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“POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.”
The Richmond South has a long article, which attacks Governor Walker, of Kansas, for an alleged complicity with the Free State men. The heaviest of its direct charges against him is, that he is in favor of submitting the Constitution, to be formed by the Convention in June, to the vote of all the actual settlers in Kansas. Says the South:
“Congress and the President solemnly abjured the right to dictate any system of government to the Territory of Kansas; but the Hon. Robert J. Walker assumes the prerogative of instructing the constitutional Convention, upon a matter, too, of the most vital importance. Congress left the people of Kansas free to organize a State Government in Their own way, and upon the principles approved by their own judgment: but the Hon. Robert J. Walker informs them that he will not allow them to adopt a Constitution, but upon the condition of submitting it to the inhabitants of the territory. Thus it is that he respects the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act, and reverences the sovereignty of the people.
If the readers of the South can be deceived by such arguments as these, they must love to be cheated.
It is astonishing to see such an intelligent and able editor advocating Popular Sovereignty in such a manner. The essence of the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty requires that the people of Kansas be allowed to adopt such a Constitution as they desire. We have read the South carefully, and have seen no denial of the generally admitted fact that a majority of the settlers of Kansas are in favor of making the Territory a free State. The South claims boldly that the Bogus Territorial organization, if let alone, will make a slave State of Kansas, and, according to it, the Government has no right to interfere with the plans of pretenders. The fact that but a minority of the people can vote, (if such is the case,) under the regulations of the bogus Legislature, is of no importance whatever. Gov. Walker is to be marked by the people of the slave States, because he will not connive at such iniquitous proceedings. We can scarcely credit our eyes, that a journal, second to no Southern journal in the vigor and ability of its editorials, should so coolly advocate Border Ruffianism. It shows us to what length the advocacy of bad cause will lend its advocates.
