Affairs in Kansas

    Source citation
    "Affairs in Kansas," Charleston (SC), May 23, 1856, p. 2.
    Newspaper: Publication
    Charleston (SC) Mercury
    Newspaper: Headline
    Affairs in Kansas
    Newspaper: Page(s)
    2
    Type
    Newspaper
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Transcriber
    Michael Blake
    Transcription date
    The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
    Affair in Kansas
     
    The long gathering storm seems at last about to break upon this battlefield of Southern rights.  To those who have watched it with discerning eyes, the present position of affairs will appear to seem to be simply the fruit of inevitable cause.  From the beginning collision has seem to be unavoidable, though postponed by this or that circumstance.

    What will be the limits of a war begun under such exasperation, it is impossible to foretell.  It has in it all the elements of a , deep, long nursed civil feud, to which the North and the South are committed parties.  The news of a battle in Kansas will reign through the land, exciting to exultation or resentment the opposing sections of the union.  Blood, we know, is a maddening draught, and blood spilled the Kansas is likely to feed a flame throughout the union, which blood alone can extinguish.  

    The position which the south occupies in this matter, cannot fail to be a pride to her sons.  On the side of law, in entrenched in her constitutional rights, she has commonly awaited the onset of abolition lawlessness, her son in Kansas, though stigmatized as "border ruffians", have acted with the moderation and forbearance.  Every outraged committee against law has been on the side of the abolitionists, who, back by the fanaticism of the North, have sworn to drive out or extinguish slavery in Kansas.  They have rushed madly on, in spite of remonstrance, executive warning, in the certainty, that the most desperate resistance awaited them.

    And now, that the issue is come, in face to face the south confronts her enemies in Kansas, now that violence threatens to swallow up peace, and the whole country thrilled with anxiety as to what "the next move" shall be - way we not remember with satisfaction, what South Carolina has done on behalf of Kansas, and pointing to that hand of gallant spirits, who have in keeping her honor and rights, demand for them not only sympathy, but real, practical support?  Never was money expended in a worthier cause and never more prudently; for Kansas is an investment for posterity - for those who are here after to enjoy the fruits of our zeal in defence of the South.  The changes which break around us daily, leave to the South no alternative but to press on or be destroyed.  Fine-drawn speculations never yet saved a people or a cause.  And so long as rivalry is the law of nations, life, her path will be cumbered with obstacles which can only be surmounted by activity and courage.   

    How to Cite This Page: "Affairs in Kansas," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/1559.