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Transcription
The “Governors” of Kansas.
We publish, today, and address, which may be fairly enough called the true Inaugural Address of Gov. WALKER to the people of Kansas, for the gubernatorial function, in a free country, is not a sham, but a reality. It is the actual exercise, by one man, of the faculty of control, for the use and benefit of his fellow-men. And a man, therefore, really inaugurates his office in a Territory situated as Kansas now is, when he honestly and directly meets the difficulties of his position, and accepts the actual responsibilities which it imposes.
We took occasion to find fault with the nominal Inaugural of the new Governor of Kansas, precisely because in that speech Governor WALKER wandered away not once, but several times, from the sharp and vital questions before him into general disquisitions upon subjects of political economy and of social philosophy, more apt to the discussions of the college lecture-room, or the scientific association, than to the halls of legislation, or the conferences of an outraged and indignant people with the functionary who was to restore them to peace, by commanding their confidence and respect. It affords, therefore, the more satisfaction to commend to the attention of our readers the plain, practical, and altogether satisfactory language in which Governor WALKER addressed the people of Kansas at Topeka on the 6th of June.
Nothing could be more direct than the Governor’s premises; nothing more sage than his counsels. He undertakes to exert his utmost influence in ever legal direction to insure for the will of the majority in Kansas a fair hearing and an efficient action. He declares that if the Constitutional Convention shall not submit the result of its deliberations to the judgment of the people, he will join the people of Kansas in all legitimate efforts to repudiate that result. In fact, while Governor WALKER is very particularly careful to maintain the positions which, as an official of the Federal Government, it becomes him to maintain, he shows as warm and as manly a sympathy with the great democratic instincts of the people of Kansas, as is manifested by Governor Robinson, in his address to the Topeka Legislature on the 9th of June.
Those who will take the trouble to read both of these documents impartially and quietly will come, we are sure, to the conclusion that the cause of Freedom is not likely to receive any serious detriment in Kansas, while the people of the Territory are represented by so calm and resolute a will as that of Governor ROBINSON, and the disposition of the Federal Government by so just and pacific a temper as that of Governor WALKER.
