Yesterday Morning, The Conservative, in an extra, announced to the people of Leavenworth the long-wished for and glorious tidings of the passage of the Kansas Bill. The news flew like wild-fire. Men seemed to forget all other considerations, and to unite heart and hand in giving expression to the universal joy. At every corner might be seen throngs of enthusiastic people giving vent in cheers to the general gladness. At an early hour a large number of the members of the bar waited on Chief Justice Ewing and Judge McDowell, with their congratulations, and spent with them an hour of unwonted hilarity. About noon, old Kickapoo, in the presence of a joyous crowd, sent forth, in thunder tones, a greeting to the now sister State of Missouri. The day was given up to general rejoicing. Those who entertain the singular notion that the people of Kansas did'nt want to be admitted, would have been startled by the demonstrations of yesterday. Then hurra for the STATE OF KANSAS! Our days of probation have been long and tedious, but we believe the future, upon which we are about entering, will amply compensate for the dangers and toils of the past.
In the troubles of Kansas was created that great party which, at the last national election, gave to the nation a President. Our position, as the battle ground upon which the new slavery issue was fought, gave us a prominence for which subsequent events developed our fitness. Upon us--a new people--emigrants and soldiers of fortune all, was precipitated the most momentous question which has ever yet agitated the American people. We met the issue. The history of Kansas, even now, stands prominent in the annals of the nation. To rehearse the story of the struggle between slavery and freedom in his Territory, would be but to recount a story familiar to the whole civilized world. Now is not the time or place for such a history.
The election of Lincoln, glorious as was the triumph, was, in our estimation, far less important and decisive than the admission of Kansas. Against our devoted people have been arrayed the whole force of the slavery power. The ingenuity of the pro-slavery partisans has been exested to its utmost to prevent the recognized expression of the will of the Free State people of Kansas. Every resource having been exhausted, the president, manly efforts, and the godlike courage of our people have at last prevailed, and the glorious reward, so gallantly earned, has been doled out to us with an unwilling hand. Yet we accept the boon--accept it gratefully, and hasten to take our place as a free State in the glorious Confederacy. Knowing as we do, the resources of our State, and the courage and endurance of our people, we feel that this accession will go far to fill the gap made by the seceding States.
Our people have an abiding love for, and a loving faith and confidence in the Union. This love and faith has been bred in the bone--it has stood the test of desertion, and even oppression; but is as strong and confident as ever. For them, we send greeting to the sister States, and if ever the time should come when the Union and the Constitution should call for defenders, we pledge the faith and the strong arm of that gallant people, who, for the institutions they loved, have heretofore trod the wine press of oppression, and come out unscathed in honor from the trial.
Then, to our Republican brethren of Kansas, we send one joyous greeting--to Republicans everywhere we extend the same joyous greeting. The grand stimulating triumph of Republicans has been achieved. Kansas has been admitted.
WE WILL FIGHT FOR THE UNION.
The news of the admission of Kansas, announced by THE CONSERVATIVE yesterday--and only by THE CONSERVATIVE, no other paper in Kansas having the news--was the most important that ever reached our borders.
Kansas was organized as a Territory more than six years ago. The bill organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska became a law in May 1854. Up to that time, all territory north 36° 30' had been declared free by the Missouri Compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill abolished the Missouri Compromise, and left the people of those Territories, as it said, "perfectly free to regulate their domestic affairs in their own way." The Administration, however, as well as the framers of the Bill, were in favor of slavery. The terms of the Bill were popular, their real intent and meaning despotic. South and North entered the field after the enactment of this law, and made a trial of their strength. The Federal Government and the Federal troops were on the side of slavery; but the
FREE LABORERS of the North were too powerful for their opponents. For the first time in the history of the country, Slavery was beaten, overpowered, driven from the field.
The terrible fight between slaveocrats on the one side, and honest freemen on the other, we cannot rehearse here; we can only say that the same thing occurred in Kansas which will always happen hereafter. The North whipped the South; "greasy mechanics" and "mud sills" out-emigrated the chivalrous and high-born aristocrats of the South. Against power, against money, against every social advantage, the "poor whites" fought their way through and triumphed.
Since that victory was obtained, Kansas has gained more rapidly in population than any other State in the Union. The free States contain more than two-thirds of the people of the whole Union; their political principles are based upon the eternal, democratic principle that "all men are created equal;" and when the slave States beat the free States, the Devil will beat God. Unless infidels are right, unless injustice is the rule, unless hell is heaven, then Freedom is the ultimate destiny of the whole human race. Yes, of the whole human race. We speak the words of inspired truth, as well as the hopes of finite creatures. As sure as we live under a Divine government, all men will yet be free.
Long and impatiently have we waited for admission into the Union. We first asked for a State Government under the Topeka Constitution--which the House of Representatives adopted in 1856. Next under the Leavenworth Constitution. More than a year ago, the Wyandott Constitution was presented to Congress--it did not become a law until Monday.
An instrument purporting to represent the people of Kansas--though everybody knew that it was a miserable lie, and represented nobody but South Carolina--known in history as the "Lecompton Consitution"--was forced through Congress in 1858. It didn't come to anything. You can't buy up the people of Kansas. It was killed, killed, killed.
But amid the enthusiasm of to-day, we have no time to review our past political history; it is known to all mankind.
It is sufficient to announce to our people that we are at last a State. They will rejoice everywhere; on all our prairies, on every hill side, in every valley, when the glad news reaches them. One universal shout will go up from every heart for the Constitution and the Union.
Whatever other States, urged on by prejudice and fanatic zeal, may say or do against our country and its glorious flag, the people of Kansas with one heart and one voice, will fight forever for that Union, under which our liberty was first secured, and through which it has ever been maintained.
If the dread necessity shall come, if an appeal shall be made to the arbitrament of the sword, we will fight for the stars and stripes till the last enemy is vanquished, till the last drop of blood oozes from our veins.
The preceding was reprinted from The Daily Conservative, January 30, 1861. Published in Leavenworth, The Conservative was the first newspaper to announce that Congress had approved Kansas to be a state.
