Report of the special committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas,: with the views of the minority of said committee.

KANSAS AFFAIRS.
wide spread desire and attention, on the part of the southern States,
to use all praticable means to control the institutions of Kansas, has
been so openly and repeatedly avowed, that it needs no proof. The
whole charge therefore against this company, that it has been the
occasion of the difficulties in Kansas, on the ground of its assumed
priority of action, is totally destitute of foundation.
This company has employed associated capital, and organized under
a charter, for the convenience of its business. But the use of associated capital is a common principle of all societies, and has never, so
far as we know, been objected to, except in the case of this company;
and the organization under a charter, so far from implying any design
to "violate or circumvent" the law, is direct evidence of a contrary
intent. It is, in fact, from the "improper and unauthorized" acts
of unchartered and illegal societies that the greatest danger to the
institutions of Kansas has arisen.
Although the associations formed at the north have, no doubt, different objects and different methods of action from those of the southern
States, the rights of all of them are equal under the act, so long as
their proceedings are conformable to the laws. The citizens of the
southern States have not, in general,shown the same disposition with
those of the north to emigrate to Kansas, or to aid others to go there
for permanent settlement; but they have fully recognized their right
to do this, and declare their intention to exercise it. That they have
failed to act more efficiently for this object is not, perhaps, owing so
much to the want of a desire to extend their peculiar institutions
into the Teiritory as to other causes.
While the objects and action of this company are severely comdemned
by the report, we find in it no censure of the "unauthtorized and
improper interference" of southern societies in the affairs of the Territory. Indeed the langua,ge of the report would lead to the inference
that the Kansas-Nebraska act was especially designed for the benefit
of those individuals and societies who seek to render the institutions
of Kansas congenial to those of Missouri. Their action is spoken of
as simply "defensitve,' while that of the Massachusetts company is
characterized as' agygres.sive;" those therefore, it would seem, who
favor the establishmient of free institutions in Kansas are guilty of
acts of aggression while those who aim to plant slavery there are
acting only on the defensive, and are not liable to the charge of
endeavoring to "violate or circumvent' the Kansas-Nebraska act.
But whatever may be the views of the report in regard to the design
and effect of the Kansas-Nebraska act, the people of the United States
will never sanction the doctrine that it was intended for the special
benefit of Missouri. That St,ate, althoiigh lying in immediate proximnity to the Territory of Kansas, can have no other rights there than
those which belong e(-ually to every State of the Union. If the construction of the act siggested by the report is to be maintained, it
becomes indeed "a (-. estion of fearful import" how far such legislation is "compatible with the rights and liberties of the people."
Since al] the various Emigrant Aid Societies of the country have
equal rights in the Territory of Kansas, no exception can be taken
to the action of any one of them, so long as it confines itself to legiti
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