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35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

Kansas-Lecompton Constitution-Mr. Hammond.

ostracism awaited the man who dared speak disrespectfully of its iniquities.

Eventually individuals appeared who were willing to encounter odium in order to arouse the religious and moral sensibilities of the nation, and in 1856, a national convention met at Philadelphia to devise means for overcoming this moral and political scourge. The members pledged themselves to each other and to the world, to maintain the truths to which I have alluded, and they now constitute the platform of a large and increasing political party.

That day witnessed the dawning of a reformation more deep, more radical, more important in its religious, its moral, its social and political effects upon mankind, than has occurred since the sixteenth century. It is more deep and radical than that commenced by Calvin and his colaborers. It asserts the right of man to religious and moral elevation as superior to the power of kings or human Governments. The great reformers of that age dared put forth no such doctrine. Their lives would have constituted the price of such an avowal. They were constrained to admit the divine right of kings over the liberties of their people, and many of the usurped powers of the church.

The Philadelphia convention will be remembered in coming time as first in the history of the political parties of our nation to make religious truths the basis of its political action, and first to proclaim these rights of mankind as universal, to be enjoyed equally, by princes and people, by rulers and the most humble. It was the first to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The result of the presidential election of 1856 showed the advocates of oppression that there was but one alternative for them to pursue. They were constrained to take distinct issue with the advocates of liberty by denying these religious truths, or disband their party in every free State. The Supreme Court was selected as the instrument for officially avowing this undisguised infidelity. That tribunal was favorably constituted for such a purpose; a majority of its members were slaveholders. Other members had been appointed to office apparently on account of their uniform servility to the slave power; and every circumstance combined to render it the appropriate instrument for performing this work. The time, too, was a matter of importance. No sooner had the Thirty-Fourth Congress adjourned, than a majority of that tribunal, in violation of its own declared rules, digressed from the question before them, to utter its denial of those doctrines of the republican fathers.

But this decision, opposed as it is to the selfevident truths of our Declaration of Independence, to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, to the intelligence and conscience of the American people, is emphatically repudiated by them. The vanity and arrogance exhibited by a majority of the court in charging Hancock and Adams and Jefferson and Franklin, and their illustrious compeers, with proclaiming doctrines which they did not intend to express, and of failing to utter principles which they intended to avow, has called forth from the popular mind indignant pity for the court, rather than doubts as to the intelligence and Christianity of those savans who founded our institutions.

delity, with all its attendant crimes, wherever Federal jurisdiction exists. Thus has the issue been made between the religious portion of the community and those who maintain this heathenism. This issue involves the entire American people. All denominations of men are now constrained to cast their influence on one side or the other. To sit silent, would merely aid the cause of infidelity and despotism. He who refuses to act, by such refusal, casts half his influence in favor of the crimes which I have enumerated. The functions of our Government for the time being, are prostituted to sustain and extend this infidelity. The Prophet of Mecca, nor his followers, ever sanctioned doctrines so barbarous as those which now rule in the Administration of our Government. The Turk will be constrained to unite with the Christian in the maintenance of those rights which are sanctioned by the religion of Mohammed, as well as of Christ. Civilized and semi-civilized nations must feel a common interest in the overthrow of this infidelity, which aims a fatal blow at human rights, wherever the image of God is found.

I greatly rejoice that Christians in Europe are sensible of the existence of this war upon human nature. American Christians, patriots, and philanthropists feel the warmest gratitude toward the religious men of Scotland, of England, of France, and Germany for the kind sympathy which they express in this cause, for the very catholic remonstrances which they have addressed to our American Christians against this infidelity. Every lover of truth, every religious heart in our land, must have glowed with gratitude to God and love to man, as he read the eloquent and truthful address of the Christians of Geneva, once the home of Europe's great Reformer, to the Christians of the United States on this subject. And whose heart was not moved when noticing the action of the Protestants of France in relation to it? Nor is this Christian feeling confined to Protestants. The African Institute of Paris, formed for the purpose of maintaining the rights of the African race, embraces among its members distinguished laymen, ministers, bishops, and archbishops, belonging to the Papal Church. My own humble efforts in behalf of our common brotherhood, caused my name to become known to its directors, who placed it on the roll of its honorary members. I take this occasion to thank them for this honor. A Protestant by education, by feeling, I greet those Catholic Christians most cordially as good and worthy laborers in this holy work. Heartily do I thank them for all that they have done, and are doing, for the down-trodden of our race.

Could I hope that my remarks would meet the eye of British ministers, I would in an especial manner invoke their official influence against this infidelity. I would beseech them no more to sanction, by their action, that blasphemy which seeks to transform the image of God into property.

I acknowledge that our Government was dishonored in the eyes of all Christians, when its Executive became the agent and solicitor of those pirates who claimed to own the fathers, the mothers, and children on board certain slave ships wrecked on British isiands, where, thanks to Christian civilization, no slavery exists. The President, espousing the cause of men who deserved the halter and the gallows, demanded compensation from the British Government for their loss of human flesh. Our representative at the court of St. James appears to have misled and deceived the British ministry. In one of his official communications he declared that, "our Government had determined more than once, in the most solemn manner, that slaves killed in the public service of the United States, even in a state of war, were to be regarded as property, and not as persons, and the Government held responsible for their value."

I shall not argue the absurdity of this decision. Its falsehood is as self-evident as the truths which it denies. Arriving at the conclusion that the sages who signed our Declaration of Independence meant precisely the opposite of that which they solemnly proclaimed, the court proceeded to declare in contradiction to its letter and spirit, to the history of the age, to the conscience and judgment of all Christian people-that black men were regarded as having no rights which white men were bound to respect; and on this basis founded When referring to this assertion of our minister their conclusion that Congress has no constitu- fifteen years since, I pronounced it unfounded and tional authority to protect the lives, liberties, and untrue. I said this in the presence of the delegaproperty of the people in our Territories where it tion from Virginia, the State of which our minisholds exclusive jurisdiction. This atrocious de- ter, Mr. Stevenson, was a citizen, and I called on cision attempts to outlaw one eighth part of the them, as his friends, to sustain his assertion by human race; to place them without the pale of legal showing some one instance in which this Governprotection; it affects to authorize any and every ment had paid for slaves killed in the public sercrime to be perpetrated against them. Under this vice. I declared the whole history of Congress decision they may be robbed and murdered; in showed that we had in every instance refused such short, this decision would extend American infi-payment, and I defied them to show an exception

SENATE.

to such practice. No man met the challenge. I now repeat the assertion. I pronounce the statement of Mr. Stevenson untrue, a libel upon our Government, and a slander upon the American people. I not only declare his assertion untrue, but I declare the opposite to be true. The British ministry, by complying with this demand, tacitly admitted that phase of American infidelity which seeks to degrade the human soul to the level of swine. More recently they paid the slave-dealers the estimated value of the fathers, mothers, and children, on board the Creole, who obtained their own liberty by gallantly taking possession of the vessel and landing on British soil.

The money-the dollars and cents-are of no importance; but concessions to this infidelity, at the present time, are important. It was an object with the slave power to obtain from the British ministry the admission that men are property. I would entreat the British Government, and all other Governments, to maintain the dignity of our common nature. In the language of one of the most eloquent of England's orators, I would say, "He who gave us the forms commands us to maintain the rights of men." The Christians of the United States and of other nations would rejoice to learn that the British ministry now, as in 1820, refuse even to correspond with our Executive on the subject of property in human flesh.

I would also warn the Spanish Crown and other continental Powers, that our present Executive is seeking, by all the various means and arts of diplomacy, to detach Cuba from its allegiance, to annex it to the United States in order to increase the influence of the slave power, and add strength to this American infidelity.

I hope and trust that this conspiracy may be defeated; that all Christian Governments may exert their power against the further extension of this scourge of our race. I would most earnestly invoke the Christians, philanthropists, and patriots of this and of every nation and kindred and language, to exert their moral influence, their legitimate powers, for the overthrow, the final eradication of this infidelity from the earth, for upholding the natural, Heaven-endowed rights of man, for the progress, the moral elevation of our race, until all shall understand the will and obey the laws of our common Father, and attain that happiness which constitutes the ultimate object of human existence.

KANSAS-LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.

SPEECH OF HON. J. H. HAMMOND,
OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
IN THE SENATE, March 4, 1858.
[REVISED BY HIMSELF.*]

The Senate having under consideration the bill for the admission of Kansas into the Union as a State

Mr. HAMMOND said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: In the debate which occurred in the early part of the last month, I understood the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] to say that the question of the reception of the Lecompton constitution was narrowed down to a single point. That point was, whether that constitution embodied the will of the people of Kansas. Am I correct?

Mr. DOUGLAS. The Senator is correct, with this qualification: I could waive the irregularity and agree to the reception of Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, provided I was satisfied that it was the act and deed of that people, and embodied their will. There are other objections; but the others I could overcome, if this point were disposed of.

Mr. HAMMOND. I so understood the, Senator. I understood that if he could be satisfied that this constitution embodied the will of the people of Kansas, all other defects and irregularities could be cured by the act of Congress, and that he himself would be willing to permit such an act to be passed.

Now, sir, the only question is, how is that will to be ascertained? And upon that point, and that only, we shall differ. In my opinion, the will of

*For the original report, see page 959, Congressional

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the people of Kansas is to be sought in the act of her lawful convention elected to form a constitution, and nowhere else; and that it is unconstitutional and dangerous to seek it elsewhere. I think that the Senator fell into a fundamental error in his report dissenting from the report of the majority of the Territorial Committee, when he said that the convention which framed this constitution was "the creature of the Territorial Legislature;" and from that error has probably arisen all his subsequent errors on this subject. How can it be possible that a convention should be the creature of a Territorial Legislature? The convention was an assembly of the people in their highest sovereign capacity, about to perform their highest possible act of sovereignty. The Territorial Legislature is a mere provisional government; a petty corporation, appointed and paid by the Congress of the United States, withouta particle of sovereign power. Shall that interfere with a sovereignty-inchoate, but still a sovereignty? Why, Congress cannot interfere; Congress cannot confer on the Territorial Legislature the power to interfere. Congress is not sovereign. Congress has sovereign powers, but no sovereignty. Congress has no power to act outside of the limitations of the Constitution; no right to carry into effect the supreme will of any people; and, therefore, Congress is not sovereign. Nor does Congress hold the sovereignty of Kansas. The sovcreignty of Kansas resides, if it resides anywhere, with the sovereign States of this Union. They have conferred upon Congress, among other powers, the authority of administering such sovereignty to their satisfaction. They have given Congress the power to make needful rules and regulations regarding the Territories, and they have given Congress power to admit a State"admit," not create. Under these two powers, Congress may first establish a provisional territorial government merely for municipal purposes; and when a State has grown into rightful sovereignty, when that sovereignty which has been kept in abeyance demands recognition, when a community is formed there, a social compact created, a sovereignty born, as it were, upon the soil, then Congress is gifted with the power to acknowledge it, and the Legislature, only by mere usage, sometimes neglected, assists at the birth of it by passing a precedent resolution assembling

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there is no finality. If you were to send back the
Lecompton constitution, and another was to be
framed, in the slow way in which we do public
business in this country, before it would reach
Congress and be passed, perhaps the majority
would be turned the other way. Whenever you
go outside of the regular forms of law and con-
stitutions, to seek for the will of the people, you
are wandering in a wilderness-a wilderness of
thorns.

If this was a minority constitution I do not know
that that would be an objection to it. Constitu-
tions are made for minorities. Perhaps minori-
ties ought to have the right to make constitutions,
for they are administered by majorities. The Con-
stitution of this Government was made by a mi-
nority, and as late as 1840 a minority had it in
their hands, and could have altered or abolished
it; for, in 1840, six out of the twenty-six States
of the Union held the numerical majority.

SENATE.

was necessary to perfect that constitution, but nothing beyond that, until Congress had agreed to accept it. In the mean time the territorial government, always a government ad interim, was entitled to exercise all the sway over the Territory that it ever had been entitled to. The error of assuming, as the Senator did, that the conven- . tion was the creature of the territorial govern. ment, has led him into the difficulty and confusion of connecting these two governments together. There is no power to govern in the convention until after the adoption, by Congress, of its constitution.

If the Senator from Illinois, whom I regard as the Ajax Telamon of this debate, does not press the question of frauds, I shall have little or nothing to say about that. The whole history of Kansas is a disgusting one, from the beginning to the end. I have avoided reading it as much as I could. Had I been a Senator before, I should have felt it my duty, perhaps, to have done so; but not exsit-pecting to be one, I am ignorant, fortunately, in a great measure, of details; and I was glad to hear the acknowledgment of the Senator from Illinois, since it excuses me from the duty of examining them.

The Senator from Illinois has, upon his view of the Lecompton constitution and the present uation of affairs in Kansas, raised a cry of " popular sovereignty," The Senator from New York [Mr. SEWARD] yesterday made himself facetious about it, and called it squatter sovereignty." There is a popular sovereignty which is the basis I hear, on the other side of the Chamber, a great of our Government, and I am unwilling that the deal said about "gigantic and stupendous frauds;" Senator should have the advantage of confound-and the Senator from New York, yesterday, in ing it with "squatter sovereignty." In all coun- portraying the character of his party and the optries and in all time, it is well understood that the posite one, laid the whole of those frauds upon numerical majority of the people could, if they the pro-slavery party. To listen to him, you chose, exercise the sovereignty of the country; would have supposed that the regiments of immibut for want of intelligence, and for want of lead-grants recruited in the purlieus of the great cities ers, they have never yet been able successfully of the North, and sent out, armed and equipped to combine and form a stable, popular govern- with Sharpe's rifles and bowie knives and revolvment. They have often attempted it, but it has ers, to conquer freedom for Kansas, stood by, always turned out, instead of a popular sover- meek saints, innocent as doves, and harmless as eignty, a populace sovereignty; and demagogues, lambs brought up to the sacrifice. General Lane's placing themselves upon the movement, have in- lambs! They remind one of the famous "lambs" variably led them into military despotism. of Colonel Kirke, to whom they have a strong family resemblance. I presume that there were frauds; and that if there were frauds, they were equally great on all sides; and that any investigation into them on this floor, or by a commission, would end in nothing but disgrace to the United States.

The

I think that the popular sovereignty which the Senator from Illinois would derive from the acts of his Territorial Legislature, and from the information received from partisans and partisan presses, would lead us directly into populace, and not popular, sovereignty. Genuine popular sovereignty never existed on a firm basis except in this country. The first gun of the Revolution announced a new organization of it, which was embodied in the Declaration of Independence, But when that convention assembles to form a developed, elaborated, and inaugurated forever constitution, it assembles in the highest known in the Constitution of the United States. capacity of a people, and has no superior in this two pillars of it were representation and the balGovernment but a State sovereignty; or rather lot-box. In distributing their sovereign_powers the State sovereignties of all the States alone among the various departments of the Governcan do anything with the act of that convention. ment, the people retained for themselves the sinThen if that convention was lawful, if there is gle power of the ballot-box; and a great power it no objection to the convention itself, there can be was. Through that they were able to control all no objection to the action of the convention; and the departments of the Government. It was not there is no power on earth that has a right to in- for the people to exercise political power in dequire, outside of its acts, whether the convention tail; it was not for them to be annoyed with the represented the will of the people of Kansas or cares of Government; but, from time to time, not, for a convention of the people is, according || through the ballot-box, to exert their sovereign to the theory of our Government, for all the pur-power and control the whole organization. This poses for which the people elected it, THE PEO- is popular sovereignty, the popular sovereignty PLE, bona fide, being the only way in which all of a legal constitutional ballot-box; and when the people can assemble and act together. I do not spoken through that box, the "voice of the peodoubt that there might be some cases of such gross ple," for all political purposes, "is the voice of and palpable frauds committed in the formation of God;" but when it is heard outside of that, it is a convention, as might authorize Congress to in- the voice heard of a demon, the tocsin of the reign vestigate them, but I can scarcely conceive of of terror. any. And when a State knocks at the door for admission, Congress can with propriety do little more than inquire if her constitution is republican. That it embodies the will of her people must necessarily be taken for granted, if it is their lawful act. I am assuming, of course, that her boundaries are settled, and her population sufficient. If what I have said be correct, then the will of the people of Kansas is to be found in the action of her constitutional convention. It is immaterial whether it is the will of a majority of the people. They moved in different spheres and on difple of Kansas now, or not. The convention was, or might have been, elected by a majority of the people of Kansas. A convention elected in April may well frame a constitution that would not be agreeable to a majority of the people of a new State, rapidly filling up, in the succeeding January, and if Legislatures are to be allowed to put to vote the acts of a convention, and have them annulled by a subsequent influx of immigrants,

In passing I omitted to answer a question that the Senator from Illinois has, I believe, repeatedly asked; and that is, what were the legal powers of the Territorial Legislature after the formation and adoption of the Lecompton constitution? That had nothing to do with the Territorial Legislature, which was a provisional government almost without power, appointed and paid by this Government. The Lecompton constitution was the act of a people, and the sovereign act of a peoferent planes, and could not come in contact at all without usurpation on the one part or the other. It was not competent for the Lecompton constitution to overturn the territorial government and set up a government in place of it, because that constitution, until acknowledged by Congress, was nothing; it was not in force anywhere. It could well require the people of Kansas to pass upon it or any portion of it; it could do whatever

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But, sir, the true object of the discussion on the other side of the Chamber is to agitate the question of slavery. I have very great doubts whether the leaders on the other side of the House really wish to defeat this bill. I think they would consider it a vastly greater victory to crush out the Democratic party in the North, and destroy the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska bill; and I am not sure that they have not brought about this ' imbroglio for the very purpose. They tell us that year after year the majority in Kansas was beaten at the polls! They have always had a majority, but they always get beaten! How could that be? It does seem, from the most reliable sources of information, that they have a majority, and have had a majority for some time. Why has not this majority come forward and taken possession of the government, and made a free-State constitution, and brought it here? We should all have voted for its admission cheerfully. There can be but one reason: if they had brought, as was generally supposed at the time the Kansas-Nebraska act was passed would be the case, a free constitution here, there would have been no difficulty among the northern Democrats; they would have been sustained by their people. The statement made by some of them, as I understood, that that act was a good free-State act, would have been verified, and the northern Democratic party would have been sustained. But Kansas coming here a slave State, it is hoped, will kill that party, and that is the reason they have refrained from going to the polls; that is the reason they have refrained from making it a free State when they had the power. They intend to make it a free State as soon as they have effected their purpose of destroying the Democratic party at the North, and now their chief object here is to agitate slavery. For one, I am not disposed to discuss that question here in any abstract form. I think the time has gone by for that. Our minds are all made up. I may be willing to discuss it-and that is the way it should be, and must be, discussed-as a practical thing, as a thing that is, and is to be; and to discuss its effect upon our political institutions, and

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

Kansas-Lecompton Constitution-Mr. Hammond.

ascertain how long those institutions will hold together with slavery ineradicable.

such ties as will make us one and inseparable.
The iron horse will soon be clattering over the
sunny plains of the South to bear the products of
its upper tributaries to our Atlantic ports, as it
now does through the ice-bound North. There
is the great Mississippi, a bond of union made by
Nature herself. She will maintain it forever.

The Senator from New York entered very fairly into this field yesterday. I was surprised, the other day, when he so openly said "the battle had been fought and won." Although I knew, and had long known it to be true, I was surprised to hear him say so. I thought that he had been On this fine territory we have a population four entrapped into a hasty expression by the sharp times as large as that with which these colonies rebukes of the Senator from New Hampshire; separated from the mother country, and a hunand I was glad to learn yesterday his words had dred, I might say a thousand fold, stronger. Our been well considered-that they meant all that I population is now sixty per cent. greater than that thought they meant; that they meant that the of the whole United States when we entered into South is a conquered province, and that the North || the second war of independence. It is as large as intends to rule it. He said that it was their in- the whole population of the United States was ten tention to take this Government from unjust years after the conclusion of that war, and our exand unfaithful hands, and place it in just and faith-ports are three times as great as those of the whole ful hands;" that it was their intention to conse- United States then. Upon our muster-rolls we crate all the Territories of the Union to free labor; have a million of militia. In a defensive war, upon and that, to effect their purposes, they intended an emergency, every one of them would be availto reconstruct the Supreme Court. able. At any time, the South can raise, equip, and maintain in the field, a larger army than any Power of the earth can send against her, and an army of soldiers-men brought up on horseback, with guns in their hands.

Yesterday the Senator said, suppose we admit Kansas with the Lecompton constitution, what guarantees are there that Congress will not again interfere with the affairs of Kansas? meaning, I suppose, that if she abolished slavery, what guar- If we take the North, even when the two large antee there was that Congress would not force it States of Kansas and Minnesota shall be admitupon her again. So far as we of the South are ted, her territory will be one hundred thousand concerned, you have, at least, the guarantee of square miles less than ours. I do not speak of good faith that never has been violated. But what California and Oregon; there is no antagonism guarantee have we, when you have this Govern-between the South and those countries, and never ment in your possession, in all its departments, even if we submit quietly to what the Senator exhorts us to submit to-the limitation of slavery to its present territory, and even to the reconstruction of the Supreme Court-that you will not plunder us with tariffs; that you will not bankrupt us with internal improvements and bounties on your exports; that you will not cramp us with navigation laws, and other laws impeding the facilities of transportation to southern produce? What guarantee have we that you will not create a new bank, and concentrate all the finances of this country at the North, where already, for the want of direct trade and a proper system of banking in the South, they are ruinously concentrated? Nay, what guarantee have we that you will not emancipate our slaves, or, at least, make the attempt? We cannot rely on your faith when you have the power. It has been always broken whenever pledged.

As I am disposed to see this question settled as soon as possible, and am perfectly willing to have a final and conclusive settlement now, after what the Senator from New York has said, I think it not improper that I should attempt to bring the North and South face to face, and see what resources each of us might have in the contingency of separate organizations.

If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, look at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. As large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Spain. Is not that territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world? With the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose staple productions none of those great countries can grow, we have three thousand miles of continental shore line, so indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, when their shore lines are added, we have twelve thousand miles. Through the heart of our country runs the great Mississippi, the father of waters, into whose bosom are poured thirtysix thousand miles of tributary streams; and beyond we have the desert prairie wastes, to protect us in our rear. Can you hem in such a territory as that? You talk of putting up a wall of fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles so situated! How absurd.

But in this Territory lies the great valley of the Mississippi, now the real, and soon to be the acknowledged seat of the empire of the world. The sway of that valley will be as great as ever the Nile knew in the earlier ages of mankind. We own the most of it. The most valuable part of it belongs to us now; and although those who have settled above us are now opposed to us, another generation will tell a different tale. They are ours by all the laws of nature; slave labor will go over every foot of this great valley where it will be found profitable to use it, and some of those who may not use it are soon to be united with us by

will be. The population of the North is fifty per
cent. greater than ours. I have nothing to say in
disparagement either of the soil of the North, or
the people of the North, who are a brave and an
energetic race, full of intellect, but they produce
no great staple that the South does not produce;
while we produce two or three, and those the very
greatest, that she can never produce. As to her
men, I may be allowed to say they have never
proved themselves to be superior to those of the
South, either in the field or in the Senate.

But the strength of a nation depends in a great
measure upon its wealth; and the wealth of a na-
tion, like that of a man, is to be estimated by its
surplus production. You may go to your trashy
census books, full of falsehood and nonsense.
They will tell you, for example, that in the State
of Tennessee, the whole number of house-servants
is not equal to that of those in my own house, and
such things as that. You may estimate what is
made throughout the country from these census
books, but it is no matter how much is made if it
is all consumed. If a man possess millions of
dollars and consume his income, is he rich? Is
he competent to embark in any new enterprise?
Can he build ships or railroads? And could a
people in that condition build ships and roads, or
go to war? All the enterprises of peace and war
depend upon the surplus productions of a people.
They may be happy, they may be comfortable,
they may enjoy themselves in consuming what
they make; but they are not rich, they are not
strong. It appears, by going to the reports of the
Secretary of the Treasury, which are authentic,
that last year the United States exported in round
numbers $279,000,000 worth of domestic produce,
excluding gold and foreign merchandise reex-
ported. Of this amount $158,000,000 worth is
the clear produce of the South; articles that are
not and cannot be made at the North. There are
then $80,000,000 worth of exports of products of
the forest, provisions, and breadstuffs. If we as-
sume that the South made but one third of these,
and I think that is a low calculation, our exports
were $185,000,000, leaving to the North less than
$95,000,000.

SENATE.

are nearly double the amount of the average exports of the twelve preceding years. If I am right in my calculations as to $220,000,000 of surplus produce, there is not a nation on the face of the earth, with any numerous population, that can compete with us in produce per capita. It amounts to $16 66 per head, supposing that we have twelve million people. England, with all her accumulated wealth, with her concentrated and educated energy, makes under $16 50 of surplus production per head.

I have not made a calculation as to the North, with her $95,000,000 surplus. Admitting that she exports as much as we do, with her eighteen millions of population it would be but little over twelve dollars a head. But she cannot export to us and abroad exceeding ten dollars a head against our sixteen dollars. I know well enough that the North sends to the South a vast amount of the productions of her industry. I take it for granted that she, at least, pays us in that way for the thirty or forty million dollars' worth of cotton and other articles we send her. I am willing to admit that she pays us considerably more; but to bring her up to our amount of surplus production, to bring her up to $220,000,000, a year, the South must take from her $125,000,000; and this, in addition to our share of the consumption of the $333,000,000 worth introduced into the country from abroad, and paid for chiefly by our own exports. The thing is absurd; it is impossible; it can never appear any. where but in a book of statistics.

With an export of $220,000,000 under the present tariff, the South organized separately would have $40,000,000 of revenue. With one fourth the present tariff she would have a revenue adequate to all her wants, for the South would never go to war; she would never need an army or a navy, beyond a few garrisons on the frontiers and a few revenue cutters. It is commerce that breeds war. It is manufactures that require to be hawked about the world, and give rise to navies and commerce. But we have nothing to do but to take off restrictions on foreign merchandise and open our ports, and the whole world will come to us to trade. They will be too glad to bring and carry for us, and we never shall dream of a war. Why the South has never yet had a just cause of war. Every time she has drawn her sword it has been on the point of honor, and that point of honor has been mainly loyalty to her sister colonies and sister States, who have ever since plundered and calumniated her.

But if there were no other reason why we should never have war, would any sane nation make war on cotton? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we can bring the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but half her cotton for three years to come, it would be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure but that after three total years' abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was before and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately the Bank of England was king but she tried to put her screws as usual, the fall before last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered. In addition to this, we sent to the North Who can doubt, that has looked at recent events, $30,000,000 worth of cotton, which is not counted that cotton is supreme? When the abuse of credit in the exports. We sent to her seven or eight had destroyed credit and annihilated confidence, million dollars' worth of tobacco, which is not when thousands of the strongest commercial counted in the exports. We sent naval stores, lum-houses in the world were coming down, and hunber, rice, and many other minor articles. There dreds of millions of dollars of supposed property is no doubt that we sent to the North $40,000,000 evaporating in thin air, when you came to a dead in addition; but suppose the amount to be $35,- lock, and revolutions were threatened, what 000.000; it will give us a surplus production of brought you up? Fortunately for you it was the $220,000,000. The recorded exports of the South commencement of the cotton season, and we have now are greater than the whole exports of the Uni- poured in upon you one million six hundred ted States in any year before 1856. They are thousand bales of cotton just at the crisis to save greater than the whole average exports of the Uni- you from destruction. That cotton, but for the ted States for the last twelve years, including the bursting of your speculative bubbles in the North, two extraordinary years of 1856 and 1857. They which produced the whole of this convulsion,

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would have brought us $100,000,000. We have
your political power. If they knew the tremen-
sold it for $65,000,000, and saved you. Thirty-dous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than
five million dollars we, the slaveholders of the "an army with banners," and could combine,
South, have put into the charity-box for your where would you be? Your society would be re-
magnificent financiers, your cotton lords, your constructed, your government overthrown, your
merchant princes.
property divided, not as they have mistakenly
attempted to initiate such proceedings by meeting
in parks, with arms in their hands, but by the
quiet process of the ballot-box. You have been
making war upon us to our very hearth-stones.
How would you like for us to send lecturers and
agitators North, to teach these people this, to aid
in combining, and to lead them?

But, sir, the greatest strength of the South arisés
from the harmony of her political and social in-
stitutions. This harmony gives her a frame of
society, the best in the world, and an extent of
political freedom, combined with entire security,
such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face
of the earth. Society precedes government; creates
it, and ought to control it; but as far as we can look
back in historic times we find the case different;
for government is no sooner created than it be-
comes too strong for society, and shapes and
molds, as well as controls it. In later centuries
the progress of civilization and of intelligence has
made the divergence so great as to produce civil
wars and revolutions; and it is nothing now but
the want of harmony between governments and
societies which occasions all the uneasiness and
trouble and terror that we see abroad. It was this
that brought on the American Revolution. We
threw off a Government not adapted to our social
system, and made one for ourselves. The ques-
tion is, how far have we succeeded? The South,
so far as that is concerned, is satisfied, harmoni-
ous, and prosperous.

Mr. WILSON and others. Send them along.
Mr. HAMMOND. You say, send them along.
There is no need of that. Your people are awak-
ing. They are coming here. They are thunder-
ing at our doors for homesteads, one hundred and
sixty acres of land for nothing, and southern Sen-
ators are supporting them. Nay, they are assem-
bling, as I have said, with arms in their hands,
and demanding work at $1,000 a year for six
hours a day. Have you heard that the ghosts
of Mendoza and Torquemada are stalking in the
streets of your great cities; that the inquisition
is at hand? There is afloat a fearful rumor that
there have been consultations for vigilance com-
mittees. You know what that means.

Transient and temporary causes have thus far
been your preservation. The great West has
been open to your surplus population, and your
hordes of semi-barbarian immigrants, who are
crowding in year by year. They make a great
movement, and you call it progress. Whither?
It is progress; but it is progress towards vigilance
committees. The South have sustained you in a
great measure. You are our factors. You bring
and carry for us. One hundred and fifty million
dollars of our money passes annually through
your hands. Much of it sticks; all of it assists
to keep your machinery together and in motion.
Suppose we were to discharge you; suppose we
were to take our business out of your hands: we
should consign you to anarchy and poverty.
You complain of the rule of the South: that has
been another cause that has preserved you.
We
have kept the Government conservative to the
great purposes of government. We have placed
her, and kept her, upon the Constitution; and
that has been the cause of your peace and pros-
perity. The Senator from New York says that
that is about to be at an end; that you intend to
take the Government from us; that it will pass
from our hands. Perhaps what he says is true;
it may be; but do not forget-it can never be for-
gotten; it is written on the brightest page of hu-
man history-that we, the slaveholders of the
South, took our country in her infancy; and, after
ruling her for sixty out of the seventy years of
her existence, we shall surrender her to you with-
out a stain upon her honor, boundless in pros-
perity, incalculable in her strength, the wonder
and the admiration of the world. Time will show
what you will make of her; but no time can ever
diminish our glory or your responsibility.

In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand-a race inferior to her own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves. We found them slaves by the "common consent of mankind," which, according to Cicero, "lex naturæ est; "the highest proof of what is Nature's law. We are oldfashioned at the South yet; it is a word discarded now by "ears polite.' I will not characterize that class at the North by that term; but you have it; it is there; it is everywhere; it is eternal. The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole world had abolished slavery. Ay, the name, but not the thing; all the powers of the earth cannot abolish it. God only can do it when he repeals the fiat," the poor ye always have with you;" for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the market and take the best he can get for it; in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and "operatives," as you call them, are essentially slaves. The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired

ADMISSION OF KANSAS.

by the day, not cared for, and scantily compen- SPEECH OF HON. H. M. PHILLIPS,

sated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour, in any street in any of your large towns. Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South. We do not think that whites should be slaves, either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe The pe compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of your own race; you are brothers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endowder of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation. Our slaves do not vote. them no political power. Yours do vote; and beWe give ing the majority, they are the depositaries of all

OF PENNSYLVANIA,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

March 9, 1858.

[REVISED BY HIMSELF.*]

The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union

Mr. PHILLIPS said:

Mr. CHAIRMAN: It was my intention, as it yet would be my preference, to have forborne the expression of my views on this subject until question of the admission of Kanges in the Union as a State was regularly brought to the notice of this House. But, limited as has been my experience in this House, it has sufficed to show me that opportunities of obtaining the floor are neither frequent nor certain, and that, if I relinquish it now, I may not again have the opportunity of proclaiming the sentiments which I en

* For the original report, see page 1017 Cong. Globe.

Ho. OF REPS.

tertain, the knowledge of which there are many who are entitled to have.

I look upon this question as one in which the peace of the Union is involved. I do not speak of its permanence, nor do I suppose that there is any real danger of its early dissolution. But when its peace is disturbed; when, from one extreme to the other, there is strife, there is contention, there is violence and tumult, where there should be quiet; it becomes, Mr. Chairman, an unwilling Union, the value of which all begin to calculate, and what may follow some day is much more easy to be anticipated than pleasant to be considered.

This subject of territorial legislation has been at all times prolific of discord. It was at the time of the attempt, and the successful attempt, at the introduction of Louisiana into the Union as a State, that an eminent gentleman from Massachusetts uttered in the Hall of the House of Representatives what I have no doubt those who hear me have read with deep regret that it was ever uttered there:

"If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of this Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation, and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation; amicably, if they can; violently, if they must."

There are some here, too, Mr. Chairman, who can well recollect the excitement and the painful anxiety occasioned, in 1819 and 1820, by the admission of Missouri into the Union. And now, when a similar boon is asked for her neighbor that was then extended to Missouri herself, no man of truth will deny that there exists, throughout the length and breadth of this land, a feeling of solici tude and excitement; and that there is amongst the extremists an almost sacrilegious joy at the recurrence of events calculated to jar and disturb the harmony of the Union, which a bold attack can never produce.

Since her organization as a Territory, Kansas has known no peace. Since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, Kansas has been the theater of strife and tumult. With everything to make her people happy and comfortable, with a richness of soil and purity of climate almost unequaled, it has been the scene of discord, of riot, of violence, and of bloodshed, and it is time now that these things should be stopped; Kansas calls upon us to stop them; the people of every State in the Union expect as much from us; and, Mr. Chairman, we must consider what is the effectual way of stopping them, and when we find that, we must apply the effective means, if we can do so, constitutionally, and in obedience to the recognized law of the land. Shall peace be restored by the Federal authorities, by the bayonets of the United States troops, by the more constant vigilance and attention of the soldiers or Federal officers, or shall it be restored by the people of Kansas herself? Shall she not be thrown at once upon her own resources, and shall not her citizens be told: "You shall be the conservators of your own peace, and if you are a law-abiding people-if you have a population, such as it has been boasted here over and over again that you have, we appeal to you to obey the law, to support the law, and to restore peace to your people in the State of Kansas?" Believing, as I do, that peace can be reestablished there permanently only by her admission as a State into this Union, and that the progress and prosperity of Kansas must begin to date from that act, I sincerely hope she will be admitted so soon as it is ascertained that she is in a condition entitling her to that privilege, and justifying us in according it.

I shall proceed, Mr. Chairman, to show that the admission of Kansas into this Union under her present application, and with the Lecompton constitution, is regular, is according to established principle, according to recognized precedent, and according to what some gentlemen on this floor dare not deny is good authority. If this be so, and she has a republican constitution, I say we have no right, regarding the peace and interests of

our citizens, to hesitate for one moment to admit her. I shall do little more, in the limited time tain, using but little argument, but referring, perallowed me, than assert the principles that I mainhaps, to a good deal of authority that ought to be recognized here, in support of them.

Was this territorial convention regular, is ob.

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

viously the first question? Who disputes it? Does it require an enabling act? If it does, it has it. No man can read the Kansas-Nebraska act without seeing that there is an enabling act there. But does it require an enabling act? I tell the gentlemen upon this floor, who oppose the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, that I will appeal to those who have on former occasions spoken for them, and by whom I will judge whether it was regular or not. I will show the gentlemen who compose the majority of the Opposition that their views have been expressed in such a manner that they cannot now contradict them; while to those who compose its minority, I will cite the highest authorities recognized by any one of them.

Mr. Chairman, why must an enabling act be passed? Have the people the right to form a constitution or not? And if they have not the right, has Congress the right to bestow it upon them? I shall quote, upon this subject, my colleague from the fourteenth district, [Mr. GROW;] and I cite him because, as the Republican candidate for Speaker, receiving more than eighty votes at the commencement of this session, he may be fairly considered the representative of the views and principles of that party, as he was formerly the exponent of them. I cite him as good authority-as authority from which those who indorsed him at the commencement of the session cannot now dissent. What said he when the application was made to admit Kansas into the Union with a constitution

Admission of Kansas-Mr. Phillips.

purposely refrained from voting, and left the whole pro-
ceeding, with all its important consequences, to the active
minority, under whose auspices the law bad been enacted,
and also executed, so far as that could be done by the ex-
ecutive officers, without the concurrence of the majority
of the people,

for delegates was unfortunate, is now too apparent to be de-
nied. It has produced all the evils and dangers of the present
critical hour. It has enabled a body of men, not actually
representing the opinions of the people, though regularly
and legitimately clothed with their authority, to prepare for
them a form of government, and to withhold the greater
part of its most important provisions from the test of pop-
ular judgment and sanction."

"That the refusal of the majority to go into the election

Governor Walker says very much the same:
"The people of Kansas, then, are invited by the highest
authority known to the Constitution to participate freely
and fairly in the election of delegates to frame a constitution

and State government. The law has performed its entire

appropriate function when it extends to the people the right
of suffrage; but it cannot compel the performance of that
duty. Throughout our whole Union, however, and where-
ever free government prevails, those who abstain from the
exercise of the right of suffrage authorize those who do vote
to act for them in that contingency; and the absentees are
as much bound under the law and constitution, where there
is no fraud or violence, by the act of the majority of those
who do vote, as if all had participated in the election. Other
wise, as voting must be voluntary, self-government would '!
be impracticable, and monarchy or despotism would remain
as the only alternative."

In many places he uses similar language. He
says:

"If laws have been enacted by the Territorial Legislature
which are disapproved of by a majority of the people of the
Territory, the mode in which they could elect a new Ter-
ritorial Legislature and repeal those laws, was also desig- 11
nated. If there are any grievances of which you have any
you could remove them, in subordination to the Govern-
ment of your country, was also pointed out."
Again:

framed without an enabling act-framed, permit just right to complain, the lawful, peaceful manner in which
me to say, by men in rebellion to the laws and
with arms in their hands, to be used against the
Federal authorities? When Kansas came here,
with the constitution thus made at Topeka, he
eloquently pleaded for her admission as a State,
as a measure of peace; and in support of the reg-
ularity of her action, he said:

"The mode and manner of accomplishing it in organized States properly belongs to the form of law, to be prescribed by the State government; but in the Territories, Congress

is the only power that can prescribe the forms; for a territorial government emanating from Congress can be changed, modified, or abrogated, ouly by its consent. That consent, however, can be expressed as well after as before the action of the people. If Congress, then, has prescribed no form, whatever action the people think proper to adopt, in order to secure a change of government, provided it be conducted in a peaceable manner, is lawful and constitutional; lawful,

because it violates no valid law-constitutional, because

article first of the amendments to the Constitution secures to the people everywhere under its jurisdiction the right, paramount to all law, peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I want no better authority than my friend and colleague; and those who voted for him for Speaker of this House voted for him because they saw in him a proper representative of popular sovereignty, according to the doctrine he had expressed and they then maintained. But I have other authority; and I shall do little else than cite author

!

"In the case of Michigan, the Territorial Legislature were clothed by Congress with no authority to assemble a constitutional convention and adopt a State constitution; but that, under the comprehensive language of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the Territorial Legislature was clothed with such authority by the laws of Congress, and that the authe vote of the people, was as clear and certain as that of thority of such a convention to submit the constitution to Congress itself, and that opposition to such a proceeding was equivalent to opposing the laws of Congress."

Thus cursorily, Mr. Chairman, because it is not very important, I have referred to the authority of the leading men in the Opposition, to show that the territorial convention was properly created, and was a regular and lawful body. Now, what was it to do? It did not submit its proceedings to the people. It would have been better, perhaps, that it had. It is right on all such occasions to do so. But is there any law requiring it? And if there is no law requiring it, what guarantee have we that future legislation in that Territory will be better than the past? Shall we be told that there is any obligation of law requiring the constitution to be submitted to the people? If so, I will again refer to the authority of Governor Walker, to show that he distinctly told them, in advance of the election, that there was no such obligation.

Governor Walker says:

"You should not console yourselves, my fellow-citizens, with the reflection that you may, by a subsequent vote, defeat the ratification of the constitution. Although most anxious to secure to you the exercise of that great constitutional right, and believing that the convention is the servant, and not the master of the people, yet I have no power to dictate the proceedings of that body."

ities, to which I wish the attention of those Dem-
ocrats who, like the gentleman who has just
spoken, [Mr. ENGLISH,] have departed from us
on this question. I have for those who, I am
afraid, will not have the same confidence in my
colleague that I have avowed, high authorities.
I have the authority of Governor Robert J. Walker
and of Mr. Secretary Stanton. They have said,
in words and language not to be misunderstood,
that the Lecompton convention was lawful. They
have said that the act of the Territorial Legisla-mitting, if they deem best, the constitution for ratification or
ture authorizing the convention was right; and
they have warned the people over and over again,
that, if they did not vote for delegates when they
had the opportunity afforded them, on their own
heads must be the consequences.

Mr. Stanton, on arriving in the Territory, addressed the people, saying, among other things: "The Government especially recognizes the territorial act which provides for assembling a convention to form a constitution with a view to 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.""

Again, in the message of the acting Governor in December last, and after what is now called the mischief had been done, he says:

"It thus appears that in the election of the 15th June last, for delegates to the convention, the great mass of the people

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"The only remedy rests with the convention itself, by sub-
rejection, to the vote of the people, under such just and rea-
sonable qualifications as they may prescribe."

We find, then, that there was no recognized law
requiring a submission of the constitution to the
vote of the people; and the question now is, Mr.
Chairman, what was done, and how far did that
meet the public expectation? Mr. Walker, as I
have said, told them in advance that there was no
power to compel the convention to submit their
work to the vote of the people. And yet, with
all that before them, those who are now called the
majority in that Territory, absented themselves
from the polls and refused to participate in the
proceedings. What was the convention to do?
I agree that it did not submit the constitution to
the vote of the people. They were authorized to
form a constitution, and they had the right to do
so. The gentleman who has preceded me, [Mr.
ENGLISH,] has said that some of the delegates to
the convention broke their party pledges; that
they pledged themselves to a certain course of con-

HO. OF REPS.

duct and did not fulfill their promises. Agreed for the purpose of argument, but does that violate the law? Does that prevent the organic law going into effect in the manner prescribed in the instrument? He will hardly assert that the dishonesty or treachery of a member of a legislative body can affect its decrees, so that if the fact even be as he states it, it cannot operate upon the va lidity of a law. If it would, where would safety be found? The same thing might occur again, and another election present a new set of men violating party and other promises. But what did they do? They submitted to the people, not the constitution, but the question whether they should have slavery among them; and I believe that if the people had voted, under the circumstances to which I shall by and by allude, the constitution would not now contain that clause which to many on the floor of the House is so obnoxious.

Now I propose to show, by the same authorities, that the slavery question was the only ques tion that was dividing the people of Kansas. I cite again my colleague, [Mr. GROW,] to show that the slavery question was then, as it always has been, the only subject of division in that Terriritory. He said "the existence of slavery was the only question on which the people were divided; and the vote for delegates to the convention settled that by a majority of legal votes."

Mr. GROW. Will my colleague give the date, if he pleases?

Mr. PHILLIPS. The 30th of June, 1856, when the Topeka constitution was submitted; which constitution, by the way, received, I believe, only some seventeen hundred votes.

Mr. GROW. Twenty-three hundred.

Mr. PHILLIPS. I am reminded that my colleague was then chairman of the Committee on Territories; and that gives additional weight and emphasis to his statement. He spoke by authority. He stated this opinion on that occasion, and changed once, but I do not believe he will change I do not believe he will deny it now. He has in reference to this subject.

Mr. GROW. Whether I have changed or not is a question of fact.

Mr. PHILLIPS. I will raise no question of fact between my colleague and myself. My colleague, on that occasion, further said, in reply to the inquiry of an honorable gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. TRIPPE:]

"I gave to the gentleman from New York the vote polled at the election immediately preceding the formation of the constitution. He knows, as well as any man, that the only question in Kansas on which the people are divided is, whether slavery shall exist there or not? That question was involved in the election of Delegate. He knows, too, that that is the only question to be settled."

It has not changed since then. If any other question has been raised since that time, I challenge any gentleman upon this floor to tell me what it is. If there is any other question on which the people of Kansas are divided, I ask any gentleman on this floor to rise in his place and tell me what it is. As it stood then, so it stands now.

Mr. GROW. If my colleague desires an answer, I will give it to him; though I do not like to interrupt him.

Mr. PHILLIPS. I yield the floor to my colleague for that purpose.

Mr. GROW. The gentleman inquires if there is any other question than that of slavery, of dif ference between the people of Kansas? That was at the first the great question of division between them, as he has stated; but, sir, since the invasion on the 30th of March, another question has arisen. They believed that at that time a gov ernment was forced upon then, which was illegal, by force; and since that time this question has, to a great extent, taken the place of the slavery question.

Mr. PHILLIPS. The 30th of March of what year?

Mr. GROW. It was in 1855. It was then that this invasion occurred, which forced upon the Territory of Kansas a government which the people held that they were under no moral obligation to respect. This question has developed itself more and more, as the question of slavery has subsided. I believe gentlemen will agree with me on all sides that, after a certain time, it was generally conceded that Kansas could not be made permanently

a slave State.

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