have failed in making that policy triumphant, the cause of his failure is due rather to the public feeling of the northern section of the Union than to the attitude of Great Britain. By means of his creature, Senator Benjamin of Louisiana, he introduced a bill into Congress for the forced purchase of Cuba at his own valuation: this he was compelled to withdraw. The present troubles of Mexico are as much due to the machinations of his party as to the chronic anarchy of that republic, and we can never hope to see peace restored to that unhappy country whilst a Slavery president rules the destinies of the American Union. The San Juan difficulty was got up for the sole purpose of drawing off the attention of the Free States from home concerns, but the North saw through the flimsy scheme, and refused to make a trumpery island a casus belli.

In contradistinction to the above resolutions, we have the noble declaration of principles of the Republican party in June, 1856. The Republican Convention was held two weeks subsequently to the Democratic, and the following resolution is intended as a set-off to the foreign policy of the Slave party :

"Resolved, That the highwayman's plea, that 'might makes right,' embodied in the Ostend Circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would

bring shame and dishonour upon any Government or people that gave it their sanction."

Could any language be more concise, or more clearly prove that the Free North is a determined foe to all intermeddling with neighbouring States? And are we not justified in believing that when the anti-Slavery party attains to power, it will pay due respect to the law of nations, and ignore that buccaneering policy which has made the United States a byword and a reproach amongst the Governments of the earth?

THE ACT FORCING SLAVERY UPON KANSAS.

A powerful band of adherents having been formed in the Free States, and the Federal Government committed to a pro-Slavery policy, the South now began to look upon the fertile plains of the far west, as Ahab upon the vineyard of Naboth. Overland emigrants to California and Oregon had remarked the value of the Nebraska territory—a territory specially set apart by the Missouri Compromise to free labour. In nowise deterred by the sacredness of that compromise, the Slave power resolved to convert the territory into a number of Slave States; and with that object, they introduced the Kansas-Nebraska

Bill into the United States Senate.

The moment was propitious. David R. Atchison, of Missouri, one of the most violent of the Slave-holding oligarchy, was President of the Senate, and Judge Douglas, the Chairman of Committee on Territories. Mr. Pierce had completed half the term of his presidential career, and professional politicians were preparing to make bids for the office soon to fall vacant. Foremost amongst these was Senator Douglas of Illinois, only too ready to pander to the South; following, in this respect, Van Buren, Webster, and Cass, and, like them, doomed to be cheated of his

recompense.

In 1854, Mr. Douglas, with an eye to the next presidential nomination of the pro-Slavery party, electrified the Northern States by introducing his famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill into Congress, abolishing the Missouri Compromise and adding a new article to the Democratic creed, entitled "Squatter Sovereignty," meaning the sovereignty over a territory of the squatters or settlers in it. This KansasNebraska Bill not merely abolished the Missouri Compromise, but, by giving the right of legislating to the settlers, transferred that right from, and denied it to, Congress, in whom alone it had been vested by the Constitution of the United States.

The bill was introduced into Congress, and rushed through the various stages into law at the close of the session, in order to obviate the opposition of the North. The various territorial officers, such as governor, secretary, chief justice, associate justices, attorney, marshals, &c., were immediately appointed in the name of the President of the Republic-the imbecile Mr. Franklin Pierce-by the secret junta of Southern chiefs, sometimes called "the Kitchen Cabinet," and Mr. Atchison forthwith quitted his seat in the Senate to organize the new territory of Kansas in the Slave interest. The intention of the South was to overrun the territory with settlers from the Slave districts, adopt a Slave-holding Constitution, and apply immediately for admission into the Union as a Slave State. But they counted without the North, who, for the first time in the history of the country, had become thoroughly roused, and had resolved, that coûte que coûte, Kansas should be a Free State.

On the 30th of May, 1854, the Territory was thrown open to emigrants, and, on the 29th of November following, the settlers proceeded to the election of a Territorial Delegate to Congress. In the meantime, secret organizations, called "blue lodges," had been formed in the adjoining Slave State of

Missouri, under the immediate supervision and direction of Senator Atchison. The Northern States, quickly discerning that this new doctrine of squatter sovereignty could be used equally well for their object as for that of the South, and taking example from what was passing in Missouri, immediately set on foot “Emigrant Aid Societies," for the purpose of assisting free labourers to reach Kansas in the speediest and cheapest mode possible. Hundreds of emigrants forthwith traversed the Northern States towards the new battle-ground of freedom. The superior numbers and greater capital of the Free North seemed to promise them an easy victory; but they ignored the determination of the South and the treachery of the President and his Cabinet. At a meeting held in Westport, Missouri, on the 29th July, 1854, a "self-defensive organization" was formed, with the avowed object of fostering the Slave interest in Kansas territory, every member swearing "to assist in removing any and all emigrants who go there under the auspices of Northern Emigrant Aid Societies."

Before we enter upon the history of Kansas and her struggles for liberty, let us once more revert to the previous outrages of the Slave power and the supineness of the North. In 1820, the Free States