Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1859 — Extracts from Greeley’s Speech in Kansas. [ARTICLE]

Extracts from Greeley’s Speech in Kansas.

I- object, of course, to tho doctrine entitled ‘"Popular” or ‘"Squatter Sovereignty,” even in its most plausible aspect* because it is plainly a limitation of iny power and ability, with that of eighteen millions of my countrymen, citizens with me of the Free States, to act upon and influence the existence of J Slavery in the Territories—to labor for its exclusion therefrom. It is on our part as. abdication and in my view a cowardly one. It is in notorious antagonism to the faith and practice of the Revolutionary Fathers, the great men of our country’s heroic age. For. whatever may“ be doubted or denied, it cannot be disputed that Thomas Jefferson first devised and proposed to Congress the exclusion by act of Congress of Slavery from the Territories of the confederacy—not from a part but from all of them—from those South as well as those North of the “Ohio—and that Washington deliberately affixed his name in approval to the i t mortal Ordinance ot ’B7, whereby Slavery was excluded forever from the territory north-west ot the Ohio, which was all tha» territory our Union then possessed. If any one undertakes to toll me that Congressio al Restriction of Slavery distrusts the People, fetters the People, ray short answer is, The question is between your assertion on the one hand and the deliberate recommendation of Thomas Jefferson, the official approval of George Washington, on the otlier, settle it among you 1 Nor do I conclude that the first hundred, first thousand, ten thousand, or any oilier number of settlers in a Territory of the U lited States, have either actual' or -right!ul power to establish Slavery therein, no matter by what vote. Such a vote would be at threileast an exercise o* sovereign power, and a Territory is not a Sovereignty, whatever a State may he. A Territorial organization or condition is a temporary expedient—a stopga P ;l haltway house between nonentity and State Sovereignty. It is a creature of the Federal Government, which has power to suspend, to modify, or even to destroy it at any time. Its principal functionaries are wa med into official file by the breath of Federal Executive favor; that breath may unmake as readily as it. has ma le them. Rjcalfi if you can, the loi g roll of Governors of Kansas—l mean that sort of Governors who have exerted authority and received pay and say which one of them owed his appointment in the smallest degree to the people whom he ruled.’ When The veteran Gen. St. Clair, whom President Jefferson found and for.awhile kept in office as Governor of the North-West Territory, was somehow moved to assert for the first time the doctrine of Territorial Squatter Sever- j eignt' , the answer of Mr Jefferson, through 1 the proper Department, was prompt and tie-1 <• tied: ’ I ‘■•teii. St. Clair, I am Instructed to inform ! yon that you are this dsfy removed frym the 1 yilicc'fd Governor of tiie ’Mortis-West. 'Terri-| tory.” This was a m"-.*’ci'fy instance.of what the logicians term the udhovnin- \ Cm —just as you rn'ght refute a juggler’s pro- 1 tense that he was so attracted or fastened I to the floor that he could not Inf in.uo-i.IJ simply by a kick which should send him fly-I ing over a fence. 1 believe Gen St. Cia'ir! promptly realized that Mr. Jefferson had the j better of the argument, j The Popular Sovereignly which 1 do be-j ! lievo in and maintain is the great severe.gn j right ot the American People—of the Thirty Millions of our countrymen acting through j their chosen Representatives in Congress, to | exclude Human Slavery from every square ; inch of their cojntnon domain, and pass such I laws as they shall find necessary to enforce! and perpetuate such exclusion; thus nreservingnnd consecrating that magnificent, domain to Free Labor and Free Men ever more. To render such exclusion perfect and enduring, I ask, I entreat, the sympathy and co-opera-tion of the settlers in the Territories, whose interest in this exclusion of this enormous evil and scourge is more immediate, but n more real, than that of their fellow-citizens us yet residing in the States. I trust that co-operation will not be here withheld; hut even where they falter, I insist on the right ol the Thirty Millions to "stand linn. The I’ubiie Lands are the property of ill ■ Nation; I deny the right of any mere segment ot that Nation to destroy their value by fastening the blight of Slavery upon them. They are the predestined home of millions of my children and those of my neighbors, as well as yours. I deny your right to shut us out by fixing upon them, for your supposed personal advantage, a curse which virtually excludes us and our descendants therefrom. I would not tresspass upon the thousands and tens of thousands; I insist that they shall not encroach upon the rights of the millions and tens of millions. Of those rights, the Republican party of the Union is the Providential advocate and guardian; and it will not consent to abandon them. But what of the union of the Opposition? I am asked; shall we refuse to unite on equal terms with other opponents of the National Democracy to drive that foul partv from power! Most certainly, we will unite us proposed; I am most willing, end even anxious to do s•. But if there is to be such a union, it must be an alliance, not a jumble, not a melting of existing parties to form n entirely new und distinct [tarty. Ii there is to be union, the Republicans will go into it as Republicans—not asking pardon tor what we have been und promising for the future to besomething else. We join battle with the common adversary under our own proud bann r, under which we have already marched to victory in nearly every tree State of this Confederacy. No new watch words, no strange devices will serve onr turn. Our cardinal principle of Slavery Restriction we cannot, must not surrender; we ask our allies to surrender none of theirs not in conflict with this. If we concede candidates, we do not thereby abandon in principles, but do our best to advance them. For instance, I, as one Republican, speaking for myselt and discla ming any authority to speak for others, should he entirely willing to see the Opposition candidate tor Pre ident cnosen from the ranks of the other wing, provided it should he distinctly understood that the power thus conferred, mostly by Republican votes, w uld he wie ded not to defeat hut to secure the cardinal objects ot our movement, our organtza ion. It this is refused, then no union, save on a Republican, lor President, is possible. The (tarty will speak lor itself, attiie proper time, und through its chosen delegates; but I shull be wiling and ready to support such a man aa John Bell, or John M. Botts, or (hetterl

still) Edward Bates, for next President, upon a distinct and open understanding that he wield the power with which he may be thus entrusted, not to extend and fort.i ! y slavery, hut to limit and restrict it to the States \i hereby it is still cherished. Except on this basis, no union on any but a Republican President is possible or could be rendered effective. It there shall be a union of the Opposition for the contest of 1860, the right of the position must be conceded to the Republican party, as by far the strongest of the allied powers. We go into the battle with certainly not less than eleven States and over one hundred electoral votes at our hack; while i t most, if not all, the remaining Free States, ours is by far the strongest division ot the Opposition forces. If two millions ol popular votes shall he cast in 1860 in opposition to the shum-Democrjcy, at least twothirds of them \x i.l be cait hv Republicans. It, then, this large majority ot the Opposition, for reasons ot patriotic urgency, shall he willing to make liberal accessions as to candidates, and in order to render certain and signal the overthrow of the sham-Democra-cy, I insist that they shall be met in a like magnanimous spirit, without a higgling, cavillii g, or a requirement that we in effect surrender our principles, but in that spirit which commands respect tor cherished convictions of others. And I insist further that if the sham-Dern-oeracy are to he routed in 1860—as routed I trust they will he—the movement must he l ( 'd and impelled by that party which is yet in the vigor of its youth, with the flush of many triumphs oil its brow, which has generous, positive, affirmative, progressive ideas, that [tarty which is sped on its course bv the prayer ot the oppressed and the hopes of the neecy, which bears proudly on its ; dyancing standards tne magic words, “free land for the landless,” while insisting that every worker is of right and should be in fact the absolute owner of his own bone and sinews and of all they enable him to produce. Concede the right ot the attack to his partv, ami victory cannot fail to perch on the banners of the unite,l Opposition; attempt to disband and re-organize if under new flags and sirarige captaius, find it bee mas a shorn Sampson, and a Iresh lease of power is assured to those who have already too long plundered und misruled the Republic