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MR. WALKER’S VIEWS IN REGARD TO SLAVERY IN KANSAS.
Extract of a Letter Written by Mr. Walker, September, 1856.
If this question, as provided by the Kansas and Nebraska bill, should be left to the people of the Territory in forming their State Constitution, it will be determined by soil, climate, productions and the laws which govern the movements of population. Here, in the North, aided by its greatly superior numbers, by European, non-slaveholding immigrants, by the greater facility of movement, unencumbered by the transport of slaves, or the apprehension of their ultimate condition were taken, have great advantages over the South in the settlement of new Territories; and should be perfectly satisfied with the principle which leaves the determination of this question, when they become a State, to a majority of the people of the Territory. This is the Kansas-Nebraska bill. This is non-intervention- absolute non-interference by the Federal Government.
There is another reason not heretofore adverted to which seems to render it impracticable long to maintain Slavery in Kansas. In all the Slave States there is a large majority of voters who are non-slaveholders, but they are devoted to the institutions of the South- they would defend them with their lives- and on this question the South are a united people. This class, composed of many small farmers, of merchants, mechanics, overseers, and other industrial classes, constitute mainly the patrol of the South, and cheerfully unite in carrying out those laws essential to preserve the institution. Against a powerful minority and constant agitation, Slavery could not exist in any State. It is a well-known fact that this result would have followed soon, in several of the Slave States, but for the unanimity speedily produced there by the Abolition agitators and intermeddlers of the North. Now, Kansas is much divided on the question of Slavery there; there is a powerful minority there, if not a majority. A party not neutral but bitterly hostile to the institution; and for this, in addition to the reasons before given, I do not believe Kansas will become a Slave State.
