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 OPV 1 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE OF KAN'SAS. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 / OF 
 
 PRESTON KING, OF NEW YORK, 
 
 In the Senate of the United States, March 16th, 1858, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 FRAUDS, USURPATION, AND PURPOSE, IN WHICH THE SLAVE CONSTITUTION OP 
 THE LECOMPTON CONVENTION HAD ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 ,'y 
 
 Mr. KING. Mr. President, before the Rev- 
 olution, charters were granted to the colonies 
 by the Crown. Since then, up to this time, 
 the people of the vStates of the Union have 
 made their Constitutions for themselves. Now, 
 for the first time since the Continental Con- 
 gress declared the colonies free and independ- 
 ent States, the question is raised of the right 
 of the people to adopt or reject the Constitution 
 which is to create them a State qualified to 
 come into the Union, one of the equal States 
 of our Confederacy. 
 
 Kansas, brought to the door of the Senate 
 for the purpose of having the Lecompton con- 
 stitution imposed upon her people by the au- 
 thority of an act of Congress, presents that 
 question to us. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, contemplating his coun- 
 try when her independence had been acknowl- 
 edged and the Republic was established, is 
 said to have expressed the wish that he might 
 be permitted to look upon this country after 
 the lapse of a hundred years. If the shade of 
 that venerable man could appear here, and listen 
 to these debates upon the proposition to add a 
 new State from beyond the Mississippi to the 
 Union, he would hear from the Government 
 side calls for more troops, and arguments to 
 show the necessity of an increase of the standing 
 army; he would hear that the people of the 
 State proposed to be added to the Union are a 
 factious people; that they claim the right to 
 vote on the adoption of their Constitution ; to 
 have the charter that defines their rights and 
 their form of government submitted by the 
 convention that made it to themselves, and to 
 express their opinion of it ; that in this new 
 
 State the people are unwilling to have slavery 
 established as one of their institutions ; that, 
 although the President declares the constitu- 
 tion prepared for them by the Lecompton con- 
 vention to be a good one, they contumaciously 
 reply that it is not their constitution ; that 
 they complain of fraud and corruption in the 
 officials appointed and sustained by the central 
 Government ; that they refuse to pay the taxes 
 levied by the Legislature, alleging that they 
 had no voice in its election, and were not rep- 
 resented in it ; that they agitate and annoy the 
 Government and disturb the quiet of the coun- 
 try by their turbulent and disorderly conduct ; 
 that they remonstrate against stuffed ballot- 
 boxes, spurious votes, forged certificates, and 
 false returns at their elections, and demand of 
 the Government investigation and punishment 
 of these offences ; that they insist upon the 
 right to decide for themselves the character of 
 their State institutions, and refuse to accept 
 the constitution which the Govsrnment offers 
 to them ; that they complain of the intrusion 
 of regular troops belonging to the standing 
 army of the Federal Government sent to 
 maintain law and order in their Territory; 
 that they are seditious ; that they are rebels ; 
 that they have been permitted to occupy the 
 attention of the Government and the country 
 too long ; that they must have a local govern- 
 ment instituted over them by Congress, and 
 be subdued by the army. He would hear 
 some uncertain and mystical suggestions that 
 the people of the State, when reduced to order, 
 might possibly, at some future time, be allow- 
 ed to alter their obnoxious constitution in 
 some legal manner. I think, after listening so 
 
far, Franklin would inquire, "is this the 
 American Congress, and have you established 
 !i consolidated Government? Or is this the 
 British Parliament, and have the United States 
 been reunited to the Crown ?" Upon being told 
 that this is one of the Chambers of the Ameri- 
 can Congress, that the United States are still 
 an independent nation, and that the words of 
 the Federal constitution remain imchangcd, 
 he would say, " then these honorable gentle- 
 men, who occupy the seats of legislators h.n'e, 
 have not inherited the republicanism of my 
 day and generation ; this is not the Democracy 
 that thundered at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, 
 and at Yorktown, and rang out their battle- 
 cry <if liberty and independence througli all 
 the colonies, until the royal charters were abol- 
 ished, and the right of the people to institute 
 their forms of government and to make their 
 constitutions for themselves was acknowl- 
 edged." 
 
 Mr. President, the convention held at Le- 
 compton framed a State constitution for Kan- 
 sas, and refused to submit it to the people. 
 
 The convention submitted a single provision 
 of the constitution to the people — the question 
 whether slaves might hereafter be imp'orted or 
 brought into the State ; and required, as a 
 preliminary to the right of any elector to vote 
 for or aj,ainst this single partial provision on 
 the subject of slavery, that he should first vote 
 for the obnoxious constitution, which con- 
 tained, separate and distinct from the provis- 
 ion submitted, an article perpetuating slavery 
 in the State of Kansas in the persons of those 
 now held as slaves in the Territory, and in 
 their posterity, forever. 
 
 A very large majority of the people were 
 opposed to the obnoxious constitution, and re- 
 fused to vote for it. Without voting for the 
 constitution, no elector could vote for or against 
 the single provision submitted. 
 
 It is notorious that the Lecompton conven- 
 tion knew the constitution it framed was re- 
 pugnant to the sentiments, the opinions, and 
 the consciences of a large majority of the peo- 
 ple ; that they condemned the instrument and 
 the institution of slavery which it proposed to 
 establish and perpetuate among them. 
 
 It is known to every Senator and to every 
 Representative in Congress that a very large 
 majority of all the qualified voters in Kansas 
 have expressed their opinion against the Le- 
 compton constitution at an election held under 
 the authority of an act of their Territorial 
 Legislature on the 4th day of January last, 
 when the constitution was submitted, and the 
 people rejected it by their votes. 
 
 This is the case of Kansas, as presented to 
 the Senate by the majoritj^ of the Committtee 
 on Territories in their report and bill, which 
 assumed that the fi. st Territorial Legi.-lature 
 in Kansas was fairly and legally elected by the 
 people, and organized, and that the Lecompton 
 
 convention was fairly elected by the people in 
 pursuance of the law of their Territorial Le- 
 gislature. 
 
 In the case thus made by the majority of 
 the committee, the fundamental question of 
 the right of the people of a Territory to adopt 
 for themselves the constitution which creates 
 them a State, preparatory to admission into the 
 Union, is presented. The sovereign right of 
 the people is denied, and the sovereign right 
 of a convention of delegates afitirmed. The 
 question raised in the case of Kansas is not a 
 question for Kansas alone. It is for every 
 Territory hereafter to be organized, and for 
 every State hereafter to be admitted into 
 the Union, as well as for Kansas. It is a 
 question of constitutional and political right of 
 the first magnitude. Indeed, it is the question 
 of the inherent sovereignty of the people, vital 
 to the people inhabiting the territory now be- 
 longing to the United States, and to all which 
 may hereafter be acquired or come within our 
 ever-expanding borders. 
 
 It is no less vital to the people of every 
 State now in the Union, because it i^ the ques- 
 tion where sovereignty resides, whether in rep- 
 resentatives and representative bodies, in the 
 Federal Government, or in the people. Our 
 existence as a republican Government rests 
 upon the principle involved in this question. 
 
 When the sovereignty of the people is sub- 
 verted or successfully denied by any represent- 
 ative body, or by any other power, the rights 
 and the liberties of the people are in the hands 
 and at the mercy of that power. The Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, inaugurated 
 upon the principles of the Revolution of 1776, 
 recognised the sovereignty of the States, and 
 the sovereign right of the people of the States 
 to frame and adopt their forms of government, 
 and to make and to adopt their constitutions. 
 It is a constitutional right of the people of a 
 State, essential to its equality as one of the 
 States of the Union, and necessary to the re- 
 publican character of its constitution — a right 
 never before denied or questioned. If those 
 who now, in the case of the people of Kansas, 
 deny this right, had before the day of election 
 in November, 1856, only wiiispered their de- 
 sign to subvert this sovereign right of the peo- 
 ple, the Administration which is now pressing 
 upon Congress the proposition to subvert the 
 rights of the people of Kansas, would never 
 have come into power to make such a question. 
 No State has ever been brought into the Union 
 where it was denied, questioned, or doubted, 
 that the people of the State to be admitted ap- 
 proved their constitution. The enabling acts, 
 the forms of law, and the modes of proceeding 
 on the part of the people, preparatory to their 
 admission as States into the Union, have wide- 
 ly varied. I do not know that they have been 
 exactly alike in the cases of any two States. 
 But observance of the vital principle that all 
 
just government derives it authority from the 
 consent of the governecl, has been the one es- 
 sential thing required in all. Are the Presi- 
 dent and Consz;ress prepaTod to go back to the 
 reign of the Geoi'gcs in England, and assume 
 the prerogatives of the Crown and the unlim- 
 ited power of Pprlinment? And are they 
 ready to renew in this country the controver- 
 sies of those days between the prcrogaliv3 
 and power of the central Government, and the 
 constitutional power and political rights of the 
 people — questions supposed to have been for- 
 ever settled in America by the success of the 
 Revolution, and the adoption of the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States? Whatever the 
 President may be willing to do, is Congress 
 prepared to deny the absolute and sovereign 
 right of the people of a new State to form and 
 adopt their own constitution ? And is Con- 
 gress prepared to assume the sovei'cign power 
 to impose a constitution upon the people of a 
 new State ? Congress has the power to admit 
 new States into the Union, but it has not the 
 constitutional power to make a constitution for 
 a State, or to adopt one made by others, and 
 impose it upon the people of a State. 
 
 The President possesses no such constitu- 
 tional power, and cannot be invested with such 
 authority by an act of Congress. Tiie Presi- 
 dent who recommends such a measure to Con- 
 gress, and proposes to enforce such an act upon 
 the unwilling people of a State, is false to the 
 high trust reposed in hira by the people of all 
 the States in the Union. It is a subversion of 
 the rights of the States. It is consolidation. 
 When the Federal Government shall exercise 
 the power to impose a constitution upon the 
 people of a State, who shall say what limita- 
 tions to its power remain ; what shall stay its 
 arbitrary will; and how and where shall its 
 typannj"- be arrested? But, Mi-. President, 
 monstrous and utterlv indefensible as the prop- 
 osition to bring Kansas into the Union under 
 the Lecompton constitution stands upon the 
 case as made by the majority of the committee, 
 dark colors are yet to be added to the true 
 picture of violence to the constitutional prin- 
 ciples of republican government, and of out- 
 rage against the rights of the people of Kansas. 
 
 The report of the majority of the committee 
 does not state the facts of the case correctly. 
 The assumption that the first Territorial Legisla- 
 ture of Kansas was fwirly elected, and valid in 
 law, is contradicted by record evidence. The 
 assumption that the Lecompton convention 
 was fairly elected by the people of Kansas, is 
 contradicted by evidence that can be neither 
 contradicted nor controverted. Upon these 
 two assumptions, the majoiity of the committee 
 maintain the sovereignty of a convention, and 
 deny the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 The history of Kansas, from the beginning 
 to the end of it, is one of fraud and violence, 
 of wrong and outrage. Altho'Jgh the majority 
 
 here have refused to authorize any inquiry or 
 investigation that would bring the facts offi- 
 cially before the Senate, yet they arc notorious 
 to the whole country, and they cannot be ex- 
 cluded from our sight. The act of Congress 
 that organized the Territory repealed the eighth 
 section of the act for the admission of Missouri 
 into the LTnion, commonly called the Missouri 
 compromise law — a law which excluded slavery 
 from the Territoiy of Kansas. This was a 
 breach of that faith and honor among men, 
 which statutes can neither create nor destroy; 
 a breach of that faith and honor between com- 
 munities, which is their only strong bond of 
 peacj and friendship. Successive statutes are 
 monuments ihat mark the existence and decay 
 of faith and honor in the men who make them, 
 and in the nations which accept them. 
 
 Under a charter for a Territorial Government, 
 instituted by such a statute, the President ap- 
 pointed a Governor, Secretary, judges, mar- 
 shals, and other officers, and the day was ap- 
 pointed for an election of members of a Legis- 
 lature by the people, which would complete the 
 organization of their Territorial Government. 
 As the time for the election of members of the 
 Legislature approached, four thousand nine 
 hundred armed men, not residing in Kansas, 
 oi'ganized for that purpose by secret lodges in 
 the State of Missouri, passed over from that 
 State into the Territoiy of Kansas, and, on the 
 day fixed for the election of the first Territorial 
 Legislature, seized, by force, the control at 
 most of the precincts in the Territory, dis- 
 placed by violence the judges of the election, 
 took possession of the ballot-boxes, and ex- 
 cluding the citizens residing in Kansas from 
 the polls, proceeded to stuff' the ballot-boxes, 
 and in that way to designate and appoint per- 
 sons to be legislators for Kansas. Incontro- 
 vertible evidence of these facts stands of record 
 in the proceedings of the House of Represent- 
 atives of the last Congress. 
 
 The invasion from Missouri was successful 
 and complete, and the invaders, having accom- 
 plished their purpose, returned in organized 
 bands to Missouri. The persons thus created 
 legislators for Kansas, assembled, organized, 
 and, assuming to be the Legislature, proceeded 
 to pass laws for the government of the Ter- 
 ritory, and to levy taxes upon the people. 
 Their enactments were arbitrary and oppres- 
 sive, designed to drive the people from tho 
 settlements they had made, and compel them 
 to abandon the Territory. The people of 
 Kansas denied the authority of this Legisla- 
 ture. In an evil hour, the President of the 
 United States recognised this usurpation as tho 
 Government of Kansas, and large bodies of 
 Federal troops have been stationed in the Ter- 
 ritory to overawe the people by their presence 
 and to enforce the aulliority thus nefariously 
 imposed upon them. 
 Tiie call for the Lecompton convention was 
 
4 
 
 made by this usurpation, and upon its sub- 
 mission to the people less than t\ven(3'--thrce 
 hundred persons responded. The lar^c major- 
 ity of the people denied its authority and re- 
 fused to vote on the call for the convention, or 
 at the subsequent election for delegates. Suf- 
 ficient reasons existed for their refusal to vote ; 
 they would not acknowledge the authoiity of 
 the usurpation. For the election of delegates, 
 an act for the registry of voters had been 
 passed, and the people in many of the counties 
 were disfranchised by the omission on the part 
 of the registry officers to register the voters. 
 In these counties, no places were appointed for 
 holding the elections, and none could be held, 
 and no delegates could be elected. In the 
 counties where registries were made, they 
 were partial, omitting large numbers of the 
 qualified voters. The people of the Territory 
 reasonably apprehended that, without regard 
 to the number of votes which might be de- 
 posited in the ballot-boxes by the electors, the 
 inspectors and returning officers of the election 
 would, by false certificates, return, as elected, 
 men for their own purposes, and not the men 
 who would receive the votes of the electors. 
 
 The origin and proceedings of the Territorial 
 authorities fully justified this apprehension. 
 At the election under their authority in Oc- 
 tober last, to continue the Missouri usurpation, 
 in the election of a new Legislature, although 
 the original invaders did not reappear, sixteen 
 hundred spurious and fictitious votes were re- 
 turned by the inspectors of election upon false 
 certificates, from a single poll, the Oxford pre- 
 cinct, in Johnson county. One of the officers 
 of the election at the Oxford precinct — the 
 very man, it is said, who manufactured the 
 false certificate returning the sixteen hundred 
 fraudulent votes — was one of the secretaries 
 of the Lecompton convention. One thousand 
 fraudulent votes at the same election were re- 
 turned from McGee county, and more or less 
 from various precincts, sufficient to decide the 
 elections without regard to Ihc votes of the 
 electors. The returns of the election were in 
 accordance with the wishes of the usurpation, 
 and not in accordance with the votes of the 
 electors. President Buchanan, with the con- 
 currence of his Cabinet, in their official in- 
 structions to Governor Walker, gave express 
 and positive assurances to the people of Kansas, 
 that the constitution, preparatory to their be- 
 coming a State, should be submitted to a fair 
 vote of the people, to be adopted or rejected 
 by them. 
 
 Governor Walker, in his official communica- 
 tions to the people, repeated and affirmed these 
 assurances. The candidates proposed for dele- 
 gates to the Lecomption convention — after- 
 wards returned as delegates — before the elec- 
 tion voluntarily pledged themselves to the 
 public, verbally and in writing, that the con- 
 stitution the convention might fi-amo for Kan- 
 
 sas should be submitted to a vote of the people. 
 The Governor of the Territory, invested with 
 authority by the President of the United States, 
 proclaimed to the people of Kansas, that, at an 
 election, to be held with security against fraud 
 or violence at the polls, and against false cer- 
 tificates by the returning officers, a fair oppor- 
 tunity should be afforded to all the qualified 
 voters to vote; and that a majority of the votes 
 of the people should determine the adoption or 
 rejection of the constitution; that his official 
 reports to the President and Congress, and his 
 action for or against the constitution, should be 
 governed by the vote of the majoritj'- at such 
 an election. Governor Walker adhered to his 
 declarations; he rejected the false certificates 
 returning the spurious and fictitious votes in 
 Johnson and McGee counties for members of 
 the Legislature, and persisted in requiring that 
 the constitution of the Lecompton convention 
 should be submitted to a vote of the people. 
 For this he fell under the displeasure of the 
 President, and repaired to Washington to make 
 explanations anel represent the condition of 
 affairs in the Territory. He failed to satisfy 
 the President and his Cabinet, or to induce 
 them to fulfil the assurances which had been 
 given to the people of Kansas, that thej^ should 
 have an opportunity to vote on the adoption of 
 their State constitution. Governor Walker is 
 reported to have said that he went with the 
 Administration to the gates of the penitentiary, 
 in this business, and he would go no further. 
 He had left the Territory ; he declined to re- 
 turn to it, and resigned his commission. 
 
 Secretary Stanton, who went to the Terri- 
 tory by the appointment and as a friend of Pres- 
 ident Buchanan, became acting Governor by 
 the resignation of Governor Walker. Upon 
 assuming the executive power, Mr. Stanton re- 
 fused to sustain the frauds by which the usurp- 
 ation designed to perpetuate its power, and 
 persisted, as Governor Walker had done, in 
 requiring that the constitution of the Lecomp- 
 ton convention should be submitted, for adop- 
 tion or rejection, to a vote of the people ; where- 
 upon, he was summai ily removed by the Pres- 
 ident, and General Denver, a bureau officer of 
 the Administration in AVashington, was ap- 
 pointed, first Secretary, and then Governor. 
 It is this last Governor of Kansas, General 
 Denver, who has certified the votes of the 
 people of Kansas at the election authorized by 
 the law of their new Territorial Legislature, 
 and held on the 4th day of January last, in 
 which the vote of the people is nearl}'' unani- 
 mous, and the majority more than ten thou- 
 sand against the Lecompton constitution. The 
 Lecompton constitution is not the constitution 
 of the people of Kansas. It is an instrument 
 of the Lecompton convention anel the Federal 
 Administration, and is stained with false pre- 
 tences and fraud from the beginning to the 
 end. To impose this instrument upon the 
 
6 
 
 people of Kansas as their constitution, by an 
 act of Congress, would outrage justice and 
 truth. It would be a violation of the Federal 
 Constitution, by the exercise of power neither 
 granted to the Federal (joveinment nor re- 
 motely hinted at in the. Constitution. It would 
 be an act of tyranny. It is a mockeiy of 
 State sovcreignt}^ in the report of the majority 
 of the Committee on Territories, to call the 
 proposition they make to the Senate an act for 
 the admission of the State of Kansas. 
 
 The question is not that of the aUmissio7i of 
 Kansas ; an act of admission implies at the least 
 the concurrence of the party to be admitted. 
 The proposition before the Senate, whatever 
 may be the name and style given by the ma- 
 jority of the Committe on Territories to their 
 bill, is no question of the admission of Kan- 
 sas. It is the monstrous proposition to im- 
 pose upon the people of the Territory of Kan- 
 sas a constitution and form of government 
 known to be obnoxious to a very large majori- 
 ty of that people, accompanied by every indi- 
 cation on the part of the Federal Administra- 
 tion of a disposition to compel the submission 
 of the people of the State by the power of the 
 Federal (jlovernment. To call such attempted 
 coercion an admission of the State of Kansas, is to 
 deride the sovereignty of the people of the State. 
 I repeat, this is no question of the admission 
 of a State. It is one of a series of acts in the 
 scheme conceived by the nullifiers who have 
 obtained thorough control of the organization 
 of the Democratic party, to change the con- 
 stitution of the United States bj"- the judicial 
 construction and decisions of the Federal 
 courts, and to subvert our free form of govern- 
 ment. Whether a settled plan and a combi- 
 nation exist to i)rovoke disturbances with a 
 view to a dissolution of the Union, time will 
 full}^ disclose. There should be no fear of the 
 full development of any such scheme, no mat- 
 ter by whom the idea may be entertained, and 
 no matter who may be concerned in it. The 
 American citizen who would fear it has little 
 of the spirit which animated the men who 
 fought ttie battles of the Revolution, and es- 
 tablished the independence, the liberties, and 
 the union of our common country. 
 
 The wild schemes of men long accustomed 
 to wield the power of a disciplined party or- 
 ganization are not always guided by reason. 
 To inquire into the desperate conceits of mad 
 ambition, and to direct the public attention to 
 them, is to dissipate thtm. The Hartford con- 
 vention, held under the auspices of the Federal 
 party, was suspected of entertaining the idea 
 of dissolving the Union in certain contingen- 
 cies. This suspicion, whether well or ill found- 
 ed, excited the jealousy of all the friends of 
 this country. It exasperated the prejudices 
 and hostility of the Republicans of that day, 
 and completed the full weight of accusation 
 against the Federal party, already loaded with 
 
 the alien law, the sedition act, the stamp act? 
 the midnight judges, and the standing army. 
 The power of that once pn.ud and patriotic 
 party, which, at an early da)'', had borne the 
 heat and burden of the political contest that 
 adopted the Constitution and established the 
 Union of the States, gave way, and was de- 
 stroyed forever. The word " Federal," as the 
 name of a party, became so odious in the pop- 
 ular car, that no party, for a great many 
 years, has claimed or would accept it. The 
 Nashville convention, held under the auspices 
 of the Democratic party, at a more recent day, 
 flaunted its proclamations and purposes of a 
 dissolution of the Union ; but the Nashville 
 convention was believed to be a humbug. I 
 remember to have heard a distinguished citi- 
 zen of Tennessee, at the time, speak of that 
 body. He said that but very few of the citi- 
 zens of Tennessee had anything to do with it ; 
 its members were mostly from a distance, and 
 strangers in that State; "and," said he, "if 
 the convention should do any act by which 
 the people of Tennessee should come to believe 
 it menaced the safety of the Union, it would 
 become so weak that its members could be 
 driven out of the city of Nashville by the 
 women of that town, with no other weapons 
 than their broomsticks." This convention, al- 
 though held only eight years ago, has less 
 lodgment in the memoiy of the country than 
 the Hartford convention, which was held more 
 than forty years ago. All remember the abor- 
 tive treason of Burr ; and the movements for 
 nullification in South Carolina, in 1832, dissi- 
 pated by the pen of General Jackson, whose 
 proclamation at the time invoked a demonstra- 
 tion of devotion to the Union fiom the people 
 of every one of the United States. 
 
 Recollections of the conventions at Hartford 
 and at Nashville remind us that the idea of 
 dissolving the Union has been imputed to some 
 and entertained by others in this country. I 
 have never believed that the people of any 
 State of the Union favored it; although it has 
 become too common to talk of' it in the Halls 
 of Congress, and to pass resolutions on that 
 subject in party conventions and State Legis- 
 latures. 
 
 For the purpose of extending slavery into 
 Kansas, a great wrong has been committed 
 against the principles of republican govern- 
 ment, and against the rights of the people of 
 that Territory. Let the Federal Government 
 retrace its steps; restore the Administration 
 to the principles and practices of Washington 
 and Jefferson; abandon the Lecompton con- 
 stitution ; withdraw the troops from Kansas ; 
 permit the people to make a constitution for 
 themselves ; admit the State into the Union as 
 every other State has been admitted, in the 
 constitutional maimer in which her people dc- 
 su-e to come, and the wrong which has been 
 done, great as it is, may be forgiven. The 
 
6 
 
 country would be at peace; and, in rejoicing 
 over the return of the Government to I'eason, 
 might forget the past. 
 
 Persist in accomplishing the object for which 
 BO much has been ventured by the present Ad- 
 ministration and the one which last preceded 
 it — attempt to force the Lecompton constitu- 
 tion upon the people of Kansas by the author- 
 ity of an act of Congress and the power of 
 the Federal army — and you will have insub- 
 ordination, resistance, bloodshed, civil war. 
 The people of Kansas will never consent to 
 have slavery established among them ; they 
 will never accept the Lecompton constitution ; 
 they have alieady rejected it. In such an issue 
 of blood between the Federal army and the 
 people of Kansas, the Government will be 
 wrong, and the people of Kansas will be right. 
 Will the people of the States remain spectators 
 of the conflict? They will not. The pe')plc of 
 Kansas are the countrymen and the kindred of 
 the people of the States. Your law opening 
 the Territory for settlement invited them to go 
 there. Let the Federal army spill American 
 blood in Kansas, and you kindle a fire which 
 the Fedeial Government and its army cannot 
 extinguish. 
 
 Who, Mr. President, is responsible for the 
 long series of wrongs out of which these 
 troubles come? And who can be held account- 
 able to the country for the pernicious acts oc- 
 curring during so large a space of time, per- 
 formed in so many places, and participated in 
 by so many and various persons, for two suc- 
 cessive administrations of the Government? 
 
 Plan, system, design, moving and directing 
 the action of all the varied agencies to a com- 
 mon end and object, are now plainly visible, 
 fro n the act repealing the Missoui'i compro- 
 mise to the bill before us, which proposes to 
 impose the slave constitution of the Lecomp- 
 ton convention upon the people of Kansas. 
 
 The act of Congress that repcale 1 the Mis- 
 souri compromise ; the course of President 
 Pierce, stimulated to be a candidate for renomi- 
 nation, and persuaded to rely upon the authors 
 of this scheme for his success; the institution 
 of the blue lodgos in the State of Missouri ; 
 the resignation of office by the President of 
 this Senate, who went straight from the Capitol 
 in Washington to organize in those lodges, on 
 the borders of Missouri, the armed invasion of 
 Kansas ; the march from that State of fortj'^- 
 nine hundred armed men, not residents of 
 Kansas, organized in companies and detach- 
 ments, fo the places for holding the electio is 
 in that Territory ; their seizure of the polls on 
 the day of the election, and their appointment 
 of legislators for Kansas by force and usurpa- 
 tion ; the recognition of that usurpation as the 
 Government of Kansas by the administration 
 of General Pierce; the odious and oppressive 
 laws they enacted; the indictments for treason 
 against the usurpation in the Federal courts of 
 
 the Territory, which were never tried; the 
 total prostration of the rights of franchise in 
 elections ; the repeated removal of Governors 
 who refused or failed to sustain the proceed- 
 ings of the usurpers ; the decision of the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States in the case 
 of Dred Scott ; the Lecompton convention and 
 its constitution, with the faithless assurances 
 to the people of Kansas that the constitution 
 for their State should be submitted to their 
 vote for adoption or rejection ; the quartering 
 large bodies of Federal troops in Kansas; the 
 election of State officers ordered by the Le- 
 compton convention, appointing the president 
 of the convention (Mr. Calhoun) sole judge of 
 the elections ; the false and fraudulent returns 
 of votes at that election, now and for nearly 
 three months in the possession of Mr. Cal- 
 houn, and his refusal to decide who were elected 
 until Congress shall have acted on the consti- 
 tution ; and the bill now here to impose the 
 Lecompton constitution upon the people of 
 Kansas — are all parts of one continued plan and 
 design. Those who have performed the various 
 parts are responsible and accountable in their 
 several degrees for what they have d me ; but 
 they have been mere agencies of ths power 
 that controlled and directed their action. That 
 power is the national organization of the Dem- 
 ocratic party, and it is responsible for the 
 long series of outrage, and for the great wrong 
 which the bill before us proposes to consum- 
 mate. The organization of the Democi'atic 
 party has fallen irretrievably under the control 
 of nuUitiers and slave propagandists, many of 
 whom, in all the States, but especially in the 
 slave States, were, until very recently, the 
 open enemies of the Democratic party, viru- 
 lent denouncers of General Jickson and the 
 measures of his administration; men who have 
 not now, and never did have, a drop of Demo- 
 cratic blood in their veins. The organization 
 of the Democratic partj^, controlled by the 
 counsels of such advisers, has abandoned its 
 principles and its trust. Public meetings and 
 conventions of veteran Democrats remonstrate 
 in vain. Why is there any apprehension that 
 the Lecompton constitution will be adopted by 
 Congress, and the attempt be made to force it 
 upon the people of Kansas? Many of the 
 Democratic members of the Senate and House 
 of Representatives abhor the Lecompton con- 
 stitution and detest its frauds. 
 
 Is there a man in or out of Congress who 
 doubts for a moment that the Lecompton con- 
 stitution would be rejected by Congress, if the 
 Democratic party did not demand its adoption? 
 The severest discipline of party, the most in- 
 decent dispensation of executive patronage, 
 are made use of to influence the action and 
 control the independence of Cougress. 
 
 In this dark hour, when the Republic is in 
 danger, 1 hail the coming day of emancipation 
 from servile obedience to party, heralded in 
 
this Chamber by the independence of the dis- 
 tinguished and fearless Senators on the Demo- 
 cratic side of the Senate, from Illinois, from 
 Michigan, and from California, upon whose 
 limbs the bands of the Democratic party that 
 would bind them to Lecompton are like the 
 gi-een withes of Delilah upon the limbs of the 
 unshorn Samson. I hail, too, the hosts of 
 thousands and tens of thousands of honest 
 Democrats, who, all over the country, at this 
 moment are renouncing the long-cherished 
 party name of Democrat, because it has be- 
 come tainted with treason to the rights of the 
 people, and are rallying under anti-Lecompton 
 banners, to resist the Administration and the 
 faithless organization of the Democratic party. 
 Let us all be anti-Lecompton men ; let us all 
 bo Republicans ; let us fraternize and over- 
 come the enemies of public liberty. 
 
 The Whig party is gone forever, because, in 
 the hour of its responsibility, it failed in ihe 
 courage and firmness required for the high 
 trust committed to its charge. 
 
 Noble as have been the achievements of the 
 Democratic party while it adhered to its prin- 
 ciples, when it has become faithless to the 
 rights and liberties of the people, its organiza- 
 tion must be dissolved. 
 
 The honest Democracy of the country — its 
 real Democracy — buried deep the name of the 
 Federal party. They will consign the tainted 
 party name of Democrat to the same grave ; 
 and they will make the grave deep and 
 large enough to hold all the treason that dare 
 show itself within the boundaries of the 
 Union. 
 
TiBRflRY OF CONbKti>o. 
 
 ■11 
 
 016 088 993 7, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 tUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 
 
 1858.