Thus, after the Constitution had been perverted in its fundamental character,--after Congress had been despoiled of one of its most important functions,--after a compact, made sacred by the faith, the feelings, and the hopes of the third of a century, was torn in pieces,--the road was clear for the organization of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories. It was given out, amid jubilations which could not have been louder, if they had been the spontaneous greetings of some real triumph of principle, that henceforth and forever the inhabitants of the Territories would be called to determine their "domestic institutions" for themselves. Under this theory, and amid these shouts, Kansas was opened for settlement; and it was scarcely opened, before it became, as might have been expected, the battleground for the opposing civilizations of the Union, to renew and fight out their long quarrel upon. From every quarter of the land settlers rushed thither, to take part in the wager of battle. They rushed thither, as individuals and as associations, as Yankees and as Corn-crackers, as Blue Lodges and as Emigrant Aid Societies; and most of them went, not only as it was their right, but as it was their duty to do. Congress had invited them in; it had abandoned legitimate legislation in order to substitute for it a scramble between the first comers; and it had said to every man who knew that Slavery was more than a simple local interest, that it was in fact an element of the general political power, "Come and decide the issue here!"