THE FRAUDS IN KANSAS ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 F 685 
 
 c ll 3 v \ • SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 
 / 
 
 HON. FREDERICK P. STANTON, 
 
 LATE ACTING GOVERNOR OF KANSAS, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 Chinese Assembly Rooms, New York, 
 
 FEBRUARY 17, 1858. 
 
 Mb. President and Gentlemen : 
 
 The admission of a new State into this 
 Confederacy, the advent of another heir to par- 
 ticipate in the enjoyment of that inheritance of 
 Liberty which belongs to this glorious Union, is 
 under all circumstances an important event. 
 But in the animation which pervades this large 
 assemblage of the people of New York, an an- 
 imation which has evidently not been produced 
 by the employment of mere party machinery, I 
 see something more than that excitement which 
 usually attends such an occurrence in the history 
 of our Republic. More than one-third of a cen- 
 tury ago, a similar event produced a similar 
 intense excitement, extending to the very extrem- 
 ities of this Confederacy. In the central parts 
 of the continent, in Missouri and Kansas, there 
 seems to reside some influence, powerful for good 
 or for evil, upon the destinies of the Republic. 
 It remains to be seen, and but a short period will 
 be necessary to determine whether this power 
 consists of that attractive force which will bind 
 the Union together in perpetual harmony, or 
 whether it is to be of that volcanic and explosive 
 nature which will rend it into fragments and 
 destroy it forever. In my humble judgment, it 
 will prove to be one or the other ef these, ac- 
 cording as truth and justice and honor shall, 
 prevail, or as falsehood, wrong, and fraud, should 
 triumph in the great act of admission. [Cheer- 
 ing-] 
 
 I came to-night, my fellow-countrymen, at the 
 invitation of your friends, for the purpose of pre- 
 senting to you the reasons which, in my judg- 
 ment, ought to prevent the acceptance of the 
 Lecompton Constitution as the fundamental law 
 of the State of Kansas — to prevent the imposition 
 of that Government upon the people of Kansas, 
 who have deliberately rejected it. In order to do 
 this, it will be necessary for me to give yon a 
 plain, unvarnished statement of facts which are 
 within my knowledge, and which are a part of 
 ray experience during the period of my service 
 in that distant Territory. 
 
 Mr. President you have truly said to the people 
 here assembled, that it was not at my solicitation 
 that I took the position which I occupied during 
 the greater part of the last year. I had no am- 
 bition to launch my unpretending bark upon the 
 troubled waters of Kansas, and nothing was 
 further from my expectation one week before I 
 found myself on the way to Kansas. The mis- 
 sion was wholly unexpected to me. It is a mat- 
 ter of very little consequence to you, gentlemen, 
 what were the circumstances under which I 
 accepted the position. It will be sufficient for 
 my purpose here, to-night, and for your under- 
 standing of the subject, for me to say that, partly 
 at the solicitation of Gov. Walker, I consented 
 to go with him, and to try what I could do, with 
 my poor abilities, to serve my country in that 
 arduous position. [Cheers.] But neither Gov. 
 Walker nor myself were so blind, so improvident, 
 as to undertake that solemn duty without having 
 marked out for us, and perfectly understood and 
 agreed upon, a line of policy which seemed to us 
 and to the Administration to be calculated, if 
 anything could be calculated, to bring about 
 peace and harmony in that distracted Territory. 
 The fundamental principle agreed upon between 
 the President and his Cabinet on the one side, 
 and Gov. Walker on the other side, and that 
 which was obviously the only principle upon 
 which anything could be effected, was the sov- 
 ereignty of the people. [Continued applause.] 
 It was the right of the people to control their 
 own affairs, to establish their own institutions; 
 and, in the strongest and most unequivocal lan- 
 guage, this principle was embodied in the in- 
 structions made out for Gov. Walker, and given 
 to me as the chart by which I was to guide my- 
 self, preceding him as I did into the Territory, 
 and becoming acting Governor until his arrival. 
 Gentlemen, in order that there shall -be the most 
 distinct understanding of this matter, I ask your 
 indulgence while I read a few extracts from the 
 letter of instructions to which I have referred. 
 [Cheers.] You will find them in the public doc- 
 
aments of the present session of Congress — a 
 document ordered to be printed by the Senate of 
 the United States, and containing the correspond- 
 ence between Gov. Walker and the Department 
 of State, in Washington. In the very first letter 
 of instructions, dated the 31st of March, 1857, 
 Gen. Cass, speaking in the name and by the 
 authority of the President, using the language of 
 his Inaugural Address, instructs us " to leave 
 the people of the Territory free from all foreign 
 iuterference to decide their own destiny for them,- 
 selves, subject only to the Constitution of the 
 United States." [Cheers.] Their destiny, gen- 
 tlemen ! I apprehend that the destiny of a peo- 
 ple involves something more than the mere ques- 
 tion of Slavery ; I imagine that it involves every- 
 thing that can affect their interests or their 
 feelings, or evjn their prejudices. But this is 
 not all. This same letter goes on to say, " the 
 institutions of Kansas should be established by 
 the votes of the people of Kansas, unawed and 
 uninterrupted by force or fraud." Nor is this 
 yet all. So perfect was this understanding, so 
 plain, that this language, these ideas, are reiter- 
 ated over and over again, in order that neither 
 Gov. Walker nor myself should be under any 
 possible misapprehension with regard to the 
 judgment of the Government as to the duties we 
 were sent to Kansas to perform. The same letter 
 say3, that " when such a Constitution shall be 
 submitted to the people of the Territory, they 
 must be protected in the exercise of their right 
 of voting for or against that instrument, and the 
 expression of the popular will must not be inter- 
 rupted by fraud or violence." [Applause.] Now, 
 gentlemen, I beg you to remember, for it i3 im- 
 portant, two very remarkable characteristics of 
 these instructions, and they are these : that there 
 is a distinct anticipation that that Constitution 
 is to be submitted — the expression of a distinct 
 opinion that it ought to be submitted to the votes 
 of the people ; and again, an apprehension, 
 strange and extraordinary under the circum- 
 stances, that the expression of the popular voice 
 might be interrupted by fraud or violence. I 
 beg you to remember, gentlemen, that then, on 
 the 30th March, \%b1, the President of the Uni- 
 ted States and Gen. Cass, in making out their 
 instructions to Gov. Walker and myself, seem to 
 have had some not very obscure idea that things 
 were managed not altogether fairly in that dis- 
 tant Territory, [sensation ;] that some wrong had 
 been or would be done to the people of Kansas. 
 Well, now, gentlemen, it is not necessary for me 
 to go further than this. These written instruc- 
 tions are sufficient; and I can say here, to-night, 
 that there was not a word written or uttered, 
 either by the President or Gen. Cass, or any 
 member of the Cabinet, that was not as distinct 
 in character as the words I have read you here 
 to-night. There was our commission to go forth 
 to the people of Kansas, and see that, free from 
 all foreign interference, relieved from all fears of 
 force or fraud, they should be permitted to work 
 out their own destiny, to establish their own in- 
 stitutions, to vote upon their own Constitution. 
 [Prolonged cheering.] 
 
 I hive already said that I preceded Governor 
 Walker, arriving in the Territory about the 
 middle of April. I found the condition of the 
 
 people very different from what I had expected 
 to find it. I had supposed that there was no 
 question calculated to disturb their peace or to i 
 interfere with the operations of the Territorial 
 Government, except that of Slavery; and that 
 this being settled, everything else would neces- 
 sarily be settled with it. But the dissatisfaction 
 went altogether beyond this. I found the whole 
 people almost at war with the Territorial Gov- 
 ernment, as the President, in his recent special 
 message, declares, continually in a state of rebel- 
 lion, and ready to overthrow it at any moment, 
 if they had not been kept in obedience by the 
 power of the army of the United States! [Sen- 
 sation.] It seemed to me, gentlemen, to be a 
 very strange state of affairs ; and, as you may 
 naturally suppose, I was extremely anxious to 
 ascertain the causes of it. I was perfectly' well 
 satisfied that in this Government no such great 
 phenomenon could take place among a people so 
 intelligent as those of Kansas, without some 
 cause, and that a good cause, either real or 
 imaginary. I felt it to be my duty, and when 
 Governor Walker came into the Territory he felt 
 it to be his, and acted upon that sense of duty, 
 to go out among the people, in order to hear their 
 complaints, and ascertain, as far as possible, their 
 desires and demands. To my utter astonish- 
 ment, gentlemen, I found them de. luring their 
 determination never to obey the laws which had 
 been passed by the Territorial Legislature, be- 
 cause they stated they had no participation in 
 the passage of those laws. They said to us that 
 the Legislatures which had pretended to repre- 
 sent them did not actually represent them ; that 
 they had been elected in some instances by in- 
 truders from a neighboring State, and in other 
 instances by fraud and violence too monstrous 
 at that time io be credited by me. It seemed to 
 me altogether impossible that the charges made 
 against their fellow-citizens, and especially the 
 officers of the Territory, could be true to the ex- 
 tent alleged. And I must confess I never did 
 altogether believe it until I saw with my own 
 eyes similar transactions attempted by the same 
 party, which satisfied me that .the complaints of 
 the people were in great measure just and true. 
 [Continued cheering.] The policy pursued by 
 Governor Walker, it seems to me, gentlemen, was 
 a wise policy; it was a benign policy. His ob- 
 ject was to persuade the people temporarily to 
 submit to the Government, until, by the due 
 operation of the existing laws and by the exer- 
 cise of the elective franchise they could establish 
 laws for themselves. The people, in answer to 
 his persuasions, and to my persuasions — for I 
 was generally with him — would say, " You in- 
 vite us to go to the ballot-box. We know that 
 it will be perfectly useless for us to go there " 
 •'Why?" "Because we shall be overrun by our 
 neighbors." Governor Walker said : " We have 
 the army at our command in order to prevent the 
 intrusion of foreigners." They replied : " If you 
 prevent them, you cannot prevent the officers 
 from cheating and defrauding us, so that it will 
 at last amount to the same thing." [Sensation.] 
 Shortly after I arrived in the Territory, the 
 process of taking the census was completed, and 
 the returns were made by the sheriffs of the dif- 
 ferent counties to the probate judges, in order 
 
that they might be corrected. That law which 
 had been passed at the previous session of the 
 Legislature had provided that every voter in the 
 Territory should be registered, and no man 
 should be entitled to vote for delegates to the 
 Convention unless he was registered. Going 
 through the Territory, I heard, on all sides, 
 charges of great wrong and injustice; I heard 
 the great mass of the people proclaiming that 
 the officers of the Territory had utterly disre- 
 garded right and justice in the performance of 
 this duty — in fact, they had not performed the 
 duty at all. They said, in many instances, men 
 of high character, residents of long standing, 
 men whose residence could not possibly have 
 been unknown to the officers, had been left off 
 the register. I said to them, " Gentlemen, you 
 might have gone to the probate judges, had 
 those names put on the lists." But they said 
 it was not their duty to go ; it was the duty 
 of the officers to register their names. Now, it 
 is useless for any of us to disguise the truth. 
 The great mass of the Free State people didn't 
 care a fig whether their names were registered 
 or not. They were opposed to the Convention ; 
 they were opposed to all the laws and all the 
 proceedings under it. [" Good ! " applause.] On, 
 the- other hand, gentlemen, I have not the slight- 
 est doubt that the officers of the Territory, or at 
 least some of them, were perfectly willing that 
 their names should be left off, and I am very well 
 satisfied that the officers didn't fairly perform 
 their duty, even in the nineteen counties in which 
 an imperfect registry was obtained. In some in- 
 stances, I know that they didn't do their duty. I 
 had a correspondence with them, and in some 
 instances they refused to do it. In the county 
 of Shawnee, a large and populous county, the 
 sheriff wrote to me that he had not time to take 
 the census, and would not do it. There are 
 thirty-eight counties, gentlemen, in the Territory 
 of Kansas, including the distant county of Ara- 
 pahoe. In nineteen of these counties, an imper- 
 fect registry was obtained, giving a vote of 9,251. 
 In the other nineteen counties, there was no 
 census and no registration. I think it very 
 probable, although I do not know the fact, that 
 in some of these counties the officers were deter- 
 red and discouraged by the people from the duty 
 of taking the census. In others, I believe that 
 the officers utterly refused to do their duty. I 
 know it was the case with regard to some of 
 them, and I know that the people of some of 
 those counties ardently desired to be represented 
 in the Convention, for they afterward, under the 
 statement from Governor Walker and myself, 
 that probably they would be admitted, elected 
 delegates, and sent them up to the Convention ; 
 but they were not admitted to seats. Now, the 
 Free State men, believing that they had been 
 wronged and outraged in the election of the 
 Legislature, were not disposed to submit to any 
 laws, to go into any election, nor to give any 
 assistance in taking the registration of the voters 
 for the Convention under the act of the Legisla- 
 ture. 
 
 On the other hand, the Pro-Slavery party, hav- 
 ing all the local offices in their hands, and having 
 had the two Legislatures which had sat in the 
 Territory, and the whole organization from the 
 
 beginning, were equally willing that the other 
 party should be entirely left out. [Laughter.] I 
 doubt not, genetemen, that some of those officers 
 who were alleged to have been mere partisan 
 tools in the hands of the leaders, did actually 
 neglect to take the census of these interior 
 counties with the view of preventing the repre- 
 sentation of the Free State people in the Con- 
 vention. At the same time, I have no doubt it 
 is true, that the great majority of the Free State 
 people did not wish to be represented, and did 
 not intend to be represented at all. They deter- 
 mined to hold off from it. This is the true state 
 of the case with regard to that Convention. I 
 could not know what was the population of these 
 interior and distant counties. I was not even 
 informed correctly whether there was any con- 
 siderable population in them which might claim 
 a representation in the Convention. I waited 
 with great anxiety when the returns began to 
 come to me, as Secretary and acting Governor, 
 for those from the nineteen counties that had 
 been wholly neglected. I had not been informed 
 whether, in th6se counties, the officers had taken 
 the census or not, except, perhaps, in relation to 
 one or two of them, and I had no power to force 
 the officers to do their duty ; I had no power to 
 appoint officers where there were none to perform 
 those duties, and the people in those counties, 
 whatever might have been their disposition, were 
 absolutely deprived of the opportunity of repre- 
 sentation in that Convention. Now, I have been 
 denounced, especially by some of the papers in 
 the Territory, and perhaps out of it, for having 
 made the apportionment when I did. I have 
 said, and I repeat it again, that if I had then 
 known what I have since ascertained, and what 
 I now believe and know to be true, I should have 
 hesitated before I would have made an appor- 
 tionment which could have brought about the 
 state of things that now exists. [Applause.] I 
 should have suffered the whole law to fail. I 
 would have had no Convention, representing one- 
 half of the Territory — although, gentlemen, that 
 half undoubtedly represented much the larger 
 portion of the population — but I would have had 
 no such Convention, I would have been the in- 
 strument of bringing about no such injustice, if 
 I had supposed or dreamed for a single moment 
 that they could have attempted to carry out the 
 plan which they subsequently adopted, and are 
 now endeavoring to force upon the people. 
 [Cheers.] But under the circumstbnees, without 
 information, supposing, as I did then, that the 
 people who had refused to go into this election, 
 or to go into the process of registration, were in 
 some measure factious, and not justified in what 
 they were doing, and not knowing the character 
 of the population in the other counties, or 
 whether they had any considerable population, 
 and being under the necessity of acting by a 
 particular time, (for the returns were to be made 
 on the 1st of May, in my office, and the election 
 was to take plaoe on the 15th of June,) I say, 
 under the pressure of these circumstances, I 
 could do nothingbut whatl did. 1 waited until the 
 very last moment, somewhere about the 21st of 
 Jlay, before I made the apportionment, in order 
 that the number of delegates assigned to each 
 district might be known, and that the ten days 
 
notice required by law might be given in due 
 time. I waited, with the expectation that Gov. 
 Walker would come, so that I could have the 
 benefit of his advice ; for if he had been there, 
 it would have been his duty, and not mine, to 
 make the apportionment. The most important 
 facts which bear upon the case have come to my 
 knowledge since the act by which I apportioned 
 the Territory for the election of the sixty del- 
 egates who composed the Constitutional Con- 
 vention. Now, gentlemen, although Gov. Walker 
 and myself endeavored to persuade the people 
 of the Territory to go into that election, and 
 although I thought then and still think that it 
 was unfortunate that the people who were reg- 
 istered did not go into that election, and get 
 control of the Convention,"yet it was impossible, 
 under the state of things then existing, with the 
 state of feeling then prevailing in the minds of 
 the people, to persuade them to participate in 
 that election. There had not been sufficient 
 time ; the confidence of the people had not been 
 obtained, either by Governor Walker or myself. 
 We felt it to be our duty to enforce the law for 
 the time being, but only so far as to enable them 
 to have a quiet and peaceable election, "free 
 from fraud or- violence," to use the language of 
 the Secretary of State. In this process of per- 
 suasion, gentlemen, Gov. Walker in his celebrated 
 speech at Topeka, in order to induce the people 
 there to go into an election for delegates to this 
 Convention, said to them, that in his judgment 
 " the Convention would submit the Constitution 
 to the votes of the people of the Territory." 
 Almost as one man, the large crowd which sur- 
 rounded him proclaimed that he was mistaken. 
 Then it was that Gov. Walker uttered his cele- 
 brated declaration, that "if the Convention did 
 not submit the Constitution to the vote of the 
 people, he would join them in all lawful means 
 to oppose it." [Loud cheers.] In all the 
 speeches made before and after that time, by 
 Gov. Walker or myself, similar declarations were 
 made. Both he and I pledged ourselves in every 
 possible manner — our honor, character, every- 
 thing — to the people of the Territory, that we 
 would connive at no fraud — would suffer no trick, 
 no legerdemain, no device of any sort, to deprive 
 them of their dearest rights. [Applause.] And 
 we said more, gentlemen ; we said, in making 
 those pledges, that we had the authority and 
 support of the President of the United States 
 and his whole Cabinet. [Laughter and applause.] 
 I think, gentlemen, we were authorized to make 
 this declaration. I think a fair interpretation of 
 the instructions of the President to Gov. Walker, 
 a copy of which Gen. Cass gave to me when I 
 went to the Territory as acting Governor, will 
 warrant me in saying that no other construction 
 can fairly or honestly be put" upon them. [Ap- 
 plause.] It is an important fact in this connec- 
 tion for me to state to you that the President and 
 hi3 Cabinet were fully advised of the proceed- 
 ings of Gov. Walker and myself in the Territory. 
 And more than that, he was fully advised of 
 what were believed to be the consequences that 
 would follow, if any other course of policy 
 should be pursued. You will pardon me, gen- 
 tlemen, if I refer you to the documents in this 
 respect. [Applause.] In Gov. Walker's dispatch 
 
 to Gen. Cass, dated the 2d of June, 1857, he 
 wrote : 
 
 " On one point the sentiment of the people is 
 ' almost unanimous, that the Constitution must 
 ' be submitted for ratification or rejection to a vote 
 ' of the people, who shall be bona fide residents 
 ' of the Territory next fall." 
 
 As early as the 2d June, Gov. Walker wrote 
 to the President that no other policy would suc- 
 ceed in restoring peace and quiet to the people. 
 He communicated to the President the speech he 
 made at Topeka, to which I have already refer- 
 red. In the dispatch of the 15th of July he in- 
 formed Gen. Cass " that, without his assurances 
 that the Constitution would be submitted, the 
 Territory would have been immediately involved 
 in a general and sanguinary civil war." [Ap- 
 plause.] Such is the tenor of the whole corres- 
 pondence. Every intelligent reading man in this 
 whole audience knows that it was the assurances 
 given in that speech at Topeka, and similar as- 
 surances previous to that sime, which prevented 
 the Topeka Government from being organized at 
 that very moment, and perhaps put in actual 
 operation in direct opposition and hostility to 
 the Territorial Government. You will remember 
 that in their Legislature, and in the Convention 
 of the people which assembled at Topeka on that 
 occasion, there was a long contest upon the 
 question whether that Government should im- 
 mediately be put in operation, or whether a differ- 
 ent course should be pursued ; and owing to the 
 persuasive policy of Gov. Walker, a milder and 
 safer course was adopted. [Applause.] Now, 
 gentlemen, I do not know what view the Presi- 
 dent of the United States now entertains of the 
 course of proceedings adopted by Gov. Walker 
 during his period of service in Kansas, to which 
 I have referred, as embodied in the dispatches 
 read to you to-night. [A Voice — He don't know 
 himself.] But this I have to say, that not one 
 word of reproof or dissent was ever written, either 
 to Gov. Walker or myself, from the time we went 
 first to the Territory until we came away. [Loud 
 applause.] The President of the United States 
 heard Gov. Walker proclaim to the people that 
 they were entitled to vote upon the Constitu- 
 tion ; that he would oppose its acceptance by 
 Congress, if it were not submitted to that vote. 
 The President heard him pledge his character, 
 his honor, his reputation, and everything, for the 
 prosecution of this policy, and he never uttered 
 one word of dissent. [Applause.] I leave it 
 for you to determine whether, under these cir- 
 cumstances, the President was not fully commit- 
 ted to the policy which had been inaugurated 
 under his auspices. [Applause.] I leave you 
 to determine whether his honor was not pledged, 
 as ours was, to this measure of justice for the 
 people of Kansas. [Applause.] Well, gentle- 
 men, I have said to you, that when the people of 
 the Territory told their tale of the wrong, op- 
 pression, and violence, that had been committed, 
 and the frauds that had been perpetrated, I did 
 not believe the story credible. I did not believe 
 it possible that such things could havn actually 
 taken place in this land of liberty and justice, 
 and, as I have already stated, it was not until I 
 had seen some things- with my own eyes that I 
 did really come to comprehend the true nature 
 
of the feelings that controlled the masses of the 
 people with whom we came in contact. Now, 
 as the October election began to approach, it 
 became perfectly evident that the policy pursued 
 by Gov. Walker was about to succeed, and that 
 the people had resolved, almost unanimously, to 
 try the experiment, and ascertain whether Gov. 
 Walker would really stand by his pledges. They 
 had determined to vote in the October election. 
 " It is true," they said, " Governor, we will try 
 you, but you don't know these officers as we do. 
 They will cheat you to your face ; they will cheat 
 you out of your eyes, and you can't help your- 
 self." What is still more strange, and what 
 looked to me at that time to be the very height 
 of impudence, they said : " If you do undertake 
 to do right, the President of the United States 
 will desert you." [Laughter and applause.] "He 
 will not let you." [Continued applause.] Why, 
 this was a common saying "in the Territory. I 
 heard it repeatedly. I laughed at it. I did not 
 think it possible that my old friend, James Bu- 
 chanan, whom I have respected and supported, 
 and honored so long, I did not think it possible 
 that he would ever make such a declaration as 
 this at all applicable to himself. But the peo- 
 ple did tell us, that if we attempted to do right, 
 our heads would fly from the block instantly. 
 Nevertheless, they said they would try the thing. 
 Well, when our friends ot the Pro-Slavery party 
 saw what was coming on, when they saw that 
 the people had actually determined to go into 
 the election, it was perfectly evident to them that 
 they would no longer hold power in the Territo- 
 ry, for it was conceded before I left Washington 
 to go to Kansas, by many of the Pro-Slavery men 
 whom I found there, that tbe Free State men 
 had a large majority in the Territory ; and when I 
 went there, to my entire satisfaction, I found that 
 it was true. [Applause and laughter.] I mean 
 that I was satisfactorily convinced that it was 
 true. [Cheers and laughter.] I do not mean to 
 say, gentlemen, that the information which I 
 actually obtained was very satisfactory to myself, 
 for when I went there I went a regular Border 
 Ruffian ; and I may say to you here to-night, that 
 if the majority had been on the other side — on 
 the side of the South — I would have fqugbt for 
 them. [Applause.] I would have stood up for 
 theirrights [applause] as earnestly, and with the 
 same exertions, with the same sacrifices, with 
 which I felt it to be my duty to adhere to the 
 rights of the other side, when I found that they 
 so greatly preponderated in numbers. 
 
 But when the minority, gentlemen — and it 
 was a very small one — ascertained that the peo- 
 ple had determined to vote, and that a consequent 
 exposure of their weakness would take place, 
 they resorted to a device known to all of you, 
 for the purpose of excluding the votes of the 
 great mass of the people. There had been pre- 
 viously existing in the Territorj a law requiring 
 the payment of a tax as a qualification for 
 voting, but the preceding Legislature, that of 
 1857, had repealed this law by the plainest and 
 most unequivocal implication. In the judgment 
 of the best lawyers in the Territory, and it after- 
 ward appeared in the judgment of the President 
 of the United States and his whole Cabinet, 
 there was not a shadow of difficulty with regard 
 
 to the repeal of that law; yet one of the distin- 
 guished judges of the United States in the 
 Territory, [laughter,] Judge Cato, [renewed 
 laughter,] and another high functionary, the 
 United States Attorney, wrote elaborate and 
 learned opinions [laughter] to prove the contrary 
 of what it seemed to me every intelligent lawyer 
 must have known was the plain and simple 
 exposition of the law. These opinions were 
 sent broadcast over the Territory, for the purpose 
 of preventing the mass of the people from voting ; 
 for in many of the counties no assessment had 
 been made, and where the assessment had been 
 made, the great mass of the Free State party 
 had refused to pay their taxes and support a 
 Government which, they said, was not of their 
 own selection. [Applause.] You must not un- 
 derstand me, gentlemen, as giving any opinion 
 as to the propriety of the conduct of those peo- 
 ple who refused to pay their taxes. That is not 
 the question I will undertake to discuss to-night; 
 but they did refuse to pay their taxes. They 
 were not forced to pay them — in a great many 
 instances, they had no opportunity to pay them ; 
 and the effect of this construction of the law, 
 if it had been maintained, would have been to 
 exclude the great mass of the people, and let the 
 whole Government remain in the hands of an 
 inconsiderable minority. I thought, gentlemen, 
 and so did Gov. Walker, that it wonld be ex- 
 tremely unfortunate if this same difficulty should 
 be wrongfully interposed in the way of a peace- 
 able settlement through the ballot-box; and, 
 accordingly, we exerted ourselves in every lawful 
 manner, by speech, by writing, and Gov. Walker 
 by his celebrated proclamation, to spread abroad 
 among the people, and especially among the 
 judges of election that had been appointed un- 
 der the Territorial authorities, an exposition of 
 the law, which in our judgment, and which in 
 the judgment of the President and his Cabinet, 
 was the true exposition, giving the whole people, 
 without regard to taxation, or any imposition 
 by the Territorial Government, the right to par- 
 ticipate in the election. Well, the minority, who 
 had all the machinery of the Territorial Govern- 
 ment, was in this way defeated. The people 
 did go forward and vote ; and when they found 
 out that this result was inevitable, the minority 
 resorted to another means to frustrate the will 
 of the majority, and that was by those celebrated 
 returns from Oxford, in Johnson county, and 
 from three precincts in McGee county. I had 
 heard intimations prior to the elections that 
 these things were about to take place, but I 
 could scarcely believe, and in fact I did not for 
 a moment anticipate, that anything of the kind 
 could be attempted by men whom I believed to 
 be respectable and honest. Why, gentlemen, 
 when the returns were coming in from tin differ- 
 ent parts of the Territory, I was amazed one 
 day, when from an unexpected quarter a package 
 was handed to me, said to contain the returns 
 from Oxford precinct, Johnson county. It was 
 a large roll of paper, and when I tore off the 
 envelope I found it consisted of repeated sheets 
 pasted together, written closely with names, and 
 rolled up like a bolt of dry goods; and, like a 
 dry goods man upon h's counter, I rolled it 
 along the floor of the office, and I found it ex- 
 
tended from one end of the building to the oth- 
 er — from the front door to the back door — a dis- 
 tance of 45 or 50 feet. It contained 1,628 names 
 as the vote of a single precinct, the census of 
 which has been recently taken by a commission 
 established by the Legislature, and what do you 
 think is the actual population ? You would 
 imagine there would be certainly a thousand 
 voters there, or at least seven hundred and fifty, 
 or five hundred ; but the fact is, there are just 
 thirty-three I [Loud laughter.] 
 
 Well, it now became my duty to give or with- 
 hold the certificates upon these returns to the 
 members of the Legislature. Johnson county 
 borders on the State of Missouri, and was con- 
 nected with Douglas, a well-settled county, which 
 is really able to poll somewhere in the neighbor- 
 hood of 2,000 votes, for nearly every quarter 
 section of land in the whole county has boira 
 fide occupants. Johnson county was connected 
 with Douglas in the apportionment, and the two 
 together were entitled to eight representatives in 
 the lower House. If these returns from Oxford 
 were allowed as genuine and true, the legislative 
 power was thrown into the hands of the minority. 
 I did not suppose for a moment that the parties 
 who had concocted this fraud would seriously 
 insist upon its being recognised by Governor 
 Walker and myself; but we found that they did 
 insist upon it ; that they insisted upon it with 
 violence and menaces, and we felt it our duty to 
 look into the matter We went down into John- 
 son county, a distance of fifty or sixty miles, for 
 the purpose of satisfying ourselves, and seeing 
 with our own eyes what were the facts ; and I 
 tell you here to-night that we travelled in some 
 places a distance of eight or ten miles without 
 seeing a single house on the road. [Laughter.] 
 When we did come to houses in various parts of 
 the county, many of them were without roofs, 
 without doors, and without chimneys even, 
 though in that inclement season of the year. 
 We went to the little village of Oxford, and to 
 the neighboring village of Santa Fe, in Missouri, 
 and we ascertained certainly, beyond all ques- 
 tion, that this whole affair was a fraud and for- 
 gery from beginning to end, with the exception 
 of the few names with which the list commenced. 
 It was fortunate for us, and fortunate for justice 
 and the rights of the people of Kansas, that the 
 affair was so inartificial^ gotten up, and the re- 
 turns so imperfectly made out that, without any 
 injustice, without going behind the returns, with- 
 out exceeding the powers conferred upon us by 
 law, we could feel ourselves perfectly justified 
 in rejecting them. [Loud applause.] 
 
 When I received that celebrated paper, Gov- 
 ernor Walker happened to be at Fort Leaven- 
 worth. It was his duty to give a certificate to 
 the Delegate in Congress, and it was mine, under 
 the law, to give certificates to the representatives 
 in the CoudcU and lower House of the Legisla- 
 tive Assembly. I had made up my mind upon 
 the first receipt of this fraudulent paper, that 
 rather than sign any certificate upon it, if I 
 should be compelled to do so, I would resign 
 my place, [applause,] in order to signify the 
 sense of wrong and outrage I felt — not only a 
 wrong and outrage against the people of Kansas, 
 but against myself, in the supposition that I 
 
 could be made the instrument of accomplishing 
 so great a fraud. [Loud applause.] I was after- 
 ward gratified to learn that Governor Walker, in 
 his absence, had expressed to some of his friends 
 a similar determination. 
 
 Then, gentlemen, the returns came in from 
 McGee county a short time afterwards — 1,200 
 votes in a county in which there were but few 
 or no inhabitants. Like Johnson, McGee county 
 consisted almost entirely of an Indian reservation. 
 It had but few white inhabitants. I believe that 
 there were some twenty-five or thirty voters in 
 the whole county. Gentlemen, I am sorry to 
 say that from the time that these returns were 
 rejected, and the power in the Territory thrown 
 where it properly belonged — in the hands of the 
 majority — there was a most significant silence 
 at Washington. [Loud laughter.] We saw oc- 
 casionally strange outgivings of what was com- 
 ing. We heard singular mutterings, and the 
 telegraphic dispatches here and there would 
 announce that " the President and Cabinet have 
 had Governer Walker and Secretary Stanton 
 under consideration. They will not dismiss 
 them, but they will censure them both." Just 
 about that time I had prepared a letter, of some 
 two or three lines, addressed to General Cass, 
 proposing to resign the post of Secretary on the 
 31st of December. I had a particular object in 
 view. I supposed that about that time the dif- 
 ficulties would all be settled, the troubles would 
 be over, and that I could be relieved from ser- 
 vice there. A few days afterwards, seeing in 
 the papers various apparently authentic state- 
 ments, to the effect that the President and his 
 Cabinet disapproved our conduct, and would 
 either dismiss or gravely censure Governor 
 Walker and myself for rejecting these fraudulent 
 returns, I instantly addressed a letter to the 
 President, referring to my previous letter of res- 
 ignation, and also to these representations of his 
 disapprobation and displeasure. You will find 
 this letter in the printed document already refer- 
 red to. In it I said I did not believe the state- 
 ments to be true; nevertheless, if they were triie, 
 I desired to withdraw my resignation, that I 
 might stand on the merits of the act, and take 
 my full share of the responsibility. [Loud 
 cheers.] 
 
 But what I wish to call your attention to par- 
 ticularly is, the fact that there was a most omi- 
 nous silence in reference to both these letters. 
 [Laughter.] Neither the President nor Gen. 
 Cass ever acknowledged my letter of resignation, 
 or the subsequent letter recalling it, or ever said 
 one word to me in reference to my rejection of 
 the Oxford and McGee returns; and from that 
 day to this I have never received a line of any 
 kind, either from the President or from the Sec- 
 retary of State, or anybody else, in reference to 
 any of these transactions. [Applause and 
 laughter.] I have not even received any official 
 information, addressed to me directly, of my 
 removal. [Laughter.] I suppose it was intended 
 to perform the operation as some of those cel- 
 ebrated executioners do sometimes, with so sharp 
 a sword as not even to let the victim know his 
 head is off. [Laughter.] Just in that way mine 
 was cut off, and I do not know it officially to 
 
this day, [laughter.] except that I have seen the 
 commission of my successor. 
 
 It -was the occurrence of these facts which 
 tended to open my eyes as to what had previously 
 existed in the Territory. I have said that I did 
 not believe the statements that had been made. 
 I could not believe that such outrages had ever 
 been perpetrated. I was disposed at first to 
 believe that some unprincipled persons had been 
 engaged in these affairs for mere individual or 
 party purposes ; but when I saw afterward the 
 manner in which the whole party treated the 
 affair — when 1 saw that we were boldly denounced, 
 and that the whole party, with a few' honorable 
 exceptions, made themselves participants in the 
 crime — I understood in a moment what was the 
 foundation of the complaints that had been pre- 
 viously made by the people. "[Applause.] The 
 President of the United States, up to about the 
 time of the Oxford frauds, or a little previous to 
 that time, had faithfully adhered to the policy 
 upon which be sent Gov. Walker and myself to 
 Kansas. About the last of August or the 1st of 
 September, it seemed to me that a great change 
 suddenly came over the Pro-Slavery leaders in 
 the Territory. Up to that time they had been 
 comparatively quiet ; they had even in a great 
 measure begun to acquiesce in the policy which 
 had been inaugurated by Gov. Walker, and was 
 about to be so successfully carried out; and if 
 the Administration had remained true and firm 
 in the position with which it set out, there is no 
 doubt that at this hour there would have been 
 peace and harmony in the Territory. [Applause.] 
 But I could see a change in the whole tone of 
 conversation, in the whole bearing, of the leading 
 men in the Territory. Some of them did not 
 scruple to tell me that the President of the United 
 States was with them. Jefferson Davis, in one 
 of his speeches in Mississippi, in the most signi- 
 ficant language proclaimed that he had the most 
 undoubted information that President Buchanan 
 did condemn Gov. Walker, and was with him 
 (Davis) and his party in reference to the Kansas 
 policy ; :ind these Pro-Slavery leaders would oc- 
 casionally let out the fact that they were in cor- 
 respondence with these Southern men, and, I am 
 sorry to sav, with Northern men, too ; for it was 
 a boast repeatedly made by them, that even if 
 President Buchanan did send Gov. Walker's 
 name or mine to the Senate, they had the men 
 counted and numbered, and their names could 
 be given, who would be sufficient to defeat our 
 confirmation. [Cries of " Shame" and hisses.] 
 That wrts proclaimed over and over again iu the 
 Territory, and the.-e gentlemen distinctly said 
 that they counted upon the support of the Pres- 
 ident and his Cabinet. What secret information 
 they had at that time I do not know ; but I will 
 call your attention to one fact — it is very well to 
 note it as we go along — that up to the 15th of 
 August, the date of the celebrated letter to Prof. 
 Sillimau and the Connecticut clergymen, the 
 President evidently com.inued to approve the 
 policy of Gov. Walker; for in that letter he jus- 
 tifies himself for employing the- army in Kansas 
 in these words : 
 
 " It is my imperative duty to employ the troops 
 1 of the United States, should it become necessary, 
 1 in defending the Convention against violence 
 
 ' while framing the Constitution, and in protecting 
 ' the bona fide inhabitants qualified to vote under 
 ' the provisions of this instrument in the free 
 ' exercise of the right of suffrage, when it shall be 
 ' submitted to them for their ratification or re- 
 1 jeetion." [Loud applause.] 
 
 Up to the 15th of August the President of the 
 United States justified himself before the people 
 of the whole country for keeping the army in 
 Kansas, upon the distinct ground that it was hie 
 duty to protect the people in their right of voting 
 for or against the Constitution, when it should 
 be submitted to them. Gentlemen, is not this a 
 clear indication on the part of the President 
 that he was, at least up to that period, fully and 
 unequivocally committed to all the declarations 
 and the whole line of policy which had been 
 adopted by Gov. Walker in the Territory, assuring 
 the people that they had a right to adopt their 
 own institutions by their own votes, and espe- 
 cially that the Constitution should be submitted 
 for their ratification or rejection? [Applause.] 
 It is the strongest possible form in which the 
 President could have given this assurance, for 
 he there defends and justifies himself for employ- 
 ing the arrny^ in that service upon this very 
 ground. I will proceed a little further with this 
 narrative of events, which is necessary in order to 
 enable you to see precisely the position in which 
 I was placed there, and the circumstances under 
 which I performed certain acts, and adopted the 
 line of policy which I pursued when it become my 
 duty to adopt any policy as the Acting Governor 
 of the Territory. A little before the October elec- 
 tion, the Convention met. It represented a very 
 considerable minority of the people. While there 
 were 9,251 registered voters under the census 
 law, there were but about 2,200 that voted for 
 members of the Convention, and only 1,300 of 
 those voted for the members of that Convention 
 who were actually chosen and took their seats. 
 Sixty members elected by 1,800 votes — each del- 
 egate actually representing only thirty individ- 
 uals ! This Convention met, and, without at- 
 tempting to do anything, adjourned over until 
 after the October election, for the purpose, I 
 suppose, of ascertaining what would be the result 
 of that election, and also to save their friends 
 from any embarrassment which might result 
 from their action upon the grave questions which 
 were submitted to their decision. After the elec- 
 tion had transpired, and the Convention reassem- 
 bled, the violence of that body was almost unex- 
 ampled. Leading members of it denounced 
 Governor Walker and myself in the most un- 
 measured terms for the course we h'id taken in 
 reference to the returns from Oxford and McGee. 
 I will give you one little incident, to show you 
 what was the character and disposition of that 
 body of men. It happened after they reassem- 
 bled. It was necesaary for them to elect an ad- 
 ditional or assistant clerk or secretary, and the 
 name of a certain Mr. Hand was proposed. 
 Some gentleman rose and remarked that Mr. 
 Hand was one of the clerks at the polls in Ox- 
 ford, from which this immense return was made. 
 Another gentleman arose and proposed that he 
 should be elected clerk by acclamation, and they 
 actually did elect him by acclamation. [Ap- 
 plause and expressions of indignation.] I was 
 
not present myself, but I had it from a gentleman 
 who heard it with his own ears and saw it with 
 his own eyes. He was elected by acclamation, 
 because it was suggested that he was one of the 
 clerks at Oxford. This was a very significant 
 indication of what the Convention intended or 
 was likely to do before it adjourned. Now, I 
 want to showyou exactly what it did. It adopted 
 a Constitution. [Laughter.] The great body 
 of that instrument, gentlemen, as the President 
 of the United States says, is so similar to the 
 Constitutions of other States of this Union, that 
 it it is hardly possible there should be any mis- 
 take in it. [Laughter.] But they did make a 
 little variation, [laughter,] and there was a very 
 considerable difference effected by this little vari- 
 ation. Let us look at it. At one time, I believe — 
 that is, before the adjournment in October, before 
 these Oxford returns, and before it was distinctly 
 and perfectly well understood that the President 
 and his Cabinet were with them — I say at one 
 time I believe the Convention would have sub- 
 mitted the Constitution to a direct vote of the 
 people. But, by some secret influence — I know 
 not what — a different disposition soon manifested 
 itself; and I do know that the Secretary of the 
 Interior had a certain agent who was very busy 
 among the members of that Convention. It was 
 said that he undertook to represent the opinion, 
 if not of the President, at least of some members 
 of the Cabinet. But, gentlemen, Iknow nothing 
 of this except as I have heard it and therefore 
 I do not undertake to say it. I only say this — 
 that some secret influence was at work, and that 
 this Convention, which at one time was prepared 
 to submit the Constitution to the people, pursued 
 altogether a different course. Now, I propose to 
 read to you the manner in which this Constitu- 
 tion was to be sanctioned by the people. The 
 7th section of the schedule of the Constitution 
 provides in these words : 
 
 " Before this Constitution shall be sent to Con- 
 1 gress, asking for admission into the Union as a 
 ' State, it shall he submitted to all the white male 
 ' inhabitants of this Territory, for approval or dis- 
 ' approval, as follows." 
 
 Now, that is very strong. Nothing could be 
 fairer. Then it goes on and repeats the same 
 thing, in different language : 
 
 " At each election, the Constitution framed by 
 ' this Convention shall be submitted to all the 
 ' white male inhabitants of the Territory of Kan- 
 1 sas, in said Territory on that day, over the age 
 ' of 21 years, for ratification or rejection, in the 
 ' following manner and form." 
 
 First, it is to be submitted for approval or dis- 
 approval, and then it is to be submitted for rat- 
 ification or rejection — but thereby hangs a story, 
 [laughter] — in the following form : >» 
 
 " The ballots cast at the said election shall be 
 ' endorsed 'Constitution with Slavery,' or ' Con- 
 ' stitution with no Slavery.' " [Laughter.] 
 
 Now, gentlemen, one would suppose that at 
 least one question was fairly settled. They set 
 out in the first part of this section by submit- 
 ting it for the approval or disapproval of the 
 people, and then again they submit it for the rat- 
 ification or rejection of the people, and they 
 finally come down to a ballot for the Constitution 
 with Slavery or the Constitution with no Slavery. 
 
 One would naturally suppose that, as they had 
 come down to so small a point as that, they would 
 at least give you that fairly and frankly ; but if 
 the No Slavery ticket prevail, the schedule goes 
 on to say : 
 
 " The rights of property in slaves now in the 
 ' Territory shall in no manner be interfered with." 
 [Great laughter.] 
 
 That is, you may vote for the Constitution with 
 Slavery, or for the Constitution with no Slavery, 
 but at all events it shall still be precisely such a 
 slave Territory as it is now, [laughter ;] and the 
 President of the United States, you know, tells 
 you that it is just as much a slave State as South 
 Carolina or Georgia. It is true that there are 
 very few slaves there ; at' that time there were 
 very few slaves there, and at this time there are 
 very many fewer.* [Great laughter and loud 
 applause.] Yes, gentlemen, the number is grow- 
 ing small and beautifully less by degrees. [Laugh- 
 ter.] But, to be serious, I have to say, as a 
 Southern man — as a man who never resided 
 during any part of his life except within a slave- 
 holding community — I have to say it to you here 
 to-night, as I would say it to that generous and 
 magnanimous people whom I represented on the 
 floor of Congress for ten consecutive years, that 
 I should blush to present such a question as this 
 to the people of any State in this Union, and say 
 that it fairly presented to them the question of a 
 free or a slave State. [Loud cheers.] I have 
 no doubt that some heated partisans in Washing- 
 ton, or elsewhere in my section of country, will 
 find serious fault with me for making this decla- 
 ration ; but I do not know why, as a Southern 
 man, dealing with this question, I should not be 
 as frank and as honest as if I were not a South- 
 ern man. [Applause.] If the people of that 
 Territory had been in favor of making it a slave 
 State, I would have been with them — I should 
 have stood by them — I should have insisted 
 upon their right to do so ; but, on the other 
 hand, it was acknowledged, at the time the Kan- 
 sas-Nebraska bill was passed, that the people 
 had the right to make it a free State ; and I 
 maintained there, as I maintain it now, here, 
 that they were entitled to the privilege of making 
 it a free State in reality. [Applause.] I have 
 no idea — indeed, I know the contrary — that the 
 great mass of the people of that Territory would 
 have been disposed to confiscate the property of 
 the few slaveholders in the Territory. And what 
 is one remarkable fact is, that every holder of 
 property of that kind to any considerable amount, 
 was fair, honest, and ready to submit the ques- 
 tion to the people. [Applause.] And it was 
 chiefly those political persons who had been sent 
 into the Territory for the purpose of operating 
 upon the institutions of the new State, with a 
 view to acquire reputation in the distant States 
 of the Union — it was chiefly those individuals,, 
 many of whom have now left the Territory, and 
 will probably never go back, [applause,] who 
 were in favor of this violent, unreasonable course. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, what ought any honest man 
 to say to the false pretences which are made 
 upon the face of this article in the schedule, 
 which repeats the proposition to submit the Con- 
 stitution to the approval or disapproval of the 
 people, and finally comes down to another ques- 
 
9 
 
 tion very different from that ? What, theD, to the I 
 prevarication and equivocation in the actual I 
 question which is presented, when they come 
 down to determine the character of the ballots 
 that shall be deposited in the box? Well may 
 that distinguished son of Virginia, Henry A. 
 Wise, [loud cheers,] proclaim to the people of 
 the South, that this schedule is anti-republican. 
 Well may he call upon the people of the South 
 to come up in a frank and manly manner, and 
 acknowledge the truth. Why, gentlemen, if you 
 will go to the papers in the South that have 
 some reputation for candor and fairness — take 
 th% Charleston Mercury, for instance, whose views 
 are so extreme, and at the same time so sincerely 
 expressed, that it can well afford to tell the 
 truth — you will hear them proclaiming, without 
 any hesitation, that it is false that this Constitu- 
 tion submits the question of Slavery to the peo- 
 ple. It submits nothing, says the Charleston 
 Mercury, but the question whether slaves shall 
 subsequently be introduced into the Territory. 
 With that indomitable Virginian, I think that this 
 of itself is sufficient to induce the rejection of the 
 Constitution by Congress. 
 
 But when we come to look a little further into 
 this instrument, and see what else they have 
 done — what else they have attempted to impose 
 upon the people — it seems to me that not a 
 shadow of doubt can remain upon the mind of 
 any intelligent, honest, patriotic individual. In 
 the first place, they have made a very unjust — 
 aye, I will say a very iniquitous — apportionment 
 for the new State Legislature. They have based 
 the apportionment for the county of Johnson 
 upon those false and forged returns which I have 
 already described to you. They have given to 
 that county no less than four Representatives 
 and two Senators, while the county of Shawnee, 
 in the interior, a Free State county, with a much 
 larger population — I believe with double or 
 treble the actual population of Johnson county — 
 has but two Representatives and one Senator. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, remember what 1 have told 
 you about the election of clerk, by acclamation, 
 because he was a clerk at the Oxford precinct in 
 the election of October, and then see what they 
 have done in reference to the representation of 
 that county. I say, if there were nothing else 
 than this, it is sufficient to consign the whole 
 instrument to everlasting infamy. [Great ap- 
 plause.] 1 should hold myself disgraced forever, 
 if, knowing the facts as I do know them, I could 
 ever consent, under any circumstances, to favor 
 an instrument which contains so foul a blot as 
 that. [Applause.] It is an outrage that taints 
 and corrupts the whole thing; it is so rank, that 
 it smells to heaven, and would call down its 
 curses upon any man who knowingly would give 
 his sanction to it. [Applause.] That is one of 
 the things for which I oppose the Lecompton 
 Constitution, and for which I think Congress 
 ought to reject it. But, again, it was very evi- 
 dent to my mind, as soon as this schedule was 
 adopted, that it was but a part and parcel of the 
 whole course of proceeding that had been adopted 
 by the minority who were in the Territory from 
 the beginning, and that they had artfully laid 
 their plaDS for the purpose of carrying out the 
 same system of fraud and wrong. They did a 
 
 thing which was never done before by any Con- 
 vention under similar circumstances. They au- 
 thorized the President of the Convention, John 
 Calhoun, [hisses,] to appoint all the officers of 
 the election throughout the Territory. It is true 
 that other Conventions have authorized their 
 Presidents to issue writs of election to the reg- 
 ular officers of the Territory, but this Convention 
 authorized John Calhoun to employ his own 
 creatures for the purpose of conducting this 
 election, discarding and setting aside the officers 
 that had recently been elected by the people 
 throughout the whole Territory. 
 
 Remember, gentlemen, the October election 
 had just taken place, the Probate Judges, the 
 Sheriffs and Magistrates, all the officers, had been 
 elected by the people in every county, and yet 
 the Convention authorized Calhoun to set them 
 all aside, disregard the will of the people, over- 
 look the men in whom the people had reposed 
 confidence, and appoint just such men as. he 
 chose for the important purpose of conducting 
 this election, and then the returns were all to be 
 made to himself. [Suppressed laughter.] Then 
 there is no provision in this schedule for any 
 oaths of office, either by Calhoun himself or by 
 any of the officers appointed under him Now, 
 that is a very remarkable thing. Whatever may 
 be said of the propriety and general policy of 
 exacting oaths under these circumstances, cer- 
 tainly these gentlemen of the minority in Kansas 
 had never been scrupulous upon that point, for 
 they had adopted test oaths from the beginning 
 of the history of the Territory down to the end- 
 ing of their power, and yet, when they come to 
 give all power into the hands of their own officer, 
 they do not require an oath to be taken by any 
 one of his subordinates. 
 
 Again, yon all remember that when Governor 
 Walker, in his inaugural address and in his To- 
 peka speech, and other written and spoken ad- 
 dresses, took the ground that the Constitution 
 was to be submitted to the bona fide inhabitants 
 of the Territory, a great outcry was raised over 
 the whole country, especially by the Pro-Slavery 
 party within the Territory. They sai'd that Gov. 
 Walker intended to submit the Constitution to 
 any man that might happen to be in the Terri- 
 tory on the day of submission, and that the Emi- 
 grant Aid Society would pour in its instruments 
 for the purpose of voting upon it. Well, when 
 Gov. Walker was called upon in reference to 
 these expressions, he never failed to say that he 
 did think, if the bona fide residency of any man 
 could be actually ascertained, though he had been 
 in the Territory but a single day, he ought to be 
 entitled to vote upon the Constitution under 
 which he expected to live ; but, inasmuch as it 
 could not be fairly ascertained, he thought that 
 some reasonable length of time (three or six 
 months) ought to be required, as proof of the 
 bona fide character of that inhabitancy. Now, 
 one would hardly suppose that these gentlemen, 
 after having denounced Gov. Walker for an in- 
 tention he never entertained, would themselves 
 set to work and actually do the very thing which 
 they denounced. And yet, they proved that every 
 bona fide inhabitant, who may be in the Terri- 
 tory on the day of election, shall be entitled to 
 vote. [Laughter.] Now, gentlemen, if they had 
 
10 
 
 not found fault with Gov. Walker, if they had 
 not charged him with a fraudulent intention, 
 based on a mere suspicion, we might not. per- 
 haps, be justified in dwelling upon this point, and 
 drawing this inference from it; but, while they 
 charge the fraud upon him, they resort to the 
 same thing in a worse form. Taken in connec- 
 tion with all the other facts, it is perfectly plain 
 to my mind that they intended to do the thing 
 which they suspected Gov. Walker intended. 
 [Applause.] And, as another proof of this fact, 
 they hurried on the election in mid-winter, the 
 most inclement season of the year, when the 
 Missouri river might well be expected to be closed, 
 and Avhen the Emigrant Aid Society could not 
 bring in its voters at all, so that they could have 
 the thing all their own way. On the 21st and 
 24th of December the general election was to take 
 place, when emigrants could not come in from a 
 distance, but when they could easily step over 
 from the adjoining State, as we know some of 
 them did. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, all these things to which I 
 have referred might possibly have been incorpo- 
 rated in this Constitution without any fraudu- 
 lent design. I could hardly believe that so ma,nj 
 things, looking to such a design, could be incor- 
 porated in one instrument, without such an in- 
 tention having been entertained by the framers 
 of it ; and when we come to look at the facts 
 which actually occurred afterward, when we find 
 the frauds which were anticipated under this 
 instrument actually perpetrated in the most ex- 
 traordinary manner, it is impossible for any man 
 to hesitate in the belief that it was the object and 
 purpose of these men in the beginning, and that 
 the election of this Oxford clerk, by acclamation, 
 was no unmeaning indication of the intentions 
 of that body. [Applause.] What did they do ? 
 In this celebrated precinct of Oxford, where 
 the commission established by the Legislature 
 was recently in session, the Territorial Legisla- 
 ture found 33 inhabitants ; they returned 1,200. 
 In the precinct of Shawnee, Johnson county, 
 where I suppose they may giv» a hundred legal 
 votes, they returned between seven and eight 
 hundred. At the Delaware Crossing, in Leaven- 
 worth county, a county that has eight Represent- 
 atives under the apportionment of this Consti- 
 tution, some one, I know not who, altered the 
 return from 43 votes to something like 400, for 
 the purpose of throwing a popular majority in 
 that large controlling county. What do all these 
 things mean? I heard it stated repeatedly be- 
 fore the election on the 2 1st of December, when 
 the Constitution was to be submitted to the votes 
 of the people for their ratification or rejection, 
 for their approval or disapproval, provided they 
 should vote for the Constitution with Slavery, 
 and for the Constitution with no Slavery, but for 
 Slavery at all events, and for the Constitution at 
 all events — [laughter] — I heard it frequently 
 stated, among gentlemen of that party, that if 
 they could get a majority of the vote that had 
 been cast previously in October, it would be sat- 
 isfactory evidence that a majority of the people 
 were in favor of the Constitution in some form 
 or other, and it would be adopted by Congress. 
 It was perfectly plain to my mind that they had 
 fixed upon getting a majority of the vote cast in 
 
 October, which was a little upward of 11,000; 
 and they gauged it very beautifully — they got 
 6,700, a little more than half the number of votes 
 cast in October. They might have diminished 
 the Oxford vote, the Shawnee vote, the Kickapoo 
 vote, and the Delaware Crossing vote, but it was 
 necessary for them to have these large votes there 
 for two purposes — in the first place, to maintain 
 the credit of the vote in October, and with per- 
 fect brazen impudence to maintain the necessity 
 and correctness of that great outrage, and then 
 to give themselves the entire control of the new 
 State Government. 
 
 But, gentlemen, this is not the whole extent 
 of the iniquitous designs embodied in this Le- 
 compton Constitution. It was very currently 
 stated, after the October election, in many parts 
 of the Territory, that when the new Legislature 
 met, they would repeal all the laws that existed, 
 pass no others, and suffer anarchy to prevail — 
 that is, put the Topeka Constitution into operation 
 by force and power. It was not so entertained 
 except by the most violent of the Free State 
 party. I am equally well satisfied, indeed I know, 
 thoroughly know, that the great mass of the 
 people entertained no such design ; but when 
 the Legislature came together, although the vio- 
 lent men urged this course upon them, yet they 
 resisted it ; and there was found a conservative 
 majority even in this Free State Legislature who 
 were not willing to launch the Territory upon 
 the sea of civil war again. But upon this pre- 
 text this Convention, with a view of completely 
 counteracting the power of the people, and of 
 retaining in their own hands the control of the 
 whole State for an indefinite period, they adopted 
 this provision in the second section of the 
 schedule: 
 
 "That all laws sow in force, shall continue 
 'to be in force, until altered, amended, or repeal- 
 'ed, by the Legislature assembled under the 
 'provisions of this Constitution." 
 
 And now I understand what was the object of 
 this provison. It was to supersede the new Leg- 
 islalure that had been elected by the people, and 
 continue in force the acts of their own Legisla- 
 ture, elected by the Oxford, Shawnee, Kickapoo, 
 and Delaware Crossing/rauds. Now, I am sure 
 that it was for this very purpose that these par- 
 ties incorporated it in this Constitution ; they 
 intended to perpetuate their own power, and 
 repeal and set aside all laws that might be en- 
 acted by the Territorial Legislature which was 
 to assemble on the 4th of January. Now, gen- 
 tlemen, in order to make this ill-gotten power as 
 stable as possible, they provided for biennial 
 sessions of the Legislature — only once in two 
 years was that body to assemble — the Senators 
 holding their offices for four years, and the Rep- 
 resentatives for two years. Now, if they should 
 succeed in carrying out their plan, and holding 
 their Pro-Slavery Legislature, they are sure of 
 the Senate for at least four years, before the 
 people can possibly get a chance thoroughly to 
 change the character of this body. But, in ad- 
 dition to this, they adopted a clause which says — 
 but which I shall not comment upon to-night, 
 or at least at this part of my speech — provided 
 no change shall be made in the Constitution until 
 after 1864. The Legislature elected after 1864 
 
11 
 
 may, by a vote of two-thirds, provide for an 
 amendment to the Constitution. But the Legis- 
 ture elected after 1861 would not be elected till 
 about 18G6 ; and then it would have to submit 
 the question to the people, and then the question 
 would have to go before the new Legislature, 
 which would meet in 1868; and then the elec- 
 tion would be called some time after 1868. So 
 that upon this Constitution the Senate could not 
 be changed in less than four years; an amend- 
 ment could not be adopted regularly, fairly, under 
 the Constitution, prior to somewhere about 1870. 
 But still further, gentlemen, to complete the proof 
 with regard to the character of this instrument, 
 the President of the Convention, Gen. John Cal- 
 houn, invites the President of the Council and 
 the Speaker of the House of Representatives to 
 be present at his office some time about the 12th 
 of January, when he proposes to open the votes 
 upon the Constitution. Now, the votes for that 
 were given upon the 2d of December, and the 
 votes for State officers on the 4th of January. 
 Well, the returns are all made. And, sir, there 
 is a little story connected with that matter, that 
 I wish to state to you here; the facts are all 
 testified to. 
 
 The county of Leavenworth had eight Rep- 
 resentatives and some two or three Senators; it 
 wa3 a controlling county in its delegation, and 
 it was necessary for the Pro-Slavery party to 
 have that county. Well, John Calhoun, or men 
 appointed by him, established a voting precinct 
 in a new place in the Delaware reserve, where 
 there were very few, if any, white inhabitants; 
 three judges were appointed, and 43 votes were 
 given; the returns of 43 votes were placed in 
 the hands of Mr. John Henderson, a mail agent, 
 appointed recently by James Buchanan to a place 
 of trust — a very important and responsible place. 
 He carried these returns to Leavenworth City, 
 and shortly it was proclaimed that the vote was 
 some four or five hundred ; I don't remember the 
 exact number. Now, mark you, I don't pretend 
 to say that Mr. John Henderson had anything to 
 do with the alteration of these returns, because 
 I don't know it, therefore I cannot say it; but 
 the returns were kept "in nubilous" for a certain 
 time; and when Gen. Calhoun opened the returns 
 from the precincts before Gov. Denver and the 
 Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, John Hen- 
 derson had been taken prisoner, and was held 
 in Lawrence upon a writ to answer to the charge 
 of having committed this supposed fraud him- 
 self. It was supposed that the returns had been 
 sent to Calhoun; on the day of the counting, 
 Henderson was in Lawrence, some 12 miles from 
 Lecompton; but when the counting took place — 
 so I was informed — a gentleman addressed a 
 letter to Gen. Calhoun; Calhoun received that 
 letter during the time the counting was going on. 
 At the conclusion of the count, some one asked 
 for the Delaware Crossing; Gen. Calhoun turned 
 to his clerk, and asked if those returns had come 
 in? The clerk said they had not. But the re- 
 turns either had not been there, or they had been 
 suppressed; yet very strangely, as I see by the 
 newspapers, and by sworn evidence and affidavits, 
 these very returns were found in the celebrated 
 candle-box, buried some 40 or 50 feet from the 
 office of Gen. Calhoun. Now, mark you, Gen. 
 
 Calhoun, on the day after the counting took 
 place, left Lecompton for Leavenworth, and ha's 
 not been back there since; I knew, because he 
 went under the escort of the United States 
 dragoons; I saw the dragoons in their camp, in 
 the vicinity of his office. He went away from 
 Lecompton under an escort of dragoons, he has 
 not been back there since to his office, and yet 
 these returns were found in the candle- box in 
 the neighborhood of his office with the other 
 returns. Yet, when they were called for, they 
 were suppressed. Now, I know no further, for I 
 left a day or two .afterward, on my way to Wash- 
 ington city; went fromWestportto Independence. 
 In Independence I saw a gentleman, a friend of 
 Gen. Calhoun's, who had been in the Convention ; 
 he said that he had come from Kansas city, and 
 told me that he read a letter from Mr. Calhoun, 
 in which he stated that the Pro-Slavery party 
 had carried the whole Legislature and all the 
 State officers. 
 
 Now, the members of the Legislature from the 
 county of Leavenworth depended upon the re- 
 turns from the Delaware Crossing precinct; so 
 that although that return was at his office at 
 Lecompton, yet when he went to Leavenworth 
 he knew the number of votes upon the return; 
 and upon that he gave out to his friends there 
 that the Pro-Slavery party had elected their 
 members for the county of Leavenworth, and 
 that the whole Legislature belonged to the Pro- 
 Slavery party. What do you infer from this? I 
 infer, gentlemen, what I have said in my pub- 
 lished letter — although I did not explain the 
 facts as I explain them here to-night — that this 
 whole plan was artfully laid by the leaders of 
 that Convention, for the express purpose of per- 
 petuating those outrageous frauds, and main- 
 taining the authority of the minority in the new 
 State ! [Applause.] Well, gentlemen, I think 
 I am justified in coming to this conclusion, and 
 that the facts sustain my position completely ; 
 and I believe, if I had the facts before a jury, I 
 could get a verdict to that effect [Applause.] 
 I say, therefore, gentlemen, that the conclusion 
 to which I came upon the adoption of this Con- 
 stitution is, that it was but the logical result 
 and necessary and inevitable end of the whole 
 tortuous proceedings of the minority in the 
 Territory, and the beginning of its history; it 
 was the fulmination of its star of power, as it 
 ascended to the very noon of its night of infamy. 
 [Applause.] Gentlemen, it was the consumma- 
 tion, the flower, the fruit, the production of all 
 the wicked and dishonest proceedings of the mi- 
 nority, from the beginning to the end, all com- 
 bined and concentrated in this Lecompton Con- 
 stitution. [Applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, that was my view of it, for I had 
 knowledge of the whole proceedings from the 
 middle of April to the ^th of November, when 
 this Convention adjourned ; and then down to 
 the 21st of December and the 4th of January, 
 when their schemes were carried out by the 
 frauds at the places I have already mentioned. 
 
 You may well imagine that the people of the 
 Territory were deeply excited ; they were stirred 
 to the verj' depths of the popular heart. Their 
 murmurs were loud, their outcries were boister- 
 ous, their threats were strong and violent. I 
 
12 
 
 could not much blame them, gentlemen, for 
 almost anything that they might have been dis- 
 posed to do under the circumstances. [Ap- 
 plause.] They called upon me, gentlemen, in 
 the absence of Governor Walker, as acting Gov- 
 ernor of the Territory, to give them what relief 
 I could. What was I to do? What could I do 
 under the circumstances? I saw the iniquity 
 that had been perpetrated before my eyes, in 
 spite of my efforts, in spite of the authority and 
 of the resistance of Governor Walker and myself, 
 in spite of the threats and murmurs of the people. 
 I saw the thing done before my eyes, in the face 
 of the world ; the vilest wrong that had ever 
 been perpetrated against any people.! Why, 
 gentlemen, I learned, what to me was not at all 
 astonishing, that in their great meetings they 
 had even contemplated the destruction of Gen- 
 eral John Calhoun, and every man who by the 
 terms of that Constitution they regarded as par- 
 ticipants in carrying it into effect. [Cries of 
 ''Good! Good!" and cheers.] I saw John Cal- 
 houn afterwards, on the result of that state of 
 feeling, under the necessity of going into the 
 Territory, after his own office — the most import- 
 ant, or at least the most profitable office in the 
 whole Territory, the occupant of which is clothed 
 with more patronage than any other officer — I 
 saw him guarded by the dragoons of the United 
 States, to protect him against the just indigna- 
 tion of the people. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, as I, in the simplicity of my 
 heart, thought that the people were entitled to 
 such relief as I could give them; I thought that 
 they asked me simply to call a Legislature of 
 their own election, in order to give them some 
 relief; I thought it was my duty to do what they 
 asked. [Applause.] I called that Legislature 
 together ; and, gentlemen, if again I should hear 
 the murmurs of that distracted people, if again I 
 should look into t'heir glaring eyes, if again I 
 should hear the despairing cries coming upon 
 my ears, calling upon me for assistance — I say, 
 if the President, with all his Cabinet, were stand- 
 ing in my path, frowning, and threatening dis- 
 credit, dismissal, death, anything, I would do it 
 again. [Tremendous cheering.] 
 
 It was for this, gentlemen, that I was dismissed 
 from the little office which I held, which I had 
 reluctantly accepted, with great personal sacri- 
 fices and great inconvenience to myself and fam- 
 ily. I had the satisfaction to meet my family a 
 few days before this event took place. They had 
 come to the Territory just in time to see this ex- 
 ecution. Now, I called that Legislature together 
 in the belief that they had the right, and the le- 
 gitimate, lawful power to provide for .a fair reg- 
 ulation and expression of public opinion, of the 
 public will, with regard to this Constitution. I 
 thought the representatives of the people had 
 disregarded their obligation, and had overstep- 
 ped the bounds of their authority — had violated 
 the will and trampled upon the rights of the 
 great majority, and that it was in the power of 
 that Legislature to give the people a fair oppor- 
 tunity to prove these facts to the people and to 
 Congress; and I had so much simplicity, gentle- 
 men, perhaps I ought to say sound ignorance, as 
 to believe, that if the people had a fair election, 
 authorized by the Legislature, to show beyond all 
 
 question that they were actually in the majority 
 opposed to this Constitution, that Congress 
 would not dare to force it upon them in spite of 
 their rejection of it. I did say it might have 
 been simplicity or ignorance upon my part. But, 
 after all the President has stated, after all that his 
 supporters in Kansas have stated upon the sub- 
 ject, still my opinion is that this expression of 
 the will of the people is authoritative, and ought 
 to prevail. Now, if you will pardon me, I will 
 attempt to prove this, and to prove it by the 
 authority of the President himself, in the very 
 special message in which he calls upon Congress 
 to accept this Constitution. ["Very poor author- 
 ity!" I think, when we come to the conclusion, 
 it is poor authority. But he lays down some 
 premises which I think don't support his conclu- 
 sion, but mine; and I wish to argue from his 
 premises, in order to establish my conclusions, 
 and to show that his are not justly deducible 
 from them. Now, the President says : 
 
 " It is proper to say of that election held under 
 1 the act of the Territorial Legislature on the 
 ' first Monday in January on the Lecompton 
 ' Constitution, that this election was held after 
 ' the Territory had been prepared for admission 
 ' to the Union as a sovereign State, and when no 
 ' authority existed in the Territorial Legislature 
 ' which could possibly destroy its existence or 
 ' change its character." 
 
 The Territory had been prepared, says he, for 
 admission into the Union as a sovereign State, 
 and there was no authority to change the char- 
 acter of that State. This is the argument. I 
 never claimed any authority for the Legislature 
 to change the character of the State Govern- 
 ment — I never claimed any authority for the 
 Legislature to touch that foul thing in any way. 
 [Cheers.] I never thought of recommending 
 any such thing to them; but I recommended 
 simply that they should express their detestation 
 of it. There was no power in the Legislature 
 to change this thing; but there was power in 
 the people to do it. [Applause.] What did I 
 do? I simply untied the hands of the people, 
 so they might lawfully and in an orderly manner 
 express their abhorrence of this instrument which 
 was about to be put in execution. 
 
 Now, let us see if this does no't overthrow the 
 position assumed by the President of the United 
 States. In this same special message — for I will 
 not go back of that, (I do not agree to the fair- 
 ness of that mode of argument) — I take my 
 stand upon the premises he lays down, and I 
 say that they do not and cannot be made to 
 sustain the conclusions at which he arrives. For 
 instance, he says : 
 
 " The delegates who framed the Kansas Con- 
 'stitution in no manner violated the will of their 
 'constituents. The people always possess the 
 'power to change their Coustitution and laws 
 'according to their own pleasure." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, does not the whole world 
 know that the members of this Convention did 
 knowingly and wilfully violate the wishes of the 
 people of Kansas? Well, if they did, the Pres- 
 ident says "they always have the power to change 
 'their Constitution and laws according to their 
 ' own pleasure." But it would be unfair to the 
 President to hold him responsible for that par- 
 
]3 
 
 ticular expression, without the qualification which 
 he afterward place3 upon it. He say? "the will 
 ' of the majority is supreme and irresistible, when 
 'expressed in an orderly and lawful manner.'' 
 "Expressed in an orderly and lawful manner! " 
 Will, now, I claim that this expression of the 
 people of Kansas on the 4th of January, audi r 
 a law of the Legislature, which the President 
 directed Gov. Denver to carry on peacefully, un- 
 der the protection of the United States troops, 
 if it were necessary to maintain order, was car- 
 ried on in an orderly aod lawful manner. I do 
 not pretend to say that it changed the Constitu- 
 tion : I do not pretend to say that the Legislature 
 could have interfered with the work of that 
 Convention at nil; I would nothave had them to 
 interfere or to touch it; but I contend that the 
 Legislature had the power to provide for an 
 election, in which the people of the Territory 
 could express their opinion to Congress, and could 
 declare their authoritative will against the ac- 
 ceptance of this Constitution. 
 
 It is simply and entirely distinct and separate — 
 totally unconnected with the framing of the 
 Constitution itself. Now, the President goes 
 on — "The will of the majority is irresistible; 
 'when expressed in an orderly and lawful man- 
 'ner, it can make and remake a Constitution at 
 'peasure. It would be absurd to say that they 
 'can impose fetters upon their own power which 
 'they cannot afterward remove. If they could 
 'not do this, they might tie their own hands just 
 'as well tor a hundred as for ten years. These 
 'are the fundamental principles of American 
 •freedom." Now, the President says thatalthough 
 the Constitution adopted by this Convention ex- 
 pressly declares that it shall not be altered until 
 1864, yet the Legislature may at any time provide 
 for the alteration. Now, what is the Legislature 
 under the State Constitution? It is the creature 
 of that Constitution. It has no powers but what 
 are conferred upon it by that Constitution, and 
 the Legislature can do nothing but what is au- 
 thorized by the Constitution, or at least nothing 
 that is expressly forbidden by it. Yet the Presi- 
 dent says, that in spite of this, in spite of the 
 constitutional prohibition, the Legislature may 
 call a Convention. Well, as a question of law, 
 I think the President is wrong about this. But 
 suppose him to be right; the Legislature without 
 constitutional authority can authorize the people 
 to vote whether' they will have a new Constitu- 
 tion or not. Now, the power to change the Con- 
 stitution is precisely of the same character as 
 that which is required to make a Constitution, 
 for a change of Constitution is just to substitute 
 one Constitution for another — it is to make a 
 new constitutional Government. It requires the 
 same civil power to change a Constitution that 
 it requires to make a Constitution. If the Leg- 
 islature, against a constitutional prohibition, can 
 authorize the people themselves to exert their 
 civil power by making a new Constitution, upon 
 what principle can the President contend, with 
 any degree of consistency, that that Legislature 
 had not the power to call upon the people to 
 vote whether they will have this Constitution or 
 not? [Applause.] I submit it to any lawyer — if 
 we may be honored with the presence of such 
 here to-night — I submit the question to any in- 
 
 telligent thinking man, whether the premises of 
 the President do not necessarily imply that the 
 Legislatuie which I called together had at 
 least as much authority to untie the authority of 
 the people, as the Legislature under the Consti- 
 tution which forbids the Legislature to do it, 
 when there was no act of Congress, when there 
 was no constitutional principle, no legislative 
 principle, in the organic act, or in any other act 
 bearing upon the question, which prohibited the 
 Legislature from doing what it did? To me the 
 argument is unanswerable. 
 
 But now the President, in these extracts 
 which I have read, seems to entertain the idea 
 that the State Government of Kansas is actually 
 formed — that there is a State 1n existence, for he 
 says the State is prepared for admission, and the 
 Legislature had no authority to alter its charac- 
 ter or destroy its existence. Now, I suppose 
 that if there is a State Government in existence 
 which the Legislature has no right to change or 
 destroy, the Territorial Government ought to be 
 superseded, and there ought to be really no Leg- 
 islature in the Territory. But that is not the 
 case. The President still keeps in office my suc- 
 cessor, Gov. Denver, a very clever and worthy 
 gentleman, who, I think by this time entertains 
 upon these questions very much the same opin- 
 ions as I do, although I doubt whether the gen- 
 tleman would be quite as willing to express them 
 with the freedom I do here to-night. But I say, 
 if the premises of the President, as expressed 
 in the extracts I have read, are to be admitted, 
 then he ought to withdraw Gov Denver, and he 
 ought to deny the authority of the Legislature 
 to do anything until Congress accepts that State 
 Government. According to my judgment, accord- 
 ing to mj notion, there is no. authority in the 
 Territory, except the Territorial Government, the 
 Legislature, and the Governor of the Territory, 
 as established by act of Congress And so the 
 President believes, because he still retains the 
 Territorial Government there, and still keeps the 
 army there to protect it. So that I hold, upon 
 his own premises, his conclusions are utterly fal- 
 lacious, and will not stand the test of examina- 
 tion for a single moment. [Applause.] Now, 
 gentlemen, the Constitution of the United States 
 gives power to Congress to admit new States 
 into the Union. What is the meaning of that? 
 Certainly it does not mean to force them into the 
 Union. Undoubtedly, under this power granted 
 in the Constitution cannot be claimed the author- 
 ity to cr ate a Government for a State, and then 
 force her into the Union. But the term " admit" 
 impliis some voluntary action on the part of the 
 State that is to be admitted. There is another 
 clause, which makes it the duty of the United 
 States to guaranty a republican form of Gov- 
 ernment to every State in the Union. Now, 
 gentlemen, what is the meaning of the word 
 "form" in this clause of the Constitution? I 
 say, that if any intelligent gentleman will look at 
 it, he will perceive that it means something more 
 than form, as contrasted with substance. It does 
 not mean form, for substance — it means frame- 
 work, organization, republican government. 
 What is republican government? It is the 
 government of the majority — a government based 
 upon the consent of the people. When we speak 
 
14 
 
 of the people, we speak of the majority. [Ap- 
 plause.] Now, the President says that these 
 people did not vote at the various elections, and 
 that they ought to have voted. But they did 
 not choose to do so. They were rebellious — 
 they were ready at any time to overturn the 
 authority of the Federal Government. 1 have 
 extracts from the proceedings of the Legislature, 
 but I will not read them now, as they would take 
 up too much time. I had intended to read them, 
 but I do not believe it to be necessary. What if 
 this should be true ? It struck me as a very 
 extraordinary fact, when I went to the Territory, 
 to find the great mass of the people of the Ter- 
 ritory holding off from the Government, refusing 
 to have any participation in its affairs, despising 
 it, denouncing all its agents and instruments as 
 guilty of fraud, violence, and oppression; and I 
 thought the people were not justifiable in refu- 
 sing to go into these elections ; though, with the 
 light I have had since, I think, if they were not 
 justifiable, the facts go far to excuse them for 
 not attempting to assert their rights at the ballot- 
 box. But, suppose they did not choose to go to 
 the ballot-box ; suppose they had no excuse 
 • whatever ; suppose that, from mere whim and 
 caprice, the great body of the people refuse to 
 go to the ballot-box in order to establish a State 
 Government — what does it mean ? Why, it 
 means that the minority may go and establish a 
 State Government. And, if they make it to 
 suit us, very well. But if they do not make it 
 to suit the people, and if they resort to all sorts 
 of trickery and devices for the purpose of de- 
 ceiving and defrauding the people, upon what 
 principle can you say that the majority of the 
 people are bound to submit to it? Simply be- 
 cause they have taken no part at all, it becomes 
 necessary for them to reject a fraud and wrong. 
 [Applause.] Whatever may have been their 
 motives, whether they have any justification or 
 excuse for having refused to participaate in the 
 preceding elections, this Constitution not being 
 such a Constitution as they choose to adopt, they 
 have a right at the last moment to come forward 
 and proclaim that it is not according to their 
 will, and that they will not have it. [Applause.] 
 Why, gentlemen, I put this question to yoit, 
 as I did the other night to the people at Piladel- 
 phia, when I spoke there. Suppose that any 
 State in this Union, through its Legislature, 
 should call a Convention to change the Constitu- 
 tion, or to adopt a Constitution for the govern- 
 ment'of the State ; suppose they should, in ex- 
 press terms, authorize the Convention to adopt 
 a Constitution, and put it in operation without 
 submitting it to a -vote of the people, as they 
 sometimes do; and suppose that Convention, le- 
 gally elected under this law, should go on and 
 adopt a Constitution, providing it should go into 
 operation on the first day of July or August 
 next, or at any other time ; suppose, in the 
 mean time, upon the publication of that Consti- 
 tution, that the people should see in it such pro- 
 visions as were not anticipated by them, and 
 which were against their ideas of right, justice, 
 and propriety, and they should rise up as one 
 man, and call upon the Governor of the State to 
 convene the Legislature, in order that they might 
 be permitted to vote upon that Constitution, for 
 
 or against it ; 016 089 339 4^ 
 
 lature Should pass a uiw iiuiiuuiiz>iug a vutB bi 
 
 the people, who should vote five to one against 
 the Constitution, I ask you if there is any State 
 in this Union that would undertake to set up 
 that Constitution against the vote of the majori- 
 ty of the people? [Cries of "No, no!"] That 
 is precisely the case in Kansas, only the case 
 which I have put is much stronger, because I 
 have supposed that the Convention was cloth- 
 ed with power to adopt the Constitution without 
 submitting it to the people, whereas the Conven- 
 tion in Kansas Was clothed with no power. The 
 power not having been expressly conferred upon 
 the Convention, it resulted to the people by 
 every principle of law and of constitutional inter- 
 pretation in our republican form of government ; 
 and yet the Constitution actually rejected by the 
 people, which would not be maintained for a 
 single hour in any State of this Union, is to be 
 maintained here. It can be only maintained, 
 gentlemen, by the arms of the Federal Govern- 
 ment, by the military power of this Government, 
 forcing the Constitution upon the people against 
 their declared will, and against every principle 
 of republicanism, democracy, right, and justice. 
 [Cries of "Shame-," "Shame."] If I were lhi3 
 evening, gentlemen, before a Southern audience, 
 before the people of my native State of Virginia, 
 or my adopted State of Tennessee, or anywhere 
 else in the South, I would say to them that the 
 most disastrous hour of their existence would be 
 that in which they should subvert all right prin- 
 ciple in the accomplishment of this great wrong. 
 [Applause.]. I was a member of the House of 
 Representatives when the Kansas and Nebraska 
 bill passed. It was alleged then that we were 
 violating a sacred compromise, and, furthermore, 
 that it was intended by all unfair means to extend 
 Slavery into that Territory. Being then a Rep- 
 resentative of the strongest slaveholding dis- 
 trict in the State of Tennessee, I replied to this 
 argument in a speech made on 1he 20th of May, 
 1854. In that speech I used this language: 
 
 " The population of the free States is, in 
 1 round numbers, thirteen and a half million?, 
 ' while that of the slave. States, including all the 
 ' slaves, is only nine and a half millions. The 
 ' people of the North outnumber us by nearly fifty 
 ' per cent., and taking only our white population, 
 ' they more than double our numbers ; and in this 
 ' state of facts, gentlemen seriously assert and 
 ' argue, with the utmost manifest alarm, that our 
 1 three and a half millions of slaves are about to 
 ' inoculate the whole of our vast territory with 
 ' the institution of Slavery. Sir, the baxe state- 
 ' ment of these facts is an answer to the whole 
 ' argument. It is a palpable impossibility, a 
 ' physical and moral impossibility in the very 
 ' nature of things, that three and a quarter mill- 
 ' ions of slaves can spread themselves over the 
 1 whole country in the face of twenty millions of 
 ' whites. If such absorption should take place, 
 ' Slavery would be at that very moment ipso facto 
 1 at an end. I am satisfied that Slavery will not 
 ' go into these Territories, and hence, I repeat, the 
 ' measure is of no practical importance, except for 
 1 the principle of non-intervention." 
 
 Gentlemen, such was the declaration of every 
 Southern man, not that Slavery would not go 
 
/ 
 
 release the m 
 individual pledg 
 anything but to p. 
 to counteract the a. 
 Constitution. They 
 laws, and organize the 
 order to overthrow the j± .. 
 thought was about to be fastener _ ..a. 
 
 But I said to them : " No, gentlemen, the Con- 
 gress of the United States will do you jus- 
 tice." 
 
 The effect of these proceedings on the part of 
 the minority, sustained by the Government of the 
 United States, is to give influence and power to 
 the individuals to whom the President alludes a3 
 dangerous and mischievous individuals, alluding 
 especially to General Lane, and perhaps to some 
 few others. I say the effect of it is to throw 
 power into the hands of those very men — to give 
 them a hold upon the passions of the people, and 
 enable them to excite them and to arouse them 
 to madness. The excitements, and turmoils, and 
 strifes, and bloodshed, will never cease until jus- 
 tice shall have been done to the people. [Ap- 
 plause.] It it impossible, gentlemen, in the 
 very nature of things, that it should cease. 
 Why, suppose this Constitution should be adopt- 
 ed, if General Calhoun, who has the returns in 
 his breeches pocket, it is said, at Washington, 
 and who has never yet declared authentically 
 and authoritatively what is the result of the 
 elections for .Mate officers — suppose he should 
 give the election to a Free State man. Then 
 there will be an end of it, because the members 
 of the Government elected upon that ticket have 
 petitioned Congress not to accept the Constitu- 
 tion. They say it. was not lawful. Although 
 they have been elected by the people under it, 
 yet they wish to dissolve the Government, be- 
 cause it has been imposed upon them by fraud 
 and violence. There will be an end of it, if he 
 should give it to the Free State people, and Con- 
 gress will not be under the necessity of accept- 
 ing it. If, on thi: other hand, he should give it 
 to a Pro-Slavery man, what will be the result? 
 Why, the Legislature will not be permitted to sit 
 in the Territory. ["Good! good!"] Gentle- 
 men, I do not say what the people ought to do ; 
 I only speak of my own knowledge of what they 
 will do. ["They will do right!"] The Legisla- 
 ture might assemble at Oxford, or at some other 
 place, surrounded by a sufficient force of Missou- 
 rians to protect them; they might go into the 
 interior, sustained by the army of the United 
 
 'but under no other circumstances can 
 a within the Territory. [Applause.] 
 
 /ut even if this Government be accepted by 
 United States, the President will be under 
 t Q necessity of using the army for the purpose 
 of sustaining the Government which he will have 
 set up in that Territory in defiance of the will of 
 the people, in defiance of republican principle, of 
 constitutional right. It will be a Government de 
 facto, not dej'ure ; maintained by the sword in a 
 republican country, which is bound to guaranty 
 a republican form of government to every State 
 in the Union. [Applause.] You will all agree 
 with me, gentlemen, that such an exhibition as 
 this would be disastrous for our country, and you 
 will all unite with me in the prayer that such a 
 thing may not happen during our day or that of 
 our children, for I believe, that when that day shall 
 come, the days of the Republic will be ended ; 
 tor, as the President has very justly said, "when 
 ' you depart from the principles upon which the 
 ' Government is founded, it is a certain and sure 
 c indication of the decay and final destruction of 
 1 that Government." [Great applause.] 
 
 I feel, gentlemen, that in the rather incoherent 
 remarks I have made to-night, carried away by 
 my feelings, that I owe you an apology for the 
 length of the time during which I have detained 
 you. [" No, no."] T do not come here for the 
 purpose of making any complaint with regard to 
 myself, or the treatment which I have received 
 at the hands of the President of the United 
 States. I do not come here to utter any lamen- 
 tations over the loss of the little office which has 
 been taken from me ; but I do come here, gen- 
 tlemen, with the disposition to do ?o before my 
 countrymen in the attempt to sustain the great 
 fundamental principles upon which the Govern- 
 ment is founded. [Cheering ] When those prin- 
 ciples shall be taken from under the superstruc- 
 ture, it will inevitably fall to the ground a mass 
 of ruins. I have done all my conscience told me 
 during the whole of my service in Kansas. I was 
 bound to act, not only as one appointed by the 
 President of the United States, and bound by his 
 instructions, but I have done what I -felt it. ray 
 duty to do as an honest man. I believe, gentle- 
 men, that if Gov. Walker had been permitted to 
 remain in Kansas — for he was forced to resign 
 his place — I believe that if he had been permit- 
 ted to carry out his policy, there would have 
 been order, peace, stable government, by the 
 consent of the people, at this day established in 
 Kansas. [Loud and long-continued applause.] 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 
 1858 
 
into the Territory, although occasiona 
 have heard them say so, but that the true „ 4 
 tion was non-intervention, and that a majc 
 of the people were finally to settle the forn 
 Government that was to be erected in the Ten 
 tory. The Representatives of the South rejected 
 with disdain the idea of fraud or unfairness in 
 the decision made of the question as to whether 
 the State to be admitted should be a free or 
 slave State. I knew, or at least believed, at the 
 time, with the utmost confidence, that it could 
 not, from the nature of things, be a slave State. 
 And I say here to-night, that, without opening 
 the African slave trade, it is utterly impossible 
 for the Southern States to extend the institution 
 of Slavery into all the Territories which are now 
 forming themselves into States within the limits 
 of this Government. [Applause.] I say that 
 the South ought not to insiit upon the accom- 
 plishment of this wrong, because the people of 
 the North may very justly go back to the occa- 
 sion when the Kansas and Nebraska bill was 
 passed, and say, "you have dishonored your- 
 ' selves by providing in that bill, against your 
 ' express disclaimer, for the fraudulent, forcible 
 ' intrusion of the slave institution into that Terri- 
 tory." I do not believe that the people of the 
 South, or the representatives of the people of the 
 South, are justly liable to this charge, but there 
 will be plausible ground for making it. And, 
 again, if this Constitution should be forced upon 
 Kansas by means of the frauds and "wrongs that 
 have been perpetrated there, what will be the 
 consequence among that violent portion of the 
 community that constitutes the extreme party 
 usually called the Abolitionists ? They will 
 argue, with some degree of plausibility, that 
 these wrongs, and outrages, and frauds, are the 
 necessary consequence and only result of slave 
 institutions; and thus an additional amount of 
 unjust prejudice will be created in this commu- 
 nity against the people of the Southern States. 
 I say, that if the people of the Southern States 
 understood the facts in this case, they would 
 never be willing to submit themselves to this 
 unjust censure. 
 
 I would say to the Southern people, that they 
 are not so strong, they are not so perfectly pro- 
 tected, that they can afford to do wrong in this 
 manner. The safety of their institutions rests 
 upon the constitutional guarantees by which it 
 is to be protected, and it rests still more certainly 
 and strongly upon the good faith, and honor, and 
 the sense of justice, of the Southern people. It 
 is their duty and their best interest to deal fairly 
 by the people of the North. And if their breth- 
 ren from the North have settled the Territory in 
 numbers far beyond their own, it is their duty, 
 upon every principle of law, justice, and honor, 
 to submit gracefully. That, gentlemen, is what 
 I myself, from the beginning, as a Southern man, 
 have proposed to do, because I felt it to be my 
 duty to do so. I went to the Territory with in- 
 structions from the President of the United States, 
 warning me against the admission of frauds, or 
 violence of any kind, and anticipating the occur- 
 rence of these frauds, and holding me by a sol- 
 emn official obligation to reject them, and put 
 them down if it were in my power. But, gentle- 
 men, as a Southern man, or as a Northern man, 
 
 *ave felt myself 
 as or no instruc- 
 , nere, to-night, that 
 compton Constitution 
 ,ence, a conclusion of 
 -eedings of the minority 
 . , 1 am but following out the in- 
 stru^ .»« „;' the President, which he has de- 
 serted. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, gentlemen, ever since 
 I have been in the Territory of Kansas, when a 
 man would come in from the Northern States of 
 the Union — not from Massachusetts, not from 
 New England, but from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
 and sometimes even from Kentucky and Tennes- 
 see — although they had been Democrats all their 
 lives, just as good Democrats as James Buchanan 
 for the last thirty years, and as good Democrats 
 as you or I, or as you, Mr. President, they were 
 almost inevitably driven into the ranks of the 
 Free State party. It is true, that the Pro -Slavery 
 party called itself the Democratic party of the 
 Territory, and occasionally, toward the latter 
 part of the history of the Territory, that party 
 would adopt the Democratic platform, professed- 
 ly national in its language ; yet, the same mis- 
 trust, the same unkindness, the same intolerance, 
 was still exercised toward these men; and it was 
 not uncommon to hear them proclaiming in their 
 Conventions that they had no confidence in any 
 Northern man, that they were all Abolitionists ; 
 and the consequence was, that the people were 
 divided almost entirely into the Pro-Slavery and 
 Free State parties. I believe to-day that four- 
 fifths of the people of Kansa? are Democrats, and 
 just as good ones as I am. To be sure, a ma- 
 jority of them would vote for a free State. They 
 don't want Slavery, but that is their business, 
 and not mine. They have a right to vote it out 
 of the State, if they wish to do so, upon the 
 pledge of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, which 
 was given to them by the whole Southern peo- 
 ple, and by the Government of the United States, 
 in 1854. 
 
 Now, I communed with them. I went among 
 them for the purpose of ascertaining their views, 
 and I found the great mass of the people, aside 
 from the noisy leaders, ready to adopt a Consti- 
 tution fairly submitted to them upon its merits 
 or to reject it upon its merits ; the great mass of 
 the people would have voted upon it if they had 
 had anything like a fair chance, would have ac- 
 cepted and adopted it, and would have come into 
 the Union under it. The President is mistaken 
 when he represents the whole of that party as 
 entertaining the views which are entertained by 
 only a few. What was the result of the course 
 of proceedings which was adopted ? After I had 
 called the Legislature together, and they had 
 remained in session eleven days, on the morning 
 of the 11th the news came by telegraphic dis- 
 patch, in some of the newspapers, that I had been 
 removed, and a Democrat appointed in my place. 
 The people there considered this a violent and 
 unjustifiable interference with their proceedings, 
 because they considered it an indication of a 
 determination on the part of the President to 
 sustain the Lecoinpton Constitution in spite of 
 the will of the people to the contrary. Then it 
 was that they came to me to ask that I would 
 
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