Secession Era Editorials Project

A CUNNING GAME!

Raleigh, North Carolina, Register [Whig]

(17 May 1854)

It is rumored that the leading friends of the Administration in Congress -- those who are determined "to rule or ruin" -- are playing a deep game in politics. They see that the Nebraska-Kansas Bill cannot pass without striking out the Clayton amendment, by which move every worthless foreigner, having no knowledge of our institutions, and less attachment for some of them, will be admitted to the ballot box in those territories, thereby excluding most effectually all Southern slaveholders. They also see, that, allowing such men to vote in those territories, the Homestead Bill is a stumbling block, at least with the members of the old States, in the way of the passage of the Nebraska Bill, and therefore they have agreed to "sing low" and play "possum" on the Homestead, until the Nebraska is through. Then, is any man fool enough to suppose, that Douglas will suffer it to rest? Is any man so blind as not to see that it is the settled purpose of the President to approve that bill? If he does, it will be the most ruinous to the South. Hear what the " Washington Union," the organ of the Administration, says on this subject. It deserves the most serious attention of every man who does not wish the South made, most effectually, the "hewer of wood and drawer of water" to the North. Hear the " Union:"

"To our mind it is rash to declare, that because the President cannot approve a bill appropriating land for a purely eleemosynary purpose, he cannot approve one which grants his homestead to the hardy pioneer, or one which grants alternate sections of land for the construction of a railroad."

Can such language as this be mistaken? -- Does it not show, most conclusively, what are the views and purposes of the President, -- that he is resolved to approve the Homestead Bill? Will the people of the old States, on whom this measure will fall most ruinously, suffer themselves to be humbugged by the basely cunning and false representations of the lackeys of the Administration? Let them look to it before it is too late to remedy the evil!