Thus, after the Constitution had been perverted in its fundamental character,—­after Congress had been despoiled of one of its most important functions,—­after a compact, made sacred by the faith, the feelings, and the hopes of the third of a century, was torn in pieces,—­the road was clear for the organization of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories.  It was given out, amid jubilations which could not have been louder, if they had been the spontaneous greetings of some real triumph of principle, that henceforth and forever the inhabitants of the Territories would be called to determine their “domestic institutions” for themselves.  Under this theory, and amid these shouts, Kansas was opened for settlement; and it was scarcely opened, before it became, as might have been expected, the battleground for the opposing civilizations of the Union, to renew and fight out their long quarrel upon.  From every quarter of the land settlers rushed thither, to take part in the wager of battle.  They rushed thither, as individuals and as associations, as Yankees and as Corn-crackers, as Blue Lodges and as Emigrant Aid Societies; and most of them went, not only as it was their right, but as it was their duty to do.  Congress had invited them in; it had abandoned legitimate legislation in order to substitute for it a scramble between the first comers; and it had said to every man who knew that Slavery was more than a simple local interest, that it was in fact an element of the general political power, “Come and decide the issue here!”

Whatever the consequences, therefore, the cowardly action of Congress was the original cause.  But what were the consequences?  First, a protracted anarchy and civil war among the several classes of emigrants;—­second, a murderous invasion of the Territory by the borderers of a neighboring State, for the purpose of carrying the elections against the bona-fide settlers;—­third, the establishment of a system of terrorism, in which outrages having scarcely a parallel on this continent were committed, with a view to suppress all protest against the illegality of those elections, and to drive out settlers of a particular class;—­fourth, the commission of a spurious legislative assembly, in the enforced absence of protests against the illegal returns of votes;—­fifth, the enactment of a series of laws for the government of the Territory, the most tyrannical and bloody ever devised for freemen,—­laws which aimed a fatal blow at the four corner-stones of a free commonwealth,—­freedom of speech, of the press, of the jury, and of suffrage;—­sixth, the recognition of Slavery as an existing fact, and the denunciation of penalties, as for felony, against every attempt to question it in word or deed;—­and, finally, the dismissal of the Territorial Governor, (Reeder,) who had exhibited some signs of self-respect and conscience in resisting these wicked schemes, and who was compelled to fly the Territory in disguise, under a double menace of public prosecution and private assassination.