kansas with ingenious excuses, with neglect or contempt, or riding over the oppressed with an army, and dragooning them into submission, will make no satisfactory termination. Party success may at times be temporarily secured by adroit devices, plausible pretenses, and partisan address; but the permanent preservation of this Union can be maintained only by frankness and integrity. Justice maybe denied where it ought to be granted; power may perpetuate that vassalage which violence and usurpation have produced; the subjugation of white freemen may be necessary, that African slavery may succeed; but such a course must not be expected to produce peace and satisfaction in our country, so long as the people retain any proper sentiment of justice, liberty, and law.

On the 19th of March, the house of representatives passed a resolution providing for a committee of three members of the house, to be sent to Kansas, to inquire into and collect evidence in regard to the troubles in that territory, and to report the same to the house. William A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri, were appointed the committee of investigation. These gentlemen proceeded to Kansas and spent several weeks in taking testimony, which, when printed, formed a volume of twelve hundred pages. Oar limits confine us to such extracts from the report as will furnish a brief history of the events in the territory subsequent to its organization.

Your committee deem it their duty to state, as briefly as possible, the principal facts proven before them. When the act to organize the territory of Kansas was passed on day of May, 1854, the greater portion of its eastern border was included in Indian reservations not open for settlement, and there were but few white settlers in any portion of the territory. Its Indian population was rapidly decreasing, while many emigrants from different parts of our country were anxiously waiting the extinction of the Indian title, and the establishment of a territorial government, to seek new homes in its fertile prairies. It cannot be doubted that if its condition as a free territory had been left undisturbed by congress, its settlement would have been rapid, peaceful, and prosperous. Its climate, soil, and its easy access to the older settlements would have made it the favored course for the tide of emigration constantly flowing to the West, and by this time it would have been admitted into the Union as a free state, without the least sectional excitement. If so organized, none but the kindest feelings could have existed between it and the adjoining state. Their mutual interests and intercourse, instead of, as now, endangering the harmony of the Union, would have strengthened the ties of national