The Kansas Herald Of Freedom

Crime is Crime.

It must be apparent to every impartial reader that a portion of the Kansas press is struggling with might and main to get up another foment along the border, and with Missouri. Instead of laboring to quiet the present excitement by a manly defence of our own rights, and concessions where we are wrong, it magnifies everything into causes for another general outbreak. The kidnapping of Dr. Doy and Son, they dwell upon as the aggregation of human wickedness, but it publishes with apparent approval a letter from Old John Brown, in which he acknowledges going over into Missouri and robbing several planters of their property, taking off, in addition, several persons held there as slaves, killing one man, and kidnapping two others, who were forcibly carried over the Kansas line from Missouri to Barnesville, and there liberated; after being tauntingly told that they might go back as fast as they were a mind to and bring over a force to chastise them.

We feel as indignant as any one can be, cause of the gross outrage upon Dr. Doy and his son. Though we have but little love for them as men, yet they were citizens of Kansas, and were arrested in violation of law on Kansas soil, and forcibly removed beyond the jurisdiction of this Territory. The act is not justifiable under any circumstance, and we are glad to see our citizens alive to the wrong, and determined to bring the aggressors to justice. We will contribute our full share in money, time, or influence to mete out to the perpetrators of the crime a just and legal retribution, be they who they may; at the same time we wish to enter our solemn protest against receiving into favor those men, citizens of Kansas, who have committed still greater outrages upon the people of Missouri. We would as soon welcome to our family, or to Lawrence the kidnappers of Dr. Doy, as the murderers of Cruse, or those who kidnapped the two citizens of Missouri mentioned above. Crime is crime, whether committed by Free State men or Pro-slavery men, and we would go as far, and do as much to punish the former as the latter; yea, more, we believe in relieving ourselves of responsibility and censure before we grow too indignant over wrongs heaped upon ourselves. The Saviour taught us to remove the beam from our own eye, before we attempt to remove the mote from our neighbor's. This noble suggestion, from the founder of our religion, needs a practical enforcement now, not that we would relax one particle of effort to bring the Kansas kidnappers to justice, but we would be quite as vigilant in getting possession of, and giving over to punishment the perpetrators of the crimes in Missouri who have fled to Kansas with their stolen property, and the victims they kidnapped.