Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/802

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TROUBLES IN KANSAS.

was navigable to that place, and doubtless the general government will readily unite with this territory to secure this object.

A geological survey, developing the great mineral resources of this territory, is so necessary as merely to require notice. Provision for this useful work should immediately be made.

The early disposal of the public lauds and their settlement will materially advance our substantial prosperity. Great anxiety prevails among the settlers to secure titles to their lands The facilities for this purpose, by but one land-office in the territory, are inadequate to the public wants, and I have consequently recommended the establishment of two or more additional land-offices in such positions as will best accommodate the people.

After mature consideration, and from a thorough conviction of its propriety, I have suggested large congressional appropriations. The coming immigration, attracted by our unrivaled soil and climate, will speedily furnish the requisite population to make a sovereign state. Other territories have been for years the recipients of congressional bounty, and a similar amount of money and land bestowed upon them during a long period, should at once be given to Kansas, as, like the Eureka state, she will spring into full life, and the prosperity of the territory, and the welfare and protection of the people coming here from every state of the Union, to test anew the experiment of republican government, require ample and munificent appropriations.

As citizens of a territory, we are peculiarly and immediately under the protecting influence of the Union, and, like the inhabitants of the states comprising it, feel a lively interest in all that concerns its welfare and prosperity. Within the last few years, sundry conflicting questions have been agitated throughout the country, and discussed in a spirit calculated to impair confidence in its strength and perpetuity, and furnish abundant cause for apprehension and alarm. These questions have mostly been of a local or sectional character, and as such should never have acquired general significance or importance. All American citizens should divest themselves of selfish considerations in relation to public affairs, and in the spirit of patriotism make dispassionate inquisition into the causes which have produced much alienation and bitterness among men whom the highest considerations require should be united in the bonds of fraternal fellowship. All Union-loving men should unite upon a platform of reason, equality, and patriotism. All sectionalism should be annihilated. All sections of the Union should be harmonized under a national, conservative government, as during the early days of the republic. The value of the Union is beyond computation, and no respect is due to those who will even dare to calculate its value. One of our ablest statesmen has wisely and eloquently said, "Who shall assign limits to the achievements of free minds and free hands under the protection of this glorious Union? No treason to mankind since the organization of society would be equal in atrocity to that of him who would lift his hand to destroy it. lie would overthrow the noblest structure of human wisdom, which protects himself and his fellow man. He would stop the progress of free government, and involve his country either in anarchy