The President of the United States has at last perpetrated an act which he has for some time meditated, but which his infirmity of purpose—for he is feeble even in the commission of wrong—has led him to postpone till he has dared no longer to refuse obedience to his southern masters. After some months of imbecile vacillation, characteristic of a little mind, he has screwed up his reluctant courage to brave the indignation of the united North, and has performed an act which will have no other interpretation than a deliberate endorsement of the late Missouri outrages.
That Gov. Reeder has been removed, not for malversation in office, but purely because he refused to lend himself as the pliant tool of a pro-slavery mob, is evident, not only from the facts of the case, but from the political complexion of the man who has been appointed to succeed him. John L. Dawson, of Pennsylvania, the newly appointed Governor of Kansas, is one of the members of the last Congress whom the people remanded to private life, in consequence of his participation in that gigantic fraud and insult to the North, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He voted for that repeal through all the stages of the Congressional proceedings by which it was consumated, and Mr. Pierce has now found an opportunity to pay him the wages of his iniquity. The administration were disappointed in the character of Gov. Reeder, but they have now found a creature who will, no doubt, prove the subservient tool they wish.
The internal peace of the country has never been so seriously imperilled, since the organization of the government, as it is to-day. The Administration in power repealed a sacred compact hallowed in the hearts of all northern freemen, under the insidious pretence of restoring to the territory to which it extended, the principle of popular sovereignty. An armed mob from a slaveholding state invades the territory and takes forcible possession of its government. The Administration at Washington instead of aiding the inhabitants in repelling this invasion of their right, openly abet the invaders, and by a high-handed act of authority remove the Governor of the territory, for no other reason than because he is firm in asserting the rights of the territory, and faithful to its interests. As it has now become certain that no redress of the grievances of the territory is to be looked for from the General Government, it would not be surprising if the people should take the remedy in their own hand, and the mob from Missouri should be met by armed men from other States. If the torch of civil war should be lighted in Kansas God only knows how far the conflagration would spread, or when it would end. The nearness of the next presidential election opens the only door of escape from so dire a calamity, and this last act of President Pierce has put the seal of certainty to the election of a Northern man with Northern sentiments for his successor.—Buff. Com. Adv.