Record Data
Source citation
“Position of the Administration on the Kansas Question,” National Era 11, no. 549, 9 July,
1857, p. 112.
1857, p. 112.
Original source
Washington (DC) Union
Newspaper: Publication
Washington (DC) National Era
Newspaper: Headline
Position of the Administration on the Kansas Question
Newspaper: Page(s)
112
Type
Newspaper
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Meghan Fralinger
Transcription date
Transcription
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.
POSITION OF THE ADMINISTRATION ON THE KANSAS QUESTION.
We find the position of the Administration at Washington on the subject of Kansas thus defined by the Union newspaper of Wednesday:
The country at large have been advised through the mails and by telegraph of a studied determination, on the part of those deluded citizens of Kansas who still madly cling to the so-called Topeka Constitution, to take no part in the pending election contest in the Territory. Friends of law and order, men who are actuated by the purest and most patriotic motives, having in vain urged them to vote for delegates to a Convention to frame a State Constitution, there is nothing left but to express regret for their folly, and to leave them to the consequences which are likely to follow their mischievous if not dangerous obstinacy.
The position of the Democratic party, and it is scarcely necessary to add, the position of the Administration, in regard to existing difficulties in Kansas, cannot be misunderstood. It is, that the people of the Territory have the right to settle the character of their institutions. If a considerable or inconsiderable portion of their number conceive that they can impair and ultimately destroy that right, by creating difficulties and disturbances, or by taking no part in the elections, they labor under an error , of which they cannot be too soon disabused; for the Democratic, conservative portion of the country will regard as the people of Kansas only such as are now uniting to frame a form of government in accordance with the provisions of law, and not those who are seeking to paralyze the popular will by illegal subterfuges and the quibbles pf fanaticism.
Whatever the Constitution may be, whether recognizing or excluding Slavery, or silent in regard to the institution, it will be viewed as the expression of the will of the people of Kansas, as those who frame it under the Federal Constitution and in a manner recognized by the organic law.
The Administration we are quite sure stands on the doctrine of non-intervention, in the strictest sense of the term, and will insist, to the extent of its constitutional power, that the people of that Territory shall manage their own affairs in their own way. – Washington Union.