Charleston (SC) Mercury, "The Result in the House," April 7, 1858

From the Mobile Register.

The startling intelligence reached us yesterday through the telegraph, that the vote in the House of Representatives upon the bill from the Senate admitting Kansas into the Union, had resulted in the adoption of the amendment proposed without success by Mr. Crittenden in the Senate. We acknowledge ourselves disappointed by this result. At the same time, however, we do not still surrender the hope that Kansas will yet be admitted during this session of Congress, in the manner as determined by the Senate in the bill which passed that body. We do not consider this vote in the House as decisive and definitive. WE will not believe, while there yet remains a loop on which to hang a doubt of such an event, that the destinies of our country have become so complicated with the fatal frenzy of fanaticism, or the accused spirit of sectionalism, as that a majority of the national legislature will refuse admission to a State, because she presents a constitution that recognizes slavery as one of her institutions. If Kansas is denied admission, as she has asked it, with her constitution framed by her delegates at Lecompton, it will be useless to attempt to disguise the truth that the result would have been due to the recognition of slavery by that instrument. If such shall be the issue of this proceeding, the South will have the alternative thereby presented her, either of withdrawal from the Union, or of abject and cowardly submission to the tyrannic rule of the Northern majority. She stands pledged, in effect, to resist such a decision to the extremity of secession, and she will stand dishonored before the world, and with the debasing brand of bondage upon her, if she shall shrink from or falter in her resolution. We do not believe she will. We should blush to believe it. But we will cherish the hope that  the contingency whereon she stands pledged to resort to the dread alternative in question will not occur. We trust that there will yet be found among the representatives of Northern States sufficient of prudent and patriotic conservatism to avert the fatal issue of a final rejection of the Lecompton constitution. We sincerely hope that the vote which has been announced to us by the telegraph may not be conclusive as to what the final determination of the question is to be. For the present, at any rate, we shall not so regard it. There is a possibility that the measure, as passed by the Senate, may yet be concurred in by the House. Perhaps the following paragraph from a letter writtn a few days ago from Washington to the New York Times by its editor, will be found to have been as prophetic as the whole result as it has proved to be of the part which has transpired.

"It is now generally believed that Mr. Crittenden's amendment - requiring a submission of the Constitution to the people of Kansas - will be carried in the House. The Hon. Horace F. Clark, of your city, in an able and ingenious speech to-day, foreshadowed, though he did not declare, his purpose to vote for it - and he will probably be followed in so doing by all the Douglas Democrats. The Southern Americans support it warmly, as they consider it their measure. For this very reason some of the ultra radical Republicans hesitate about giving it their vote - but their scruples will probably yield to maturer reflection. It will probably be carried by this combination, and will be sent back to the Senate.  That body will doubtless reject it - and then the question will recur whether the House will recede from or adhere to the amendment. If the bill reaches that stage, I think it will pass."