35TH CONG....1ST SESS. gle, which has occupied so much of our time, to the almost entire exclusion of other important public business, is about to terminate. Before the setting of to-morrow's sun, this great question, momentous in its results of weal or woe, will have been decided. In advocating the immediate admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, I shall speak with the frankness and freedom which the subject deserves. I hope to do so, however, with entire respect to the opponents of this measure on the other side of this Hall, and especially without reflection upon the motives of those Democratic Representatives who have deemed themselves constrained to separate on this measure from four fifths of their political brethren on this floor. Admission of Kansas-Mr. Stevenson. ating the necessity of a submission of the consti- An election for delegates took place. The convention met and adopted a constitution. The convention submitted to the people of the Territory the question of slavery or no slavery, and on the 21st December, 1857, this vote resulted as follows: constitution with slavery, six thousand two hundred and twenty-six; constitution without slavery, five hundred and sixty-nine. Since the assembling of Congress a vote has been taken for members of the State organization ordained by this constitution, and these officers were elected by the largest vote ever cast in the Territory. It is true that Governor Stanton convened the Territorial Legislature which met after the convention, and It will be my purpose to show that the imme- that this Legislature attempted to usurp the power diate admission of Kansas under the Lecompton of directing a vote on the constitution, upon the constitution, is demanded, not less by a strict ob- || 4th of January, 1858, the day on which the State servance of the true principles of representative elections under the State constitution had been government, than by a sacred regard to that equal-held. It is also true that a large vote was cast ity and sovereignty of the States, which consti- against the constitution on the 4th of January, as tute the strongest bond of our Union. ordered by the Territorial Legislature of Kansas, and which it will hereafter be attempted to be shown was clearly null and void. Kansas now presents her constitution, and is sisterhood of States! In the earlier, and I was going to say, better days of the Republic, an admission that the constitution of Kansas was republican, and that the Territory contained the requisite population would be all that would have been required to have added another State to our confederated Union. When we behold the strife and discord What, Mr. Chairman, are the facts of this application? In 1850, when for the sake of peace, it was proposed to extend the Missouri line, as adopted in 1820 and applied to the Louisiana pur-knocking at our doors for admission into this holy chase, to the territory which had then been but recently acquired from Mexico, it was indignantly refused by the anti-slavery Representatives of the North, and their united votes stand recorded against the proposition. The nascent spirit of abolitionism was then too strong and potent to be hemmed in by any geographical line, and from the sectional agitation which ensued, it was apparent that the Missouri compromise line could not be extended. The fires of sectional discord waxed so warm as to threaten destruction to the Union. The stormy debate which then ensued, and the gloom which hung like a dark pall over the whole country, will always be regarded as a prominent crisis in the history of this Republic. The compromise measures closed that fearful struggle, and in lieu of the extension of a geographical line, there was substituted the more harmonious principle that the question of slavery was to be withdrawn from Congress, and the people of the Territories left free to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. Whatever may have been the opinion and action of leading men in particular localities, the settlement of this sectional controversy by the compromises of 1850 was generally acquiesced in and approved by the conservative and patriotic men of all parties throughout the length and breadth of our land. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act was passed; and acting on the principle of non-intervention which marked the compromises of 1850, this Missouri line was declared inoperative and void, non-intervention was again reaffirmed, and the Congress of the United States declared "The true intent and meaning of that act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." A territorial government was formed, and very shortly after its organization a Territorial Legislature was elected. In July, 1855, this Legislature submitted to the people of Kansas the question of whether they would call a convention to frame a State government, preparatory to admission into the Union, The election was held, and by almost a unanimous vote the people decided in favor of a convention. In pursuance of this vote the Territorial Legislature, on the 19th February, 1857, passed their convention act. This was just and fair in all its provisions. It was passed by legal authority, and was the result of the popular vote demanding its passage. It provided for the clection of delegates, the taking of the census, and registry of voters. It afforded equal opportunities to all in the election of delegates. It allowed a month for the correction of registry returns, and denounced heavy penalties against fraudulent and illegal voting, and protected the elective franchise by the strongest provisions. It is proper here to mention, that this act of the Territorial Legislature was vetoed by Governor Geary, because it did not provide for a submission of the constitution to the people. The Legislature passed it by a two-thirds vote over his head, utterly repudi that this application has produced, after the de- "That centuries should reap HO. OF REPS. an enabling act is unnecessary, it could be fur nished in the opinion of Mr. Justice McLean, of the Supreme Court of the United States, who (in the case of Scott vs. Johnson, 5 Howard, 380) says: "Michigan was an organized Territory of the United States. Its Governors, judges, and all other territorial offi cers were in the discharge of their various functions. The sovereignty of the Union extended to it. Under these circumstances, the people of Michigan assembled by delegates in convention, and adopted a constitution, and under it elected members of both branches of their Legislature, Gorernor, judges, and organized the State government. No serious objection need he made, in my judgment, to the assem blage of the people in convention to form a constitution, although it is the more regular and customary mode to pro. ceed under the sanction of an act of Congress." It is a notable fact, too, and I commend it to the attention of the Republicans, who have heaped such opprobrium upon a majority of the Supreme Court for their opinion in the Dred Scott case, (where the entire court held that they had jurisdiction,) that, in the case of Scott vs. Johnson, the entire court, save Mr. Justice McLean, held they had no jurisdiction, yet he, notwithstanding, delivered his opinion on the merits without the slightest suspicion from any quarter upon his spotless escutcheon as a judge or a man. The case further shows that an act of incorporation passed by into the Union was held valid by the court of last the Legislature of Michigan before its admission resort in that State. It is urged, however, as a valid objection against the Lecompton convention, that a large number of counties were unrep resented in consequence of the want of a registry; and, therefore, that the convention was not a fair representative of the popular will. It has been abundantly shown that these counties contained but a small population, and many of them scarcely a solitary vote. Some of them were attached to adjacent counties for civil and military purposes. I have already referred to the provisions of the law making just provision for a full, free, and fair expression of opinion in the convention. Why were not its provisions carried out? Why a failLet Governor Stanton give the reply: ure to register in these unrepresented counties? "It is not my purpose to reply to your statement of facts; I cannot do so from any personal knowledge enabling me either to admit or deny them. I may say, however, I have heard statements quite as authentic as your own, and in some instances froin members of your own party, (Repub licans,) to the effect that your political friends have very generally, indeed almost universally, refused to participate in the pending proceedings for registering the names of the legal voters. In some instances they have given fictitious names, and in numerous others they refused to give any names at all. You cannot deny that your party have heretofore resolved not to take part in the registration, and it appears to me that, without indulging ungenerous suspicions of the integrity of officers, you might well attribute any errors and omissions of the sheriffs to the existence of this well known and controlling fact." I propose briefly to answer some of the objections made against the passage of this bill. What are they? It is claimed that an enabling act was necessary before the people of a Territory can form a State government with a view to admission in the Union. This was one of the strong points made by the distinguished Senator from Illinois, in his celebrated speech on the 9th December. In support of his position, he cited the admission of Arkansas, and the arguments of Mr. Buchanan and other distinguished gentlemen of that day, in favor of the necessity of enabling acts. Whatever conservative men of all parties might have at one period thought of the regularity of enabling acts as a prerequisite for admission, it is too late in the day now to insist upon their ne- It is here apparent that faction prevented the cessity. Against the arguments of northern and registry, and that the people who were not rep. southern men, in former times, in favor of these resented did not desire and would not have voted enabling acts as a sine qua non to admission, we in the choice of representatives to this convention, point to the precedents and past history of the if the registry had been complete. Mr. Chairman, Government. A large majority of the new States if there had been any portion of the people of that have come in without enabling acts. The settled Territory who had felt themselves disfranchised practice of the Government has been against their -who found themselves deprived of the right of necessity, and the honest opinion of distinguished suffrage-can it be conceived that they would not men has been forced to yield to precedent. The have sought a corrective of such abuses at the distinguished Senator from Illinois, himself, disre-hands of the convention? Where are their petigarded the want of an enabling act in the admis- tions setting out these grievances, and detailing sion of several of the free States, in which the South these wrongs? Where is the remonstrance of a was compelled to acquiesce. The authority of the solitary county, that they had been denied a voice Territorial Legislature to call this convention was in that convention? Where is the demand for the acquiesced in by Governor Walker, Secretary correction of the apportionment made by GovStanton, and the people of the Territory them- ernor Stanton, with a full knowledge that there selves; ay, sir, by no one more fully than by had been no registry in the counties enumerated? the distinguished Illinois Senator himself, in his Where is the complaint from a solitary being in Springfield speech, delivered but a short period be- that ill-fated Territory that the convention was fore the Kansas convention assembled! I underillegally assembled, and asking the returns to be stand, however, that the Senator from Illinois has scrutinized? The convention was alone author now abandoned most of the positions of his speech ized to judge of the returns and qualifications of its delivered upon the 9th December, and that he an- members. It had the power to apply the correc nounces himself as "ready to waive all irregu tive; and, in the absence of any appeal to its inlarity and vote for admission, if he was satisfied terposition, we are justified in believing that no the Lecompton constitution was the act and deed portion of the people felt themselves aggrieved or of the people of Kansas, and embodied their will.” desired to vote for representatives. It will scarcely Such I understood to be his position, as stated by him in reply to an inquiry by the distinguished tionists, by refusing to be registered, and by prebe argued that this small body of recusant fac Senator from South Carolina, during the debate venting, through force, a proper execution of the in the other wing of the Capitol, but a few days registry law, could stop a popular movement hav since. If any other authority were wanted that ing for its object the establishment of a State gov 35TH CONG.... 1ST SESS. ernment. It is apparent that there is nothing in this objection. It is warmly insisted on that the Lecompton constitution was not submitted to the people as a whole for their ratification, and therefore it is not the act of the people. This argument, if it proves anything, proves too much. It upturns the whole system of representative government; it limits the circle of free institutions; it denies to the people of a State or Territory the right to select agents to make a constitution for them without their subsequent approval. If the right does not exist to select representatives, then it follows that the people must act themselves. Where they cannot be collected to deliberate and act in the formation of a constitution and laws, their popular government must end. If the people cannot select agents to make constitutions, and agree to abide by their action without a submission, how is it that the State Jaws are valid without a submission? This, Mr. Chairman, is a new phase of popular sovereignty. I acknowledge the people to be the source of all power, and that every free government must rest for its support on the consent of the governed. But how is this power to be exercised? Are contitutions and laws to be enacted in mass meetings? Is sovereignty to be carried about the streets, and are the popular masses to act per capita? I had supposed it was "that marvelous felicity of our representative system, "under the operation of prescribed forms of law, that entitled ours to be justly styled the model Republic of the world. I had been taught by Mr. Madison (the father of the Federal Constitution) to believe that the effect of representative government is "To refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial cousiderations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be inore consonant to public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose." Mr. Chairman, it would not be difficult to show that one of the advantages in the scheme of representation in a Republic, as contradistinguished from a pure democracy of numbers, consists in its power to control a faction. I refer to the tenth number of the Federalist, where Mr. Madison, in defense of the Federal Constitution, goes fully into this argument. It does not pertain to Congress to inquire why the whole of this Kansas constitution was not submitted? While as individuals we might all desire, and, perhaps as members of that convention, should all vote for the submission of that entire constitution to the people, it was the sole right of the Lecompton convention to judge of the propriety of a submission or non-submission of the constitution in whole, or in part, to the people for ratification. The validity of the instrument could not be impaired by a failure to have submitted any part of it to the popular vote. The people, through their Legislature, had, in the convention act, a perfect right to have required the constitution to be submitted, and the act was, as we have already shown, vetoed by Governor Geary, because it did not contain a provision for its submission to the people. The act was passed by a twothirds vote of the Legislature over his veto, and thus became a law. Admission of Kansas-Mr. Stevenson. submitting the great distracting question regarding their social institution, which has so long agitated the people of Kansas, to a fair vote of the netual bona fide residents of the Territory, with every possible security against fraud and violence. If the constitution be thus framed, and the question of difference be thus submitted to the decision of the people, I believe that Kansas will be admitted by Congress, without delay, as one of the sovereign States of the Amer ican Union, and the territorial authorities will be iminediately withdrawn." Here Mr. Stanton clearly thought that the only question necessary to be submitted was the slavery question, and "that great distracting question" was submitted to the popular vote. Mr. Chairman, the people may have acted wisely and well in refusing to fetter the convention with an absolute submission. The history of Kansas has been thus far a bloody and disgraceful drama. Faction showed its brazen front upon the inception of the territorial government. The KansasNebraska act had scarcely received the President's signature before an organized effort was inaugurated to sow discord in Kansas. Hear Mr. DougLAS, in his report to the Senate, as chairman of the committee to investigate these outbreaks. He says: "The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act was strenuously resisted by all persons who thought it a less evil to deprive the people of new States and Territories of the right of State equality and self-government than to allow them to decide the slavery question for themselves, as every State of the Union had done, and must retain the undeniable right to do, so long as the Constitution of the United States shall be maintained as the supreme law of the land. Finding opposition to the principles of the act unavailing in the halls of Congress and under the forms of the Constitution, combinations were immediately entered into in some portions of the Union to control the political destinies, and form and regulate the domestic institutions of those Territories and future States through the machinery of emigrant aid societies. In order to give consistency and efficiency to the movement, and surround it with the color of legal authority, an act of incorporation was procured from the Legislature of the State of Massachusetts. When a powerful corporation, with a capital of $5,000,000, invested in houses and lands, in merchandise and mills, in cannon and rifles, in powder and lead, in all the implements of arts, agriculture, and war, and employing a corresponding number of men, all under the management and control of non-resident directors and stockholders, who are authorized by their charter to vote by proxy to the extent of fifty votes each, enters a distant and sparsely settled Territory with the fixed purpose of wielding all its power to control the domestic institutions and political destinies of the Territory, it becomes a question of fearful import how far the operations of the company are compatible with the rights and liberties of the people. Whatever may be the extent or limit of congressional authority over the Territories, it is clear that no individual State has the right to pass any law or authorize any act concerning or affecting the Territories, which it night not enact in reference to any other State. It is a wellsettled principle of constitutional law in this country that while all the States in the Union are united in one for certain purposes, yet each State, in respect to everything which affects its domestic policy and internal concerus, stands in the relation of a foreign Power to every other State. Hence, no State has a right to pass any law, or do or authorize any act with a view to influence or change the domestic policy of any other State or Territory of the Union, more than it would with reference to France or England, or any other foreign State with which we are at peace. Indeed, every State of this Union is under higher obligations to observe a friendly forbearance and generous comity towards each other member of the Confederacy than the laws of nations can impose on foreign States. "If our obligations, arising under the law of nations, are so imperative as to make it our duty to enact neutrality laws, and to exert the whole power and authority of the executive branch of the Government, including the Ariny and Navy, to enforce them in restraining our citizens from interfering with the internal concerns of foreign States, can the obligations of each State and Territory of this Union be less imperative, under the Federal Constitution, to observe an entire neutrality in respect to the domestic institutions of the several States and Territories?" Popular sovereignty was then, as it would clearly appear, against a submission of this conThese commotions continued. The excitement stitution to the people; for it can hardly be sup- increased until insurrection, rebellion, and revoposed that two thirds of the Legislature misrep-lution stalked boldly throughout the Territory. resented the popular will. Mr. Stanton himself clearly recognized the right of the people, through chosen delegates, to adopt a constitution, and seems to regard it as optional with the convention what part of the constitution should be submitted to popular vote. Hear him when he says: "The Government especially recognizes the territorial act which provides for assembling a convention to form a constitution with a view of making application to Congress for admission as a State into the Union. That act is regarded as presenting the only test of the qualification of voters for delegates to the convention, and all preceding repugnant restrictions are thereby repealed. In this light the act must be allowed to have provided for a full and fair expression of the will of the people through the delegates who may be chosen to represent them in the constitutional convention. I do not doubt, however, that, in order to avoid all pretexts for resistance to the peaceful operation of this law, the convention itself will, in some form, provide for Hear Governor Walker again, when he says: tion, in August, of the new insurgent Topeka State Legis"The professed object is to protect the polls at the eleclature. The object of taking the names of all who refuse enrollment is to terrify the free-State conservatives into submission. This is proved by recent atrocities committed on such men by Topekaites. The speedy location of large bodies of regular troops here, with two batteries, is necessary; the Lawrence insurgents await the development of this new revolutionary military organization." * * "You are aware that General Lane commanded the military expedition which made an incursion into this Territory last year, and that the officers of the staff are all leading agitators for the overthrow of the territorial government. The object of this last requisition is believed to be to mark for persecution and oppression all those persons, and especially free-State Democrats, who refuse to unite in this military organization. The purpose is universally regarded to be to establish a reign of terror." * * "A few weeks since one of these conservative Democrats, who had committed no other offense than permitting "I am well satisfied that a large portion of the insurrectionary party in this Territory do not desire a peaceful settlement of this question, but wish it to remain open, in order to agitate the country for years to come." * "August 18. The insurgent military organization under General Lane is still progressing. Arms are being supplied and his troops drilled for action. We are threatened with the seizure of the polls, at various points, by these insurgent forces. When it is remembered that the Topeka party claim to outnumber their opponents at least ten to one, the pretext for assembling these forces to protect the polls is evidently most fallacious." But notwithstanding all factious opposition, the convention did submit the great and only distracting question of slavery to the popular vote. Mr. Chairman, the responsibility of the submission of the constitution was wholly with the convention. It cannot be inquired into by Congress; and we have no right to intervene between the constituency of Kansas and their delegates to that constitutional convention. It is claimed, however, that as a large majority of the people of Kansas did not vote on the 21st December when the constitution was submitted to the people under the authority of the convention, and the vote on the 4th January shows a very large majority against the constitution, Congress should desist and not force this constitution on the people against so large an expression of the popular will. Mr. Chairman, this argument is more specious than solid. It rests on a radical mistake in the theory of our system of representative government. I argue that the popular will should govern, and that no government can be forced upon the people against their consent. But how is this will to be collected and ascertained? By popular outbreaks and tumultuous assemblies? No, sir; but by regular forms prescribed by law. The people begin the work of representative government by limitations on their own power not less than by restrictions on their agents. They limit themselves in their power of selection of representatives by requiring certain qualifications of age, residence, &c. Suffrage, which is the delegation of authority from each sovereign citizen of a community to his representative agent, is the foundation stone of our representative system. It is the channel through which power emanates from the masses. Suffrage itself is restricted and regulated by law. It is through prescribed forms of law that this inestimable right is guarded from force, fraud, and violence. It is by forms of law that this right is restricted to the time, place, manner, and mode of exercise therein prescribed. When all have spoken who are entitled to speak, their collected will under legal forms are certified to that power entitled by legal enactment to receive such certificate. Such return must be conclusive as the authentic and legally-prescribed mode of ascertaining the will of the people. Were it not so, the barriers placed by the people around their own institutions as a protection against faction, impulse, or fanaticism, would become mere ropes of sand, and we should be always in a state of anarchy. Now, Mr. Chairman, what right had the Territorial Legislature to direct a vote on the 4th of January? By what warrant of authority do they interpose between a convention called to frame a constitution and its constituency? The convention had directed a vote to be taken on the 21st of December upon the slavery clause of that constitution. They had ordained a State government by regular legal process. They had ordered an election of State officers under this constitution, to take place on the 4th of January; and the people, by a large vote for these officers, had acquiesced in this State government. I have already cited the case of Scott vs. Jones, (5 Howard, page 380,) to show that an act of the Legislature of Michigan, passed before her admission into the Union, was declared valid. The organic law of Kansas, upon its admission into the Union, would be of course treated as valid from its creation, and all the prior acts of the convention, or acts of the State Legislature under it, even before admission, would reach back to the period of their adoption. If the Lecompton convention be deemed a valid. 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. and legal organization, the act of the Territorial Legislature is a nullity, and had no more authority to ascertain the will of the people on the Lecompton constitution than the Topekaites had to overthrow the territorial government erected by Congress. Away with such a revolutionary dogma, which, if carried out in practice, might overturn all constitutional government. If gentlemen will not listen to me, I beseech them to hear, as from the grave, the clearexposition of the brightest and mightiest intellect of their own loved New England. Hear Mr. Webster, in his great argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Luther vs. Borden, say: "It is in certain legal and prescribed modes we are to ascertain the will of the American people; and our Constitution and laws know no other mode. We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never were. Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and count themselves, and say they are so many hundreds, and so many thousands, and judge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, and set up a government? Why another set of men, forty miles off, on the same day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and in as large numbers, may meet and set up another government-one may meet at Newport and another at Chepachet, and both may call themselves the people. What is this but anarchy? What liberty is there here, but a tumultuary, tempestuous, violent, stormy, liberty, a sort of South American liberty, without power except in its spasms-a liberty supported by arms to-day, crushed by arms to-morrow. Is that our liberty? Admission of Kansas-Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Chairman, we have been appealed to as southern men, during this debate, with a zeal that would indicate that we were about to engage in the commission of a monstrous wrong; that we were about to uphold a fraud, and thereby sully our escutcheon, hitherto as spotless and bright as our own southern sun. God forbid! The South are against fraud and against oppression everywhere. What have the South to gain by the admission of Kansas? For what purpose should she engage in such a contest? Nothing but a simple adherence to principle-an unflinching demand for her constitutional rights as coequals in the Confederacy, and that Kansas shall not be refused admission because she has a pro-slavery constitution. Free States have been brought in over everything like regular, legal, organic action. They have been brought in at every hazard. I appeal to the few southern men who are acting with the opponents of this measure to pause and look at the outrages which were practiced by their present allies upon the South when California was brought in. Was there an enabling act there? Was there no violation of popular sovereignty in putting a constitution upon thirty thousand people without their knowledge and without their consent? Why, sir, what are the facts? General Riley, who was sent from this country as an officer of the United States Army to protect the Pacific coast, took the responsibility of issuing a proclamation at Monterey, advising the people to elect delegates on the 1st of August who should assemble at Monterey on the 1st of September to form a State government. The moment that proclamation saw the light, it was denounced by a portion of the people and acquiesced in by others. The largest and most enthusiastic meeting ever then held in California was held at San Francisco, and after being addressed by Dr. Gwin, Mr. Gilbert, and others, repudiated that proclamation as unauthorized and illegal. The election took place. The apportionment of representatives was fixed by General Riley upon an arbitrary basis, founded upon a Mexican law which had been in force while California was attached to Mexico; and under such an arbitrary ratio, thirty-seven delegates were authorized to be elected." "The regular action of popular power on the other hand, We are told, Mr. Chairman, of the immense The qualification of suffrage appears, also, to have been arbitrarily determined upon by General Riley. He allowed the right of suffrage to three classes of actual residents over twenty-one years of age, as follows: first, American citizens; second, Mexicans, who had elected under the treaty to become Americans; third, Mexicans who had been forced to leave their country in conse arms during the recent war. The convention met The convention acted promptly on these sug- The convention, thus called together in this HO. OF REPS. irregular, unprecedented, and extraordinary manner, and without the semblance of law, proceeded to include a territory of one hundred and fiftyfive thousand five hundred and fifty square miles, or ninety-nine million five hundred and fifty-two thousand square acres, without estimating the adjacent islands. Sir, this constitution was extended over thirty thousand people who had had no knowledge of the convention which framed it, and who never saw it! I assert, without the fear of contradiction, and appeal to the debates of the California convention to sustain me, that this im mense boundary was included as a free State to avoid the sectional agitation of the slavery ques tion, which is the perpetual apple of discord upon this floor. Ay, sir, to spoliate the South and prevent her from an enjoyment of that territory won in part by her gallantry and blood. The iron nerves of that gallant hero who, amid a hailstorm of Mexican bullets, triumphantly bore our glorious flag from Resaca to the bloody field of Buena Vista, gave way before this hobgoblin of the Wilmot proviso. Hear Mr. Sherman, (Debates California convention, page 191:) "The chief argument which has been urged in favor of the extreme boundary has been, not as to the necessity, not the convenience, not the benefit to be derived from it, but the probability of its passing the Congress of the United States, and the anthority of a gentleman from Congress that if such a proposition be adopted it would pass." "And when the president of this convention stated this afternoon the expression of Mr. Thomas Butler King, FOR GOD'S SAKE LEAVE NO TERRITORY IN CALIFOR NIA TO DISPUTE ABOUT,' when he [Mr. Thomas Butler King] spoke it, he did not speak the sentiments of the entire Congress. The secret of it is this: that the Cabinet of the United States have found themselves in difficulty on this question: they are in difficulty about the Wilmot proviso; and Mr. Thomas Butler King (it may be others) is sent here for the purpose of influencing the people to establish a State government, and to include the entire territory. Sir, it is a political quarrel at home into which they wish to drag the new State of California." Again he says: "When this proposition comes before them, southern members, those from slaveholding States, will see it strikes from beneath their feet an enormous tract of country in which they may desire to introduce slavery hereafter. Add to that the further argument of the enormous, extensive territory it includes, and then add to that the further argument that a large portion of that territory has not been represented in this body-that the feelings and wishes of the people are not known-and I think you leave open ground enough for them to build an argument that will defeat your constitu tion. It is true the boundary is enormous. No man here wishes to include the whole of it." * * "Another reason, and one which ought to appeal to us in strong terms here, is the fact that the population in the northeast portion of the territory are unrepresented here. Gentlemen say we could not reach them and have returns in six months. We are to acknowledge them as a portion of the population of the territory; we include them within our limits, and then say it is not our fault. Can they have the gift of prophecy, that they can know, without soine in and that they should have their delegation here? I say, formation reaching them, that a convention is held here, sir, it is our fault; and when we are so in fault, we should do them the justice to leave them out-to leave them free to form a government for themselves, if they think proper. It is an act of gross injustice to force upon them the constitution and limits you prescribe here." Let Mr. Botts speak. He says, (Debates, page 193:) "We meet here under no express law; we meet with no previous legislation; we meet to produce order out of chaos; we meet here, sir, under what is sometimes styled a procJamation, and sometimes a suggestion, of General Riley. Be it one or the other, it is the basis of our action here. Now, if you will refer to that document which has been adopted as a basis by the people from whom we came and whom we represent, you will find this question settled for You will find that the districts of Sacramento, San Joaquin, Sonoma, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Los An geles, San Diego-that these districts are the portions represented here, and have started to establish a government. Now, sir, I ask you this question: is it possible that this people can establish a government for others than themselves? Can they give us the power that they themselves do not possess? I would like to ask you, if this be so, in which of these districts lies the Salt Lake with thirty thou sand inhabitants?, Yes, sir, I am told there are thirty thousand people east of the Sierra Nevada which you propose to include in your limits? Are they in the district of Sonoma, or Sacramento, or Monterey? Thirty thousand freemen unrepresented! Do you know by what vote of my constituents I sit on this floor? I will tell you: I received ninety-six votes. I, who am modestly requested to legislate for thirty thousand people I never saw, am sent here by ninety-six votes. My colleague, who makes the proposition, received twenty or thirty more; and as for the remainder of my colleagues, I believe they are worse off than I am." Let Dr. GWIN, the distinguished Senator from the Pacific in the other end of the Capitol, speak. Ilear him: "Sir, are we not here forcing a government upon a por tion of the people of California, whose delegates have by 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. their recorded votes stated the fact that their constituents are unanimously against a State government, and in favor of a territorial organization? Do you not expect and require they shall sustain this Governinent, and become a part of it? If not, let us require their delegates to retire from this convention, apply to Congress for a territorial government, and exclude them from the State boundary. Gentlemen affect to believe that in taking a large extent of territory not represented here, and from which no opposition to our action has become known to us, we are doing a great act of injustice to that people, when, at the same moment, we have the DIRECT PROTEST against a State government of a portion of the territory here represented." Mr. Chairman, I might go on and multiply extracts from those California debates, to show the irregularities and wrongs upon popular rights there perpetrated. Yes, sir, this immense boundary was included, by political legerdemain, and a government put over thousands who had never heard of this convention, merely to bring in this immense area of freedom, and shut it out from southern men. Sir, in the very early stages of the convention, eight out of thirty-six delegates voted and protested against a State government. Mr. Carillo said, (Debates, page 22:) "He represented one of the most respectable communities in California, and he did not believe it to be to the interest of his constituents that a State government should be formed. At the same time, as a great majority of this convention appeared to be in favor of a State government, he proposed that the country be divided by running a line west from San Luis Obispo, so that all north of that line might have a State government, and all sonth thereof a territorial government. He and his colleagues were under instructions to vote for a territorial government." Yet, Mr. Chairman, California was brought in as a free State. Where then was the great solicitude for popular sovereignty of which we have heard so much in this debate? Why slept the ire of the opponents of Kansas, who then went for a free State under such irregularities and outrages? In vain did the South protest against so gross an injustice to her rights. California was brought in. Admission of Kansas-Mr. Stevenson. can constitution, regularly ordained, through all the regular forms of law, because there is the semblance of slavery upon her brow, her request for admission is met with the slogan cry from the Republican ranks, "no more slave States." When the Senate Chamber is made to ring with the haughty and defiant notes of the Senator from New York, [Mr. SEWARD,] that the controversy can "only be settled by the simple and direct admission of three new States as free States, without qualification, condition, reservation, or com promise, and by the abandonment of all further attempts to extend slavery under the Federal Conhas died away, our Kentucky Senator deemed stitution;" and ere the sound of these threatenings it proper to announce his regret at the repeal of the Missouri line-which he had looked on always as a measure of peace-and that he must still be allowed to entertain the opinion that it was constitutional, in despite of the decision of the Supreme Court against its validity. Ho. oF REPS. from the Union; and, by such united patriotic action, nerve the arms, and encourage the hearts, of that national organization of patriots of every party in every portion of the Union, upon whose strength and continuance rest the hopes of thirty million freemen. Why keep open this strife? Why, by a refusal to settle this question, shall we afford to the enemies of the Democratic organization the weapons with which to weaken, if not destroy its nationality? If the majority in Kansas be as large as it is claimed, they will readily apply the corrective to all the alleged grievances. The period at which they have a right to change their government is a judicial question, with which Congress has no right to interfere. No free people yet, with a Legislative majority in accordance with the popular will, have ever yet failed to make the government represent that opinion. If wrongs have been committed, let the remedy be applied at the proper place, in the proper time, and by the proper parties. I deny to Congress any such power of interference in the affairs of a State. Admit Kansas, and the corrective for every injury will soon follow. Sir, the personal honor and high bearing of that distinguished Senator is above and beyond assault. Far be it from me to say anything unkind, or to impugn in the slightest degree the honest dictates of his judgment. He will pardon me, however, for asserting, on this floor, that these sentiments of his will find, in my judgment, no response in the hearts of a large majority of the people of Kentucky. Kentucky has played a prominent part in all the compromises which promised peace to the country and stability to the Union. The South has always adhered in good faith to every compromise. It was the North that has repudiated them. They refused to accede to the extension of the Missouri line to our Pacific possessions, and northern men have boasted that it was against the sentiment of the North that the Missouri line was ever adopted. A different principle was adopted by the compromise measures of 1850,||change their constitution. I will not believe that which was itself a quasi repeal of the Missouri line; and when that principle came to be applied showed its respect for the Missouri restriction. We are now tauntingly told that slavery must find no foothold in any territory of this Govern ment. But gentlemen say that the constitution of California was submitted and ratified by the people. How ratified? It received some twelve thou-practically to Kansas, the North, for the first time, sand out of sixty-odd thousand votes, half of whom had never heard of the proclamation of General Riley, the convention, or the constitution! Yet gentlemen can take California, but reject Kansas because a few hundred people were not registered and represented in the Kansas convention; and when that failure was attributable, as has been abundantly shown, to faction. They can see California brought in over law, order, regularity, or precedent, with immense boundaries, included for the purpose of excluding slavery, and perpetuating the power of the North; and yet, when Kansas asks for admission, southern men who rejoiced over the admission of California are horrified at the want of an enabling act for Kansas, and at certain frauds alleged to have been committed at their elections in that Territory. Mr. Chairman, no man entertains a higher personal regard than I do for the distinguished gen Mr. Chairman, no peans need be sung in behalf of Kentucky's devotion to the Union. From principle and from interest, she will cling to it as the noblest achievement for civil and religious liberty the world has ever seen. That Commonwealth knows no standard for the measurement of its value. But, sir, with the doctrines now advanced, the time for compromises of the Constitution have passed. Kentucky looks alone to the Constitution for safety. The day has already arrived when, behind its bulwarks, the true friends of the Union can intrench themselves for safety. Kentucky proves her devotion to the Union by the unanimity with which a large majority of her people, of all parties, are standing by the gallant are willing to stand by the bond of that Union, and perform its requirements. She desires slavery to be forced upon nobody; but when a State presents herself with a requisite population, and a republican, though pro-slavery constitution, asking for admission; when patriots from the North and West are facing the storms of an angry fanaticism, bleeding at every pore, and periling their political existence in supporting the President in his noble efforts to extend to it a guarantied right of admission, Kentucky insists that Kansas shall not be excluded upon flimsy pretexts, which have been disregarded over and over again, in the admission of free States. theman [Mr. CRITTENDEN] who in part represents Chief Magistrate of this nation, in his earnest and the sovereignty of Kentucky in the other wing of patriotic desires to preserve the guarantees of that this Capitol. He has been the recipient, for many Constitution by bringing Kansas in. Kentucky long years, of the most distinguished honors which abhors sectionalism, and greets all with fellowhis native State could bestow, and his name prom-ship, from any portion of the Confederacy, who inently appears on the brightest pages of her history. Sir, that Senator is my personal friend. I heard him the other day, "more in sorrow than in anger," announce his purpose of ranging himself on this question with the anti-slavery hosts in this mighty hour of trial, when Kentucky and her southern sisters lie bound and helpless-their Sovereignty and equality about to be crushed under the insatiate Juggernaut of abolitionism. Sir, that distinguished Senator was in the Cabinet of General Taylor, when the mighty injustice was done of dedicating the whole Pacific coast to freedom, in direct contravention of the rights of a large portion of the people of California, and under a protest from many of them against so gross a wrong! He was then for compromise. He rejoiced with his native State that patriotic counsels ruled the hour, and that the efforts of the great Commoner, backed by patriots from every section, had been successful in withdrawing from Congress the question of slavery, by leaving that question to be determined by the people themselves, and thereby becoming a second time prominent in preserving the bonds of our Union. But now, when Kansas comes with a republi Let not such a precedent be added to the powerful majority now held by the North. Do not permit fanaticism to justify itself, in its destructive warfare upon the Constitution, by citing this example, in support of further and still more alarming aggressions. Let Kansas be admitted. Localize this excitement by permitting the people of that Territory to settle these difficulties for theme selves. Disarm the jealousy of our southern brethren, who have proclaimed that the rejection of Kansas would afford cause for a separation Mr. Chairman, the bitter strife which has resounded through this Hall for the past three months, betokens nothing of good to the perpetuity of free Government. For what purpose, and to what end, are these criminations and recriminations between representative brethren from the several sections of a great, glorious, and happy country? Their continued repetition must tend to weaken, rather than unite, the bonds of our holy fellowship. I was surprised to see in the printed speech of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. MORRIS,] a total perversion of the position of the distinguished Senator from Missouri, [Mr. GREEN,] on the power of the people of Kansas to this perversion was intentional; still, the speech of the gentleman from Pennsylvania is scattered broadcast through the length and breadth of the land, with an utter misstatement of Mr. GREEN'S true position. Though wholly unintentional, the injury is not thereby diminished. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, after combatting the position in the President's Kansas message, that the people of that Territory have a right to change their constitution, proceeds to say that the President's position is repudiated by the Senator from Missouri in the report for the admission of Kansas which he made in the Senate, and in support of this alleged repudiation the gentleman from Pennsylvania quotes the report, as follows: "However grievous its provisions may prove to be, they cannot change without resorting to revolution until the year 1864," This quotation would seem to support the text of the gentleman's speech, but the fact is not so. An examination of Mr. GREEN's report will show and wholly misrepresents his true position. It that this quotation does him the amplest injustice, will be seen that the quotation from the report of Mr. GREEN, as set out in the speech of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, begins in the middle of a sentence, and thereby makes Mr. GREEN deny the right of the people to change their constitution until 1864, when, if the whole paragraph, and a few succeeding ones had been quoted, it would have shown that the Senator from Missouri was, in that portion of the report from which the quotation was taken, supporting the view of the President. I propose to make this manifest by the foxowing quotation from the report itself, as follows: "Many generous persons, who are quite indisposed to countenance the violence and contumacy of the Abolitionists sent into Kansas for the purpose of excluding therefrom all property not pleasing to them and their abettors, urge that something might be done to lessen the hardships that will fall upon them in the event of the admission of Kansas into the Union with the constitution made at Lecompton; that, although it is true the Abolitionists violently opposed registration, would not vote at elections, held sham elections on days subsequent to those appointed by law, and even refused to vote against the establishment of slavery, at a time when they professed to believe their doing so would have excluded it, and thus have peacefully settled the question to their own satisfaction, yet they consider it would be too severe to compel such contumacious citizens, cven though it is their own fault, to live under a constitution which, however grievous its provisions may prove, they cannot change, without resorting to revolution, until the year 1864." It will be seen that it is the last two lines of the 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. above paragraph that were quoted by the gentleman from Pennsylvania. It was not Mr. GREEN'S argument, but that of" many generous persons. Mr. GREEN gives two answers to the paragraph quoted, as follows: "To such, without resorting to the ready answer that Congress has no power to modify or alter a State constitution, and has expressly stipulated that the people of Kansas shall be permitted to form their own institutions, subject ONLY to the Constitution of the United States, two replies may be given. The first one is this: the clause complained of in the Lecompton constitution, in this connection, is in these words: He then proceeds to give the provision in the Lecompton constitution, and says: "That this provision is not objectionable to the Abolitionists, in fact, and is now urged by them and their friends only for popular effect, is proved by the overwhelming fact that the Abolitionists of Kansas inserted in their Topeka constitution' the following more objectionable provision: "Amendments to the Constitution.-Article xvi. "SECTION 1. All propositions for amendments to the constitution shall be made by the General Assembly. "SEC. 2. A concurrence of two thirds of the members elected to each House shall be necessary, after which such proposed amendments shall be entered upon the journals with the yeas and nays; and the Secretary of State shall cause the same to be published in at least one newspaper in each county in the State where a newspaper is published, for at least six months preceding the next election for Senators or Representatives, when such proposed amendment shall be again referred to the Legislature elected next succeeding said publication. If passed by the second Legislature by a majority of two thirds of the members elected to each House, such amendments shall be republished, as aforesaid, for at least six months prior to the next general election, at which election such proposed amendments shall be submitted to the people for their approval or rejection; and if the majority of the electors voting at such election shall adopt such amendments, the same shall become a part of the constitution. "SEC. 3. When more than one amendment is submitted at the same time, they shall be so submitted as to enable the electors to vote upon each amendment separately. "SEC. 4. No convention for the formation of a new constitution shall be called, and no amendment to the constitution shall be, by the General Assembly, made before the year 1865, nor more than once in five years thereafter.?" And then Mr. GREEN proceeds as follows: "The second reply is this: suppose the grievance real, and that it ought to be redressed, it is unnecessary for Congress to unlawfully interfere for that purpose, inasmuch as the Lecompton convention has provided a full, lawful, and perfect remedy for every conceivable grievance, and placed that remedy in the unrestricted hands of a majority of the people, by inserting in the constitution of Kansas the following distinct and unequivocal recognition of power: "All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit, and therefore they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think proper.' "The Abolitionists of Kansas have thus far sought power by methods unknown to the law and by violence, and not through the peaceful agency of the ballot-box. Claiming to have a majority of the voters of the Territory, and therefore able to elect Legislatures and conventions, they yet ask Congress to wrongfully do for them what they may, at legal times and legal places, rightfully do for themselves, that is, change or abolish their constitution." Thus it will be seen how an erroneous quotation, however unintentional, may do injustice to a gentleman's position, and how easily, by a true quotation of all the text, the argument of the gendleman from Pennsylvania [M. MORRIS] is answered. By such arguments and quotations from his own manuscript the fate of the Senator from Missouri might be made to resemble that of Zadig in Voltaire's tale. A fragment of paper was found containing these verses, in his own hand-writing: "By crimes of deepest dye He's of the throne possessed; 'Gainst peace and liberty An enemy professed ;" and these lines were construed into a seditious and traitorous libel against the reigning Prince. But as they were leading poor Zadig to execution, a parrot flew to the place with another fragment, which saved his life; for it exactly fitted the former, and on it were written other words, which entirely changed the complexion of the supposed libel. The whole read thus: "By crimes of deepest dye we've seen the earth made hell; fle's of the throne possessed who all these powers can quell; "Gaiust peace and liberty love only wages warAn enemy professed, and one we well inay fear." This effort to condemn the Senator from Missouri out of his own mouth, as opposing the President's view, signally failed. Thousands, however, throughout the land, who read the speech of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, will go to their graves believing that the President, and the mem Admission of Kansas-Mr. Gilmer. ber on Territories who made the majority report, are in direct antagonism on the question of a power in the people of Kansas to change their constitution. ADMISSION OF KANSAS. SPEECH OF HON. JOHN A. GILMER, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union Mr. GILMER said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: I have been an attentive listener to the arguments on this Lecompton question for three months. Whilst some of the speeches have been calm and considerate, I feel constrained to say that by far the larger number have been violent and extremely sectional, tending directly to weaken the respect which the North and the South should have for each other, and which is essential to the safety of the Union itself. I have heard and read speeches delivered both in this House, and in the other end of this Capitol, by || gentlemen from the North and from the South, the true spirit and meaning of which is disunion. True, most, if not all, profess to love the Union and the Constitution. Their speeches are filled with expressions of high veneration for the Constitution of our fathers. They indulge in patriotic strains. Their addresses are robed in the most beautiful habiliments, overflowing with professions and assurances most imposing. The spirit of disunion is, however, the core. It is presented, and perusal and handling secured, as you would an asp in a casket of beautiful flowers. The design is evidently to infuse the poisonous spirit of disunion where, for it, there could be no reception, were proper labels attached. Professions of patriotism are uttered in loud and eloquent tones, for peace and harmony, whilst the evident drift is to exasperate and make wider the breach. With pain and regret am I forced to the belief there are gentlemen on this floor who, while they oppose the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution, do really desire the bill to pass for the sake of certain consequences, disastrous to the peace and harmony of the country, which they expect to grow out of it. On the other hand, I fear that, among other gentlemen advocating this measure, there are some whose regret is that the Lecompton constitution, and the manner of securing its presentation here, were not more odious to the people of Kansas and the free States, so that their ultimate object might be the sooner secured by a bloody conflict of northern and southern arms on the plains of Kansas, and, in case of a failure in this, such bitter sectional excitement shall certainly ensue as to produce a fusion of all political parties in the free States, combined as a purely sectional party, against a similar fusion of all parties in the slave States, by which disunion is made certain in the end. These speeches I will not particularize. They have unfortunately gone forth to the country-those of the North to be read in the South, that they there may have samples of how northern people hate and despise southern men, and those of the South to be read in the North that they may know how they are scorned and detested by the citizens of the South. The designs and purposes of both sides, it is to be feared, are the same-to arouse, drill, and prepare for strife the minds of a great people now happy, with bright prospects for the future; and who, by their united energies in advancing the industrial and literary pursuits of the whole country, are doing much more for the true happiness and prosperity of us all. Without intending to be offensive or personal, I must be permitted to say, I envy not the man who can look on our country as it is, and, with composure, anticipate its condition when severed and divided. The man who can contemplate that terrible day, when, by reason of civil war, our beautiful and growing cities, towns, and villages shall be consumed by fire; our manufactories razed to the ground; our commerce broken up; our lovely fields and gardens made the foraging HO. OF REPS. grounds for ribaldrous soldiery; all international trade and communication cut off; all municipal and family peace destroyed; our sons dragged from their homes, amid the sighs and tears of affectionate mothers and sisters, to the bloody fields of civil strife; and all this growing out of a ques tion as to how, when, or in what manner forty thousand people, ONLY, in Kansas shall settie for themselves their own domestic affairs; or, rather, how they shall soonest get clear of a few slavesand get two "Free-Soil" Senators and one Representative in Congress; I say, such a man has no feeling in common with me, and none, I trust, with the great body of the honest yeomanry of this country, of all sections. We have our troubles, I admit. We have had sectional troubles of a similar kind before. We have had, as now, disunion threatened, but thanks to the good sense of the people, they have never yet inclined to take the prescriptions of those who boastingly decline to sing peans to the Union? England, from whom we derive our nature and many of the free principles of which we boast, had her troubles. She has had her dissensionsher white and red roses; her land has been tinged with blood in civil strife; and once the head of her King was brought to the block-but her people were attached to their Government and their constitution. The storm passed away. The political atmosphere again became pure and healthful; and the Government was maintained and improved. And it is my honest conviction that there is too much good sense in the people of these United States to be led away with the idea of disunion, on account of any difficulties growing out of this question, surrounded by such peculiar circumstances. I predict they will not, unless misled and deceived. But, figuratively speaking, they will bring to the block the political heads of all who shall insist on any such remedy for such complaint. Mr. Chairman, it is not to be disguised that our southern people are anxious about appearances for the future. They see the free States, in number and in representation, already in the majority in both Houses of Congress, and this majority soon to be largely increased; that while the South falls into this minority, they have witnessed, for the last few years, among many people of the free States, an increasing spirit of bitter hostility to the South and her institutions. But let us, like statesmen, be calm, briefly trace the history of this thing, and inquire why it is. Though by the census, the actual figures show that the natural increase of population in the slave States has been equal to the natural native increase of the free States, yet the free States have excelled us in the settlement of new Territories and raising up new States. In the first place, we of the southern States have been, and now are, the advocates of free trade, and many for direct taxes. We have opposed the pol icy of discrimination in favor of our own domestic industry in the old States, in regulating and rais ing revenue, and no more than enough to defray the expenses of the Government economically administered. To this policy we have made in substance, suc cessful opposition-thereby in a good degree cutting off much of the inducement that would have retained the industrious and energetic population in the old States, who, in consequence, have moved to the Territories, there settled, made new and free States, and became producers instead of consumers of the earth's productions. In the second place, a majority of southern politicians have uniformly favored the policy of inviting, alluring, persuading, and, in fact, hiring emigrants-not only the citizens of the States, but of the whole world-to move and settle in our Ter ritories. Homesteads, by way of preemptions, in the Territories, are offered to all the world. The language of the whole policy is in substance "come ye all the earth and settle in our Territories; here you can become citizens, and without waiting to be naturalized, according to the laws of the Union, you can vote and hold office;" the result of which has been to run from the old States (slave and free) into the Territories, much of their population, and particularly that portion, though young, industrious, and worthy, who have, or take but little interest in the institutions of the South; and 1 |
