One Hundred Guns for Nebraska!New Haven, Connecticut, Register [Democratic](24 May 1854)
At sunrise this morning, one hundred guns were
fired from the Public Square, by order of the Democratic
Town Committee, in honor of the passage
of the bill giving Territorial Governments to the
people of Nebraska and Kansas, and the triumph of
the principle of Constitutional freedom involved
therein. Thirty-one guns were first fired for the 31
sovereign States, then 1 each for Kansas and Nebraska;
then 13 for the original states; and the
majority for the bill; then a salute for the President
-- followed by salutes to honor Messrs. Toucey,
and Ingersoll, of this state, Douglass,
Richardson, and the friends of the bill.
We are not particularly partial to demonstrations
of this noisy kind, on party triumphs -- but there
has been such an amount of misrepresentation,
both of the bill and its friends -- such a bold-faced
system of abuse, and calumny, from the press, pulpit,
and stump -- that no one can question the propriety
of the manifestation of gladness which is felt by
the friends of the bill, on its final passage.
The settlement of the vexed question of Slavery,
by the establishment of the principle of non-Intervention,
and leaving the whole question to those
interested; under the guarantees of the Constitution,
will put an end to that agitation which has been so
fruitful of mischief, and of danger to the Union. It
can no more distract the legislation of Congress --
or prove a bone of contention between the North
and the South - but to the highest courts of the
country will be left all cases involving either its
existence or perpetuity. Confidence will be
restored between the different sections of the country
-- trade will develop a new impetus -- good feeling
succeed to jealousy and hatred - and the measure
will soon be one of the most popular, ever adopted
by Congress. The friends of the Union will take
their position upon it, in such numbers as to defy
opposition, and keep the fell spirit of a ruthless and
blind fanaticism within proper bounds.-- Based upon
the Constitution, carrying out the first principles
of our republican institutions, yielding nothing but
what fairly belongs to State sovereignty and individual
rights - it is emphatically a peace measure, and
impregnable to assault. The free States are not
injured by this act; but by a reasonable concession
will be greatly benefitted. The Territory in
question will be as free from slavery, as if the restriction
of 1820 had never been adopted - while a hateful
geographical line, over which one portion of the
Union has taunted the other, and attempted to act
the conservator where they were not as particularly
interested, (and over which Nature itself had
established laws irrevocable by man,) will be obliterated,
and the forms of local government take such shape
as the inhabitants of the new Territories may desire,
subject only to such restrictions as are imposed by
by the Constitution of the United States - the highest
authority known to the people.
Looking, therefore, above the bluster and bitterness
with which this bill has been assailed, and
which is one of the natural consequences in the
establishment of all great reforms, it is essentially a
season for rejoicing with all well-wishes of their
country.
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