016 094 4b<^^ Conservation Resources Lig-Free® Type I 8 P E E C HON. W L UNDERWOOD, OF KENTDGKY^ THE ADMISSION OF KANSAS AS A STATE THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 30, 1858, WASHINGTON: 1858. Consfc^ SPEECH. The House beintr i" Coniniit.lee of the \Vhr)le, and 'iaving under consideration the d-pificiency bill — Mr.- UNDERWOOD said : ;f Mr. Chairman : I rise to essay no effort at elocution, nor any ex- - tended observations upon the vexed question of Kansas. Contem- ^* plating that question from a point of view differing from that of most if not all others that have addressed yoU;, entertaining in regard to it opinions that liave nut yet found expression, duty to myself demands that I should announce the reasons that shall control my action. To those who know me at home I shall have no occasion to defend myself against any charge of intentional infidelity to the South and her cherished institutions. From the dawn of my humble political career, until now, they have had no more devoted friend than 1. Born in a slave State, having lived in one all my life, a large owner of slaves, and re[>reseuting one of the largest slave districts in the Union, it would be nothing sliort of impossibility for me to become faithless to its real interests. 1 have heretofore expressed my opinions on this floor with sufficient fullness upon the subject of the relations of mas- ter and slave. I will not repeat them. It is sufficient for me to say that I honestly regard them as the best possible relations which can exist between two dissimilar and unequal races of men tlirown together upon the same territory, and that every attempt to create other relations than these, whilst the two races thus coexist, lias thus far only deepened the degradation and misery of the black race. I should, therefore, instead of circumscribing slavery, be perfectly wil- ling to see it extended, with the consent of those immediately inter- ested, to the remotest confines of the republic. It is not, then, be- cause, in any possible form, I am opposed to slavery, that I am opposed to the Lecompton constitution for Kansas. Indeed, rather, it is -because I am the friend and advocate of the peculiar institutions of the South that I am in part constrained to object to that constitution, Mr. Chairman, there are new theories of government and motives of action presented by the advocates of the Lecompton constitution that cannot fail to grate harshly on southern ears : 1st. In order to induce our assent to the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitu- tion — which constitution provides that '• after the year 1864, whenever the legislature shall think it necessary to amend, alter, or change this constitution" — they shall proceed to do so according to certain salutary precautions and methods prescribed in the instrument, it is now contended that tin's fundamental provision may be disregarded, and that steps, may be immediately taken to abolish it so soon as Kansas is admitted under it. The people of the United States have heretofore been taught to regard constitutions as the sacred reposi- tories of their dearest rights — as removed, by the solemnities by which they have been inaugurated, from the flippancies of change — and as oonstituting the bulwarks u|)on which they might repose in the security of established order. But now, for the purpose of making room for this new comer, all these established theories of government 4 .-W^z are forsaken, and pass away as the baseless fabric of a dream. A new light dawns upon the political sky. and anarchy is organized. Con- stitutions, which were intended heretofore for the protection of minor- ities, lose their power. Majorities, we are told, at their pleasure, may cast them down, and riot on the rights which constitutions were intended to preserve inviolate. The distinctions heretofore so well understood and recognized between a legislative act and a constitu- tional provision is no more, and the only step which remains to be taken, since the all-prevailing voice of mere numbers is enshrined, is to declare that this voice need not even proclaim its edicts in written laws, but has only, in the fury of the mob, to issue its mandates-, and execute; them. Strangest to me of all this is, that this wild doctrine •finds countenaQce with my southern friends, interested, like me, in preserving and maintaining to the last our southern rights and our southern property. Why, sir, with such govermental policy as this, not only will the general prosperity sicken — for all the interests of society must sicken with the instability of government — but the peculiar institutions of the South must die. Let me read you what is already said by a black republican organ, the Chicago Tribune, on this subject : " It is now said that the act admitting Kansas into llie Union, under the Lecompton con- stitution, will contain a clause declaring that the people of the new State may amend their constitution at anytime they please, though in doing, so 1 hey violate a plain and emphatic provision of the constitution itself. With this power to overhead constitutional barriers, recognized by solemn act of Congress, we shall be disposed to abate our opposition to Le- compton and help it along ; but with this express understanding, that the rule laid down for Kansas shall be applied to the Constitution of the United States ; and that when a majority of the legal voters of the republic choose to demand an amendment of the fundamental law, the mode of amendment prescribed in the Coustitution shall not stand in the way of the attainment of their will." Mr. Chairman, I enter my solemn protest against this suicidal doctrine. Kansas, with her Lecompton constitution, brings with her no benefits to any part of our common country which would com- pensate a solitary State for the damning tendency of such a dogma. And if it shall be inaugurated into the political theories of the times by the present administration, I shall preserve the proud consciousness of saying that it was by no act of mine you did it, and, therefore, ''shake not your gory locks at me." But it may possibly be said (I hardly think that any candid man will venture to say it) that this principle, touching the right of the majority to override the terms and forms of the constitution by amendments, alterations, or abrogations, in violation of those terms, is not contained in the act passed by the Senate. Mr. Chairman, it is there, and, I grieve to say, insidiously there. If it is to be there at all, put it in like a man. Speak it out like a free man. Let us have no quibbling about it. But it is there plain enough. The honorable senator [Mr. Pugh] proposed in plain, direct terms to insert it. His „ amendment was withdrawn by himself, because, as he said, its sub- stance was embodied in the bill as it now stands ; and it was thus withdrawn to make room for the more insidious and entrapping pro- visions now contained in the bill, to wit : " that nothing in this act shall be construed to abridge or infringe any right of the people, asserted in the constitution of Kansas, at all times to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think proper." Why was this clause inserted? Does anybod)^ suppose that, if Kansas should become a State, she would thereafter be de- pendent on Congress for her right ''■ to reform or abolish her form of government in such manner as she thought proper ?" Certainly not. For what purpose, then, was this formal disclaimer of a power or right of Congress to do that which no one ever supposed before Con- gress had the power to do asserted in this bill ? It was, Mr. Chair- man, a negative pregnant of most affirmative meaning. It is a direct in- tervention by Congress in the aiFairs of Kansas, in violation of your cry of non-intervention. Your President, sir, had, in a labored argu- ment^ in his Kansas message, announced the doctrine that "a majority can make and unmake constitutions at pleasure. It would be absurd to say they can impose fetters upon their own power which they cannot afterwards remove. * * * jf^ therefore, the provision changing the Kansas constitution after the year 1864 could, by possibility, be construed into a prohibition to make such a change previous to that period, this prohibition would be wholly unavailing. The legislature already elected may, at its very first session, submit the question to a vote of the people, whether they will or will not have a convention to amend their constitution, and adopt all necessarj^ means for giving effect to the popular will." It was necessary, therefore, to insert these provisions in the bill ; but lest an outspoken expression of them should justly offend the public ear, and justly alarm the settled and conservative elements of society, they have been couched in the covert and ambiguous phrase quoted in the law. But they will not the less confidently be appealed to as the expression of the legal right, in the abolition portion of the people of Kansas, to abolish the few remnants of slavery that exist in that devoted Territory on the instant, should Kansas be admitted under the Lecompton onstitution. And then will come, sir, in the event Kansas is thus admitted into the Union with her Lecompton constitution, under the provisions of this act of admission, one of those struggles, weak and feeble perhaps it may be, compared with others which I yet contemplate in her eventful his- tory, a struggle in which her peace may be seriously jeoparded, and the rights of the slaveholder — rights which I feel it my duty here to forewarn, if I cannot forearm — will inevitably be sacrificed. According to the programme thus suggested by the President, and significantly and obsequiously intimated to Kansas by the Senate bill, a new con- stitution will be adopted prior to 1864, in disregard of the Lecompton constitution. It will abolish slavery ; the slaveholders in Kansas will assert their rights under the Lecompton constitution, wrongfully overturned, in violation of the provisions for its own amendment ; and I do not hesitate to declare my opinion that there is not an enlightened jurist in America but will recognize their claim. That agitation, bitterness, and strife will result, even from this comparatively minor conflict, no one can doubt ; and, I ask, is it the part of statesmanship thus to legislate in blind disregard of such inevitable consequences? Mr. Chairman, the great excellency of American liberty is, that it ie the liberty of law. The President, in the principles which I have tlius deduced from his Kansgis message, proclaims the European idea of liberty, which is the liberty of license. The one is peaceful, the other rebellious. He attempts to fortify his specious conclusions by 6 a reference to those grand lumlamontal principles of human liberty which underlie all free governments, and whicli, in proper cases, are the last resorts of nations No people so well as ours knows the right of revolution, and none, thank God, in a most righteous cause, God being our helper, have asserted it no triumphantly. 1 trust, how- ever, that no legislative or political necessity will ever compel any portion of our beloved country again to resort to this terrible arbitra- ment. And it I had no other reason for voting against the admission of Kansas under the Lecomptou constitution, 1 should be justified in doing so, in order to avoid the dread expedient approximating revolu- tion, to which the President refers the peoj)le of Kansas, whereby to extricate themselves from the difficulty in which his policy has in- volved them, by a change of their constitution, regardless of the forms and methods prescribed in the constitution itself. The second of the motives which are urged upon us is, that it is the shortest way to make Kansas a free State. The President, in his Kansas message, after correctly stating that Kansas is now a slave Territory, tells us, in this remarkable language : ' ' Slavery can, there- fore, never be pi-ohibited In Kansas, except by means of a constitu- tional provision, and in no other manner can this be obtained so promptly, if a majority of the people desire it, as by admitting it into the Union under its present constitution." Mr. Chairman, when I consider this opinion of the President, in connexion with the means he suggests of effecting the object of making Kansas a free State, to wit : by the unauthorized alteration of her constitution in the manner I have stated, I cannot forbear the expres- sion of my surprise at the support which his purpose and his policy receive at the hands of the south. For myself, I am free to declare that I am not anxious to pursue that path which shall most promptly admit Kansas into the Union as a free State — not that I would throw obstacles in the way of tlie admission of a State, whether slave orlree, into the Union, when justly entitled to come in — but when I consider how rapidly the number of free States has increased and is increasing ; that the safe equality that so long existed between the free and slave States has passed away, giving place to an existing preponderance in favor of the former, to be augmented by other free States pressing at our doors for admission ; more than this, when I consider who are likely to come, as the senators of Kansas, to take their places here — Lane and Robinson, perhaps, reeking with bitterness and wrath against the institutions of the south, from the fierce conflicts and raids in which so long and recently they have been engaged — I confess to no indecent haste for the admission of Kansas ; and the last thing, 1 think, that ever I shall be guilty of doing will be to dissolve the union of these States because she is not admitted "so promptly" to swell the tide of politi- cal ascendency that beats already so heavily against the south. In this connexion, Mr. Chairman, I would invite your attention to a most singular fact — singular, indeed, it would be if it did not recur in every phase of democratic policy and tactics. It is the rare and singular facility — I should rather call it cro/f. — of the democratic party to give to all their measures a northern and a southern aspect. In no instance have they succeeded so well, 1 ween, as in this. They did apprentice work in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, when they declared in the north it was a measure of freedom, and in the south that it was the unlocking of the Territories for the expansion of slavery ; they did journeymen's work in their divers interpretations of squatter sovereignty, suited to all latitudes and localities ; and they are doing master work now, when this very measure of the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution is advocated by the President and his northern supporters as the '' promjjtest" manner of prohibiting slavery in that State, whilst their southern brethren are advocating it, and are ready to split the Union about it, becauses it recognizes slavery north of 36° 30' — albeit, it shows its head there for a moment and disappears thenceforth forever. You are too familiar with the bold and ardent declarations of my southern friends to require me to cite instances to prove the burning zeal with which they contemplate and advocate admission under the Lecomption constitution. It will be more novel, and not less instructive, that I quote to you what John Van Buren, the most sagacious of the demo- cratic abolitionists of the north, declares on the same subject. In his celebrated speech at Tammany Hall, he says: " By admitting Kansas into the Union, you put her in a condition where she can cure all tliis evil — stop fraud, and make herself a free State ; and those men from the free States who refuse this opportunity to admit Kansas with this population and their disposition to make the State free, and who would keep her out as a slave State, as she now is, until the population is thrown there to make her permanently a slave State, will have to answer to their constitu- ents for the result they have thus produced." And this sentiment, we are told, was received with "applause" by the vast democratic audience assembled to hear him. Why, Mr. Chairman, John Van Buren did not announce a new dem- ocratic policy at the north. Let me read to you from a handbill for a democratic meeting at Mifliinsburg, Pennsylvania, September, 1856 : ' ' Democrats ! whigs ! republicans I turn out and learn the fact that it is the democratic party that is laboring for freedom for Kansas, the assertions of opposition orators to the contrary notwithstanding." I could quote from Dix, and other orators of this political echool, but I forbear. I however affirm that the northern democratic advocates of the Lecompton constitution all maintain this view, contending that it is another measure for freedom. Should not these bold contrasts, then, teach forbearance to our extreme southern friends? especially when they were told the other day on this floor, by one of their north- ern allies^ that the north got the oyster whilst the south got the shell, in this division of the spoils. Are they not, at least, sufficient t<3 silence the cry of "abolitionism," which, I doubt not, is preparing to be raised throughout the south against all those who shall dare to resist this measure^ so really destructive of every principle the south should hold sacred and inviolate? But, Mr. Chairman, more than this, is it not time for us to have a straightforward and honest policy? Have we not been paltered with long enough in a double sense ? How much longer will the south — or the north either — suffer itself to be deluded thus witli fallacious hopes, having the Avord of promise kept to the ear but broken to the hope? For myself, I am weary of the Janus face and the forked tongue. I desire now, Mr. Chairman, to invite your attention to the ques- tions: 1st. Is the Lecompton constitution of such legal validity and 8 iorct) Jis to claim adoption from its inherent legality? and 2d. If legal in i'orni, are there not facts connected with it that render it invalid? And^ firstj as to its legality : I shall not go back to inquire into the validity of the territorial legislatures of Kansas. I shall take them for granted, for all the purposes of my argument, however great and grating may have been the improprieties practiced in the earlier elections under the territorial law. Nevertheless^ those legisratures have been recognized, and must be considered the legislative branch of the de facto government of Kansas ; and I shall concede to them the right to exercise all powers delegated to them by the authority which created them, to wit : the Kansas-Nebraska act. It will not be contended that the legislature of a Territory can exercise, like the legislature of a State, any independent, sovereign powers. The legis- lature of a Territory is but the creature of the law establishing the Territory, and has no power to step beyond it. It then becomes ma- terial to inquire what powers did Congress confer upon the Kansas legislature? The language of the act is: "That the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all rightful subjects of legis- lation consistent with the Constitution of the United States and this act." I would venture an original argument upon the nature and extent of this qualified and limited legislative power, if argument upon it had not long ago been merged in authority, and that authority so high with those to whom I would commend it, that nothing is wanting to give it absolute command. Upon the admission of Arkansas, during the administration of President Jackson, the question arose, how far the territorial legislature was competent to inaugurate the prelimi- nary measures to cast oif its territorial existence, and to prepare to assume the attitude of a State ? This question was submitted to his Attorney General, Mr. Butler, who used the following language: " To suppose that the legislative powers granted to the general assembly include the au- tiiority to abrogate, alter, or modify the territorial government established by the act of Con- gress, and of which the assembly is a constituent part, would be manifestly absurd. The act of Congress, so far as it is consistent with the Constitution of the United States, and with the treaty by which the territory, as a part of Louisiana, was ceded to the United States, is the supreme law of the Territory ; it is paramount to the power of the territorial legislature, and can only be revoked or altered by the authority from which it emanated. The general assembly and the people of the Territory are as much bound by its provisions, and as inca- ble of abrogating them, as the legislatures and people of the American States are bound by and incapable of abrogating the Constitution of the United States. It is also a maxim of universal law, that when a particular thing is prohibited by law, all means, attempts, or con- trivances to effect such thing are also prohibited. Consequently, it is not in the power of the General assembly of Arkansas to pass any law for the purpose of electing members to form a constitution and State government, nor to do any other act, directly or indirectly, to create such new government Every such law, even though it were approved by the governor of the Territory, would be null and void. If passed by tlioni, notwithstanding liisveto.by a vote of two-thirds of each branch, it would still be equally void." This was the ground taken by the administration of General Jack- son in regard to Arkansas, and the position is an unanswerable one. Any law passed by the territorial legislature of Kansas — which pos- sessed no greater authority than the territorial legislature of Ar- kansas — initiating a convention, is utterly null and void. In addition to this, I present you the authority of Mr. Buchanan, the present distinguished Chief Magistrate of the United States, whose early counsels are so worthy of the consideration of his later years, and who, upon the occasion of the admission of Michigan, expressed himself in the following emphatic language : i 9 " We ought not to apply the rigid ruley of abstract pohtical science too rigorously to such cases. It has been our practice heretofore to treat our infant Territories with parental care, to nurse them with kindness, and when they had attained the age of manhood, to admit them into the family without requiring from them a rigid adherence to forms. The great questions to be decided are : Do they contain a sufficient population? Have they adopted a republican constitution? And are they willing to enter the Union upon the terms which we propose? If so, all the preliminary proceedings have been considered but mere forms, which we have waived in repeated instances. They are but the scaffolding of the building, which ia of no further use after the edifice is complete We have puisued this < ourse in regard to Tennessee, to Arkansas, and even to Michigan. No senator will pretend that their territo- rial legislatures had any right whatever to pass laws enabling the people to elect delegates to a convention for the purpose of forming a State constitution. It was an act of usurpation on their part." And on the same subject, Mr. Calhoun, the brightest constitutional luminary of all, used the following brief but emphatic words: " My opinion is, and ever was, that the proceeding of the people of Michigan, in taking the first steps to form a State constitution without waiting for the assent of Congress, was revolutionary." If these quotations fail to convince, then, so far as my democratic auditors extend, they would not be convinced though one rose from the dead. But to obviate these high authorities and these unanswer- able arguments, it is now stated that the Kansas-Nebraska act is itself an enabling act, dispensing with all others. Unfortunately for those who affirm this, it proves too much for them. That act, it is true, '' leaves the people perfectly free to form their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution." Prior to it the people had been restrained in this '' perfect freedom" by the provi- sions of the Missouri compromise line, which prohibited slavery north of 36° 30' north latitude ; and this provision was intended merely to apply to the condition and privileges of the people, when, subsequent to the repeal of this line, they should come legally to form their do- mestic institutions in their own way, and was not intended to confer upon them any new powers or privileges, contrary to the consent of Congress, whereby they might at pleasure cast off their territorial allegiance. If such be not the true interpretation of this clause — if it conferred upon the people of the Territory the inherent right at any time they pleased to form a constitution and claim admission abso- lutely under it, how can we resist the application of those who formed the justly and universally repudiated Topeka constitution for admis- sion under it into the Union of these States. Their constitution is first in point of time, and it will be observed that it is not the legisla- ture of the Territory, but the " people of the Territory," that are left '' perfectly i'ree to form their own domestic institutions in their own way;" and hence, upon this'hypothesis and language of the law, you need not apply for an enabling act even from the territorial legisla- ture, because that language does hot confer the power upon the legis- lature, but confers it " on the people;" and the high prerogative of making a constitution is not a legislative function. Besides, if the Kansas-Nebraska act enabled the legislature of Kansas to call a con- stitutional convention, why did President Pierce recommend, and why did the democratic Senate under his administration, with singular unanimity, pass an act authorizing Kansas to call a convention. Without pursuing this argument further, I conclude, from the high authorities cited and from the reasons already adduced — 1st. That the legislature of Kansas was not competent to commit an act of political suicide, and to subvert and overturn the very power of v/liicli tliey were but constituted the keepers, guardians, and preservers, by the Congress of the United States; and 2d, that the Kansas territorial law was in no sense an act which enabled its legislature thus to subvert the territorial existence at its pleasure. It follows, then, that the Lecorapton constitution is not an im- perative legality. That it cannot challenge and demand our implicit and unquestioning submission, because it comes accredited to us by all the regularities and forms of law. But losing these high pretensions, which are all the title that it brings, it loses all. For, unless it can be sustained upon the ground of legitimacy, it has no other foundation to sustain it. Mr. Chairman, let it not be inferred from anything I have said that 1 hold it illegal or rebellious for a territorial legislature to institute preliminaiy proceedings in order to bring about the transition from a territorial to a State condition. All I wish to establish is that their proceedings bind not the government of the United States, or render it in any sense imperative upon such goverment to admit such Territory into the Union as a State, merely because the territorial legislature have gone regularly through the formalities it may have instituted. The power of the United States, and the duty of the United StateSj stand untouched and unatfected by these subordinate territorial for- malities, except so far as they may address themselves to the Congress of the United States as matter of petition, deserving its favorable con- sideration from their inherent merit, and not from their inherent le- gality. 2. If the Lecompton constitution be legal in form, are there not facts connected with it that render it invalid in fact ? Mr. Chairman, this field of my argument has been perfectly exhausted. Let me add but a few words to what has been so much better said by so many others. And let me premise that the Congress of the United States is under no stress, or legal or political necessity, to admit new States into this confederacy. Neither Kansas, nor any other Territory, can demand as a right admission into this Union ; although she may have formed a republican constitution, and although every man, woman and child within her borders desired it, yet the right and the power to admit or not to admit, according to its own will and pleasure, rests alone in the Congress of the United States. This high power and unlimited discretion is expressed in the Con- stitution of the United States in these simple words: " New States may be adiaitted by the Congress into this Union.'" In the exercise of this high prerogative, perhaps the most morally grand of any which our current' history exhibits, the Congress has the right, and it is its duty, to look with the utmost scrutiny and caution upon every fact, circumstance, and condition which bears upon the prudence, fitness, and propriety of the permanent relations it is about to establish between the new comer into the confederacy and the old; and if there be any tin^e and any act which, above all otliers, should demand the exercise of the utmost good faith, forbearance, and honesty, it is this. I do not hesitate to declare that, if new States are to be precipitated into this confederacy contrary to the consent of a material portion of the old ones, and {above all, with constitutions contrary to the ascer- I 11 tained will ol' a matt^rial portiou of the citizeus of such new Stale, then are the sappers and miners at work beneath the foundations of the republic, and the enemy to its perpetuation has entered within its walls. Mr. Chairman, if we could for a moment relieve ourselves of all party bias and excitement, we should find the facts pertaining to the Kansas question to be few and simple. A portion of its people are in favor of a constitution with slavery ; another portion is in favor of a constitution without it. For years they have been \Taging a disreputable contest, disturbing the tjuiet and repose of the Union, and seeking political advantages of each other. Both of these parties have made themselves a constitution — one at Topeka, relying for its support upon your naked doctrine of Popular Sovereignty ; the other at Lecompton, relying upon popular sovereignty, endorsed by Legis- lative Intervention without congressional sanction. The latter is much the best, I think, of the two, but both bad. Each party has endeav- ored, as far as possible, to ignore the other and to refrain from a recognition of the legal validity of its acts. The free State party believed it was outraged and trodden down by an invasion from Tvli-^- souri, which gave despotic character to the legislature, inasmuch ly it was elected, not by the people of the Territory but by alleged inva/; .s, and hence, thereafter, it abstained from participating in el '-^'^iis authorized by this legislature. Whilst the slave State party il d the extent of the force and violence charged by their opponents, and jus- tified themselves by the charge that emigrant aid societies had thrown upon Kansas, for the purpose of controlling its domestic institutions, a population as spurious as any introduced from adjacent States. Thus waged the war, until delegates were authorized to be chosen by the territorial legislature to form a constitution preparatory to the admission of Kansas into' the Union. From this point onward we have a right, and it is our duty, to look, in order to ascertain what it is proper for us to do. Delegates under the law were to be appor- tioned among the thirty-four counties of the Territory according to their population, to be ascertained by a census directed to be taken. This was fair and right, and ought to have been done ; but, if we may believe tlie very highest authorities on this subject, it was not done, and by reason of the failure nearly one-half of the counties of the Territory were denied any representation in the convention that formed tl)e constitution under which they were to live. Hear what Govertior Walker and Secretary Stanton say on this subject. Governor Walker, in his leUer to General Cass, of the loth December, 1857, says : " In iiineteeii of these counties there was no census, and therefore there could be no such apportionment there of delegates, based upon such census ; and in tifleen of these counties there was no registry of voters. These fifteen counties, including many of the oldest organ- ized counties of the Territory, were entirely disfranchised, and did not give, and (by no fault of their own) could not give, a solitary vote for delegates to the convention." * » * " In fifteen counties out of thirty-four there was no registry, and not a solitary vote was given or could be given for delegalos to the c,onvention in any of tliese counties." Governor Stanton, in corroboration of this statement, in his address to the people of the United States, says : " The registration required by law had been imperfect in all the counties, and had been wholly omitted in one-half of tlieni ; nor could the people of these disfranchised counties vote in any adjacent count}', as has been falsely suggested." I could multiply proofs on this subject, but it is unnecessary. These 12 are sufficient^ except to those determined not to believe. It is true that many of the free State part}'^ refused to vote for delegates to form the constitution. They professed to believe, and perhaps did believe, they would be defrauded out of their votes by their opponents, who had complete control of all the machinery by which the elections were to be conducted ; and they were unwilling, as before stated, by voting at an election authorized by what they denominated the Bogus Legisla- ture, to recognize the validity of its acts. I am not their advocate or defender. I think in all this they did wrong ; and the other side were wrong in not taking the census and registration as far as practicable, to give to all the right and unquestionable American privilege of being represented in the body v/hich was to ordain their highest law. The free State party in some of the counties made an attempt to elect delegates to the convention, notwithstanding the failure to take the census and registration. Their delegates were re- jected. I will not dwell on these things. One fact of importance, during the progress of this election, occurred. It was the unequivo- cal, clear, distinct, and absolute promise of the governor, in his own name, and in the name of the President of the United States ; it was the promise of his secretary, Mr. Stanton ; it was the promise of Mr. Calhoun and many of his associates, that the constitution, when formed by the convention, should be submitted to the people for their ratifica- tion or rejection. Goveror Walker, everywhere in Kansas, pledged his honor, by the approval, as he told the people, of the President and his cabinet, that the constitution should be submitted. Without stopping to refer to his inaugural, in which he is most emphatic on this point, I read from a speech of his delivered at Topeka, on the 8th of June, 1857, and published in the Topeka Statesman of the 9th : "At the next election, in October, when you elect the territorial legislature, you can repeal these laws ; and you can also, by a majority of your own votes, adopt or reject the con- stitution presented for your consideration next fall. Can you not peaceably decide this question in the mode pointed out by the act of Congress, if you, as you can and will, have a full opportunity of recording your vote? [A voice, 'How are we to get it?'] You will tret it by the convention submitting the constitution to the vote of the whole people. [A voice, ' Who is to elect the convention? That is the grand question.'] Gentlemen, it is a comparatively small point by whom the constitution is .submitted. Don't let us runaway after shadows. The great substantial point is this : Will the wliole people of Kansas next fall, by a fair election, impartially and fairly conducted by impartial judges, have an oppor- tunity to decide for themselves what shall be their form of government, and what shall bo their social institutions ? I say they will ; but I go a stop further. [A voice, ' Have you the power?'] If I have not the power to bring it about, if the convention will not do it, I will join you in lawful opposition to their proceedings. [Cries of • Good !' 'Good!' ' We hold you to your promise. Nothing can be asked fairer than that.']" This with me, is high matter of substance. Here you see a people, jealous of their rights, holding earnest question with their governor, and receiving from him solemn answer, touching those important rights upon which we are acting now ; and, in consideration of his solemn pledge that the constitution should be fairly submitted to them, yielding it up indifferently to be formed by those who might be selected to do it, yet relying upon their own ultimate right to pass judgment upon it in the last resort. Shall we obtain the benefits of their non-action, without complying with the conditions upon which it was procured? Shall we, in any sense, fftil to comply with the 8