Leavenworth Daily Times, June 28th, 18601
Congress has adjourned. The deed is done—the crime completed. Our land grants are withheld. The Homestead Bill has been chopped down by the Executive axe. The Pacific Railroad fails under the harsh hand of faithless Democracy—while the languishing manufacturing interest, that half feeds the innumerable legions of poor operatives, has been neglected and passed with contempt. But as charity begins at home, it is our own wrongs that we propose to review. Kansas, as a people, endureth hard fare with unexampled fortitude. For six years have we been the foot ball for political ambition—a fate that was never shared with us by any of the most depraved minions of the ruling political power of the government. Kansas has made, under an unseen delusion, four constitutions, three of which would have made her shackles fall from the grasp of the Oligarchy, and clothed her with a sovereignty in all essentials, upon a footing of equality with the other States of the Union. But the toadyism and fawning of northern doughfaces has multiplied our sufferings and extended the base rule of federal oppression over our people and commerce.
Prostrate and poverty stricken, Kansas still remains helpless at the feet of political despots, suffering for crimes she never knew, unable to vindicate her people from the calumny of a Texas ruffian, or to speak words of consolation to the drooping spirits of her suffering inhabitants.
Thus, insulted with Wigfall’s brutality, our petition has been refused, and our hopes blasted for the present. With the usual land grants, Kansas, in a few years, would have, by the development of her resources, been able to count her surplus products at every depot, and to send them upon every river, sea and railroad, upon which the fruits of Western enterprise now are to be found. Thus is not only Kansas to suffer, but also those channels of transportation, over which our commerce would otherwise soon (like so many toll gates) pay duties upon her tonnage, thereby swelling the aggregate revenue to the rail roads over which it would pass, and giving to the boatmen on our rivers new encouragement.
But this is not all. Our people would soon have forgotten the past wrongs inflicted upon them, and would have become frugal and happy in their new homes. hitherto we have shared largely of the sympathy of the good citizens of the States. This being our darkest hour, under all our long train of insult and political suffering, because of our devotion to Republican principles and the best interests of men, we ask, shall we not again excite public indignation for the cruelty and harshness of our fate.
The debasement of a party now in twain, and without a prestige either for evil or good, is but the sequel of its own vile corruption; and crime. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Ye tried to enslave a free people; but failed, and a just God, it would seem, has willed, providentially, that your mad career should be brought to a close, not at Charleston, but in a city with monuments ready built to designate the unhallowed spot where a once proud party breathed its last.
- This clipping was sent by Mark W. Delahay in a letter to Abraham Lincoln on June 30, regarding campaign efforts in Kansas.