authorities, Governor Shannon was appointed president. From this period may be dated the condition of anarchy in Kansas. At all points, there was open defiance between the two parties. Of the fights, slaughterings, burning of houses, destruction and stealing of property, and personal outrages of every kind, we are fortunately spared from giving any account, as ample details of the atrocities committed by the border ruffians have been made widely known, and more particularly as that greatest atrocity of all, the burning and sacking of the city of Lawrence, in May 1856, must be fresh in every one's recollection. By Mrs Robinson, wife of Governor Robinson, who was carried away a prisoner, a circumstantial and graphic account of the troubles in Kansas has been given to the world.

In July 1856, the Topeka convention was brought to a termination by order of Colonel Sumner,* at the head of a troop of dragoons, despatched by the supreme government to suppress the insurrections in the territory. With the interruption of the free-state convention, the seizure of some prisoners, and the occupancy of Kansas by the federal forces, the territory was substantially handed over to the Missourians. How far the president was justified in sending an army into Kansas, has been matter of much angry discussion; his proceedings in this respect, while ostensibly designed to keep the peace, had the effect of vindicating the conduct of the Missourian intruders, and leaving the actual settlers helpless. The subject, it will be recollected, brought congress to a dead-lock at the end of August 1856, when an appropriation for the army required to be voted. On this occasion, the members

* Meetings of the Topeka convention took place subsequently, but not to any good purpose.

of the House of Representatives from the free states had it in their power to stop the supplies, and thus withdraw the army from Kansas. This grand chance of historical renown was not embraced. By a majority of 101 to 98, the vote for appropriation was ultimately carried-21 members from free states being numbered in the majority.

Under Governor Geary, Kansas has latterly been tranquil, and things may be said to be mending. But the laws of the Bogus legislature, which impose and bolster up slavery, remain in force. It is only barely possible that they may be abolished, and a new order of things introduced by congress. Some New York newspapers, we observe, are recommending freestate emigrants to proceed to the territory, which presents cheap and fertile lands for settlement; and, considering the mighty stake at issue, we are not surprised that fresh attempts should be made to pour in an independent class of settlers. He would ill

understand the nature of the struggle in Kansas, who supposed it to relate solely to the freedom of that territory. No doubt, that was the great and proximate object; but when we say that by making Kansas free, slavery would be checked in its north-western flank, and receive a severe blow throughout its whole system, the character of that desperate life-and-death struggle, which we have faintly portrayed, will perhaps be better understood. By way of a final settlement, possibly, some one on whom has dropped the mantle of Henry Clay, may propose a new Compromise!

In judging of past events in this unhappy territory, a sense of impartiality obliges us to say that all parties were in the wrong. Congress committed in the first place a grievous wrong, by instituting squatter sovereignty in direct opposition to the Missouri Compromise. Pierce seems to have done wrong throughout, in his

invariable leaning to the pro-slavery party, and so encouraging their aggressions. Then, as regards the two local parties, wrong was met with wrong, illegality by illegality. The intrusions of the border ruffians were in every point of view iniquitous; but the freesoil settlers, though grossly insulted and oppressed, did surely wrong in inaugurating an irregular legislative convention, and in trying to support their plans by secret military organisations. As for Reeder, the central figure in the group of wrong-doers, he, by his incorrigible folly, rendered confusion worse confounded

-a fine instance of what mischief may be done by good easy men, when placed in circumstances demanding vigour of character. For all these complications of wrong, of which no one can yet see the end, the more peaceful and honestly disposed immigrants to Kansas paid a heavy penalty. Their sufferings were acute, their losses ruinous. Of the deplorable condition to which their agricultural operations were reduced, we could advance no more convincing proof than that which above all things shocks the sensibility of an American-white women were seen labouring in the fields !

MANEUVRING.

SQUATTER Sovereignty!-shall it exist or not, is the question which for half a century has perplexed and demoralised American statesmanship, and will do so apparently for some time to come. Calhoun is said to have been the first to use the term 'squatter sovereignty' in joke, though no joke has it proved to congress; but Cass is alleged to have had the high merit of giving it a place in serious parliamentary nomenclature, and so conferring upon it an air of official respectability. We do not absolutely pledge ourselves as to the authorship of either of these distinguished statesmen; nor does it much matter. Squatter sovereignty is no new thing. We have referred to it again and again as the alleged right of the inhabitants of the newly organised territories of the Union to make choice of their own institutions. How that choice is for the most part a foregone conclusion, as regards slavery, is already explained. An early rush of planters with their slaves usually settles the business, before the more slow-moving and freedom-loving emigrants enter on the scene. Yet, the fiction is still contended for in congress, that the inhabitants are entitled to exercise precisely the same right of assuming or rejecting slavery as are the citizens of any of the constituted states.

People who do not keep quite abreast of great social questions, probably imagine that the contest about slavery in the United States refers to emancipation or non-emancipation. Except by the inconsiderable party of abolitionists, the struggle has not

got within a long chalk' of this ultimatum. The past and present subject of debate, is what is to be done with the territories, which are from time to time absorbed into the Union. The South, which has the knack of carrying statesmen and presidents along with it—no matter where these personages are 'raised' -argues strongly in favour of squatter sovereignty; for the good reason, that it can fabricate pro-slavery squatters to any desired amount. The North, on the other hand, which talks heroically about freedom in its Faneuil Halls, its Tabernacles, and what not, and is clear that at least all territories on the northern side of 36° 30' should be for ever free from slavery, cuts a poor figure when it comes to voting. In plain terms, it allows itself to be mystified-sends, among a few brilliant exceptions, so many self-interested persons to congress, that all 'who are not identified with cotton or democracy are naturally disgusted' *— and thus, to end the matter, the South gets pretty nearly always its own way.

Ever since the battle of the territories began, nearly forty years ago, there has been a continual reckoning of gains and losses between South and North. On our conscience, we believe that the question of slavery has never, as a general rule, been seriously entertained by the great northern orators in congress. The thing which was really fought for-as, for example, in the magnificent speeches of Webster-was political power. If the South, with the peculiar energy it has usually employed, were to secure a disproportionately large number of states, the North would relatively sink in its member-creating capacity; and losing in members, it would lose in chances of place as well as of the

*Whig Policy Analysed and Illustrated. By Josiah Quincy. Boston.

1856.