. ^^/ 1 KANSAS-LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. SPEECH HON. W. K. SEBASTIAN, OF ARKANSAS, ADMISSION OF KANSAS AND MINNESOTA. DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES MARCH, 10, 1858. The Senate having under consideration tlie bill to admit the State of Kansas into the Union— Mr. SEBASTIAN said: I ask the indulgence of the Senate for a short time while I consider the subject before us; not in its general and enlarged relations, but in the limited aspect which it presents as a practical question connected with the legislation of the day. Mr. President, the most remarkable feature in the discussions and proceedings •which have originated here as to the domestic affairs of Kansas, and its right to mould its own institutions in its own way, is, that we are earnestly seeking to intervene, when non-intervention is the great principle upon which we pro- pose to act. We are usurping the consideration of those very questions that were referred to the people of that Territory ; and more restrictions and inva- sions of the rights of the people are sought to be enforced than were removed from them by the repeal of the Missouri restriction. We are questioning the exercise there of the very powers which we have here abdicated, and under the pretexts of a parental sovereignty "held in abeyance" and "in trust" for them, to emasculate their great charter of freedom of all its value and virtues. That famous restriction imposed upon the people of the Territories but one disability — a grievous and offensive one — a professed bond of peace, but a fruitful source of sectional discord. That was removed, and the question which it had arbi- trarily decided was referred to its proper arbiters, the people of the respective Territories. Now, when the people, in the exercise of their highest powers, have determined this question, and seek to give repose to the countrj', a new element of discord appears; new and fearful issues are presented, as menacing as the old. They have settled this question in the formation of a State consti- tution, and now the very validity of that constitution is questioned, its provi- sions assailed, and the form of its adoption denounced. Indeed, almost every objection which is urged here to the admission of Kansas is such as has been already determined by Kansas herself, in her own way ; and were that Territory to be denied admission into the Union as a State, it would pi'esent the anomaly of conferring rights upon a Territory and punishing lier for exercising them ; of enabling them to " form their domestic institutions in their own -way" and then quarrelling with them because they had not formed them in "our way." It would be to transfer the discords of Kansas to the Halls of Congress, and make national issues of Kansas quarrels; and, in the spirit of jealous and cap- tious power, review the internal politics of that Territory upon the question of her admission into the Union. Mr. President, let us not mistake the true issue here, and confound the great question between the Union and Kansas with the smaller discords and rivalries of parties and factions there. A preliminary question arises, which demands a passing notice. The friends of Kansas and Minnesota projwse to unite their fortun es aiid their destinies in Printed by Lemuel Towers. r (dI^o the same measure. Tliis is a step in the right direction; and I rejoice that each section, through its national men of whatever party, can in this manner give earnest to each other of tlieir loyalty to a common faith. One is a free and the otlier a slave State; and each, in the exercise of the acknowledged right to form its domestic institutions according to its own views, has arrived at quite different results, and shaped them in different moulds. It may be the last opportunity which is afforded of thus testing the sincerity and integrity of those who pro- fess devotion to the principles of popular rights in tlic Territories. Such in- stances liave occurred befoi'C, and tiiissohetiie is not witiiout precedents. Iowa and Florida were admitted tegether, and in the same bill; wliile Arkansas and Michigan, though not embraced in the same bill, the historical fact is notorious that they were considered as kindred and dependent measures, and supported by the same influences. This coincidence, of course, is no af.tempt to revive the idea of preserving the balance of power, by admitting a slave and a free State to- getlier. That ephemeral security for the constitutional equality of the righta of the southern States has passed away forever. It was virtu.-vlly destroyed in the admission of California; and the progress of events renders all hope of the restoration of that equilibrium in the Senate more desperate and delusive every day. The free States of this Union have outstripped the southern States in the march of empire, and the rapid, if not precocious, development of population and formation of States. With their preponderance of population, their large accessions from Europe, and the constant stream of emigration from the southern States to the free States of the Northwest and the Pacific, they have accelerated the laws of population, and established a disparity between the two sections of the Union, which it is in vain to expect will ever be diminished or destroyed. If, in the race of progress, of development, of empire, or aggrandizement, we in the southern States have been distanced, it is a result at which we neither complain nor repine. This great Union is not a partnership of sections, but a Union of States; and, whether slave or free, of republican States. The southern States seek not empire or aggrandizement. In those additions to the Union supposed to have been made under the agency and influence of the southern States, the northern States have had ever the lion's shui'e in the benefits which followed. Tliese accessions were but contributions to the national wealth and strength; to the greatness and glorj' of the Union. We claim no monopoly of them, but only an equal right to the enjoyment of a common inheritance. Whether this consists of constitutional rights — the security of our institutions, the settlement of the common domain — or the additions of new members to our great family of States, our rights are equal and the same. We would place no part of this national heritage under the dominion of any section, or mould their institutiona iu conformity with any will but that of the people with whose welfare they are connected. While this union of States, equal in dignity and riglits, is pre- served there should be no association but that between equals. Whatever the diversities of institutions, fouTided in the varied accidents of origin, race, or history, the influences of climate, habits, and pursuits, the sjiirit of our political associations is that of equals and sovereigns among the States, and one Govern- ment as to all national purposes. There is, therefore, an eminent propriety in the associations of these two measures as one, not to suffer in the disasters of a common defeat, but to sliare a common success. Let them enter the Union as twin-sisters. The spectacle has been witnessed in our pass history, and it will lose none of its moral or its significance if it is witnessed by us. We shall thus, by one comprehensive and decisive measure, rid ourselves of two subjects of en- grossing interest. The country needs repose from this sectional agitation, which threatens to become, if it is not so already, a leprous and incurable vice in our Solitical system. Let us dismiss from our Halls this national discord over the omestic quarrel? of a distant Teriitory which has come upon us unbidden and xminvited. Let us refer this question to the State of Kansas as a sovereign among her sisters in this Confederacy, and discords must cease, and the law be restored to its supremacy. If tiiese anticipations of the future are not realized; if the scenes of strife, of carnage, and levolution, which have convulsed that Territory, and threatened to extend themselves beyond her border, are to be immortal; if Kansas is to bring into the Union no gifts but her discords, with which to embroil sections in her own unhappy strife, it will be because of that mischievous and malign intervention in her affairs from outside her borders that ha.s counseled i-esistance to the law, to her legitimate government^ and has in ited her turbulent malcontents to rebellion. It will be because there are those who, having predicted the failure of this measure to restore peace, will adopt all expedients to insure that result. If all these causes comoined should un- happily succeed in pi-otracting the struggle, and defeat all efforts at pacification, then we shall have acquitted ourselves of our whole dutj-, and the consequences can take care of themselves. Mr. President,, let not the friends of Minnesota think that she is dishonored or contaminated by the association with Kansas in this form. They both come here irregularly, and both need the same indulgence to enable them to enter the portals of the Union, If Minnesota presents herself under the authority of a {)revious act of Congress, prei)aratory to her admission, those who refused at ast Congress, to smooth the way for Kansas by a similar mode, cannot now justly arrogate for Minnesota anj* preeminence of rights on that score. If Kan- Rag brings here a republican constitution, as the triumph of government over faction and revolution, Minnesota has not been free from factious strifes in ac- complishing her |pur]>ose. Her convention split in twain, upon its assemblage; its two hoitile IVagments pursuing their labors under separate organizations, each claiming to be the legitimate convention, and each acting for the whole people. They only reached a common result through a joint committee, and adopted the same constitution on separate parchments. If Kansas comes here as a nominal slave State, iu defiance of the exploded Missouri compromise, does not Minnesota ask admission with boundaries embracing a portion of the North- west ; which, by the compact with Virginia, was to be carved into only five States? If Minnesota has fortunately obtained the previous consent of Con- gress to hef admission, it does not detract from the obligation of Congress to Kansas to redeem its pledges in the organic act, and in the treat}" with France in 1803. They both occupy the same legal footing, and I shall cheerfully vote for both. Each has, in the exercise of these rights — "to form their domestic institutions in their own way " — established for tiiemselves "republican" forma of government. This enables us to perform our constitutional duty and guar- antees, and exhausts our whole power over the subject. All beyond that is usurpation, and invites back here the very mischief to which we thought we had bid adieu forever. It robs the Kansas declaration of rights of its chief vir- tue, and restoi^s to us the power of intervention, none the less distasteful or offensive because of the spurious pretext of intervening in their affairs to en- force non-intervention. Mr. President, that I may be intelligible in my remarks upon the main sub- ject of discussion, I must recall some of the history of the Kansas question, and advert to some considerations connected with it. In doing so, I must draw lai-gely on the labors of my colleague on the Committee on Territories, whose finished and logical statement of facts would, if generally known, spare me the labor of attempting to condense them. The contest in which we are now engaged is but another chapter in the his- tory of the slavery question. The form has changed ; the struggle is the same. Eight years ago scenes transpired in this Chamber which many of us remem- ber. No one desires to witness their repetition. How long and how arduous were the labors to put a period to thai state of things, are matters of familiar history. We had ap|M-oached a period in our national career when no one could divine or cared to know its future. Our arms ami our diplomacy had given us an empire to govern, and the attempt to organize and fix its political condition and to devote it to the North, had unlocked the pent-up elements of discord in our political system, and having escaped the control of the politics of parties, seemed armed only for mischief. The antagonisms of half a century aeemed to have been precipitated into a last conflict for supremacy, while the cohesive and conservative legaments of the Union, auxiliaries of our Constitu- tion, either slumbered in repose or aAvakened to a task to which they seemed unequal. The country had been dragged to the very thi-eshold of revolution. The great disease of our system, pla'nted at its birth, and matured with its growth, menaced speedy dissolution. I sp»-ak of the antagonism, restless and aggressive, ol the free .States to the institutions of the southern States. If this array had beeji but a mere proxysni of party, it would have soon passed, and after the storm we should have hailed the svinshine again; but this antagonism had outgrown its original dimensions, and was fortified by others coinciding with it. The Missouri compromise had boldly avowed and taught the danger- ous lesson that there was a ISorth and a South, with hostile systems of institu tions, of labor, of philosophv, and religion on its opposite sides. The projec was boldly avowed to surround the southern Stat«8 with a cordon of fre i States, and forbid the further expansion of tlie southern institutions; to line our borders with hostile influences, before which the security for property •would melt away. To declare the ocean free, that the slave trade between the States might be paralyzed ; to make free territory wherever tlie flag of the Union waved ; to convert our forts and arsenals into a refuge for fugitive slaves; and desecrate the stars and stripes of the Union to ideas and objects of a sec- tion. As if to show with what precision this crusade had been planned, a member from Massachusetts congratulated himself that when this consumma- tion was complete, there would be less than two hundred miles between any slave in the southern States and his freedom. The struggle was for empire and dominion upon the one side, and for self- preseVvation on the other. Truth triumphed, and this great agitation ended in the declaration of that just and universal principle that States may be admitted into the Union " with or witliout slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission." This was no triumph of one section over another; it was a triumph of the Constitution over all. The legislation in which it was conceived was confined to Utah and New Mexico, but the principle was univer- sal. It was of necessity applicable to all Territories, and bounded by no lati- tudes It was not alone a southern but an American idea. Sections had been arrayed in the ceaseless hostility of rival systems — defying all pacification, know- ing neither peace nor truce, and separated by a broad ground of debatable questions, about which it were folly to suppose they could ever agree. Here •was a conuuon umpire, selected by the Constitution, to which this question could be submitted. This was a second declaration of independence — not an act of emancipation. It did not propose to emancipate tlie slave from his mas- ter in the Territories, but to emancipate the Territories themselves from the in- tervention of the Federal Government. It was the higher freedom of govern- ment in the Territories — the freedom of American citizens to shape their own destinies, and to mould the institutions under which they are to live. Four j-ears later it became necessary to test the value of this great principle of territorial freedom in its application to territory north of the Missouri line. In terms, this had not been rei)ealcd by the compromises of 1850. The longer toleration of this restriction was plainly inconsistent with the principles of that act, and considerations of the highest import demanded its total repeal. It was offensive as a statutory reproach of Congress upon the institutions of half the States of the Union. It was anomalous, as prescribing inter- vention north of the line and non-intervention on the subject of slavery south of it. It Avas unjust, as conferring a different measure of political rights on different Territories. Northern citizens could go into all parts of the conuuon domain, while southern citizei s were restricted by a line. It had arrayed the countrj' in hostile sections, and fostered the idea that they had separate rights in the Union. It was an unmitigated mischief, and by its tendency to create hostile systems developing in opposite directions, had half accomplished the rupture of the Union. The history of its origin ceased to en- title it to respect. It was no compromise. It was accepted hy the South as an evil less than that of the alternative — total exclusion from all the conuin>n ter- ritory. Such was the hard necessity of their condition, that they claimed as a triumph what was a vast sweeping capitulation. It had fulfilled its mission, and its virtues were now gone ; it had purchased a peace at the price of a per- manent source of discord, and this was its whole virtue. It was therefore re- pealed, and the Kansas and Nebraska act was passed. I have indulged in a seeming latitude of remarks upon the chief features of the great discussions and agitations of 1821, 1850, and 1854, in which the sub- iect of slavery in the Territories was the onlj- question; but it forms a part of ipy purpose to show that this is the oidj' question referred to the people of the Territories, and the only power abdicated by Congress in their favor. It is worth while to repeat the words of this enactment, which provides, in the ex- act lamaiage of the compromise measures of 1850, that "when admitted as a State, the said Territor}', or any j)ortion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without xlavtri/, as their constitutions may prescrfbe at the time of their admissioji." Again, after declaring the Missouri act inoperative and void, as repugnant to these principles, the purpose of Congress in passing the act is declared in these words: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form ami regulate tlieir domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." To these express recoirnitions of the perfect freedom of the Territories to form their domestic institutions, was added another, more general and comprehen- sive, tliat the power of the Legislature should "extend to all ritrhtful subjects of legislation not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States;" and this completed the code of the powers and privileges of the Territories. _ Mr. President, too much importance cannot be ascribed to the principles of this enactment. It finally ascertained and rigidly defined the true relation be- tween the Federal Government and the Territories, and traced the line that separates the just powers of the one from tlie legitimate rights of the other. Regarding the Territories as political communities and embryo States preparing for admission into the Union, and having a clear riglit under the Constitution to it, it assimilated as far as possible their political rights to those of the States. They were not sovereign, it is true, but they were exclusive masters of their own, in their internal afl'airs. By an abuse of terms, this application of the principles of self-government to the Territories has been called "popular sove- reignty," " squatter sovereignty." Our form of Government admits of no squat- tersovereignty, except where there is no Government, and no allegiance supe- rior to their right. I know of no illustration of this right, thus perverted, ex- cept that defiant and treasonable attempt at Tojieka, to subvert the Govern- ment and authority of the United States, by an independent and revolutionary State government. But that absolute sovereignty, defined to be the supreme power of a State, and which in every government is lodged somewhere, is shared between the Federal and territorial goverimients. The Federal Govern- ment, reserving to itself all its national power of admitting new States, and its necessary incident of instituting temporary governments, as a means to at- tain that end, is supreme in the exercise of these powers. The Territories, hav- ing the right to form and regulate, since this act, all their domestic institutions in their own way, are supreme in the exei-cise of those rights. Among the great mass, and prominent in it, is this subject of slavery, now also referred to their jurisdiction as a domestic institution — domestic from the nature of the jurisdic- tion which forms and regulates it — national only in the guarantees and securi- ties with which the riglits of property connected with it are invested by the compromises of the Constitution. But for this last feature, which attaches to it the right of property in slaves, through all the common Territories, I should not know of anv exenlption which it possessed from the power of the Legisla- ture. This subject, with all the domestic institutions, the civil relations of life, the internal politv. the municipal concerns, of the Territorj% are alike confided to their own regulation and administration. These are not rights derived from Congress, but onlv recognized by the form of government which it it has insti- tuted for their jtrotection, and which it is the right of Congress to ordain, as a necessary meai>s to their admission into the Union. It is in this sense, and in .this only, that Congress is supreme, and that the sovereignty of the Territories is said 1)V the Senator from Illinois to be " in abeyance, suspended in the United States, in trust for the people when they become a States." Among the "right- ful subjects of legislation" with which 'they are clothed, among the "domestic institutions" which thfy are empowered "to form and regulate," is that high- est act of the supreme power with which they are invested — the formation of a State government ineparatory to admission into the Union, and prescribing the mode and manner of accomplishing this purpose. When they are to exercise this right, and liow to exercise it. Wlien they have outgrown the capacity of a territorial government, and desire the stronger and more vigorous energies of a State government, are questions concerning themselves alone, and no one else. If Congress is to determine that question, then territorial self-government is worse than a shadow, and the Kansas act a delusion. These Territories, as part of the territories ac(juired from France in 1803, hold our bond to admit them into the Union according to the ])rinciples of the Federal Constitution; and it is theirs to decide when they will ask its fulfillment. The acts organizing these TeiTitories contemplate tlieir speedy admission as States, and are adopted as a necessary means to accomplish that result: and it is for them to determine •when they will ask that these just expectations shall be realized. These are their high functions to perform — and in their performance they are not subject to the surveillance of Congress — the officious intermeddling of Governors — un- der no obligation to propitiate the sullen resentments of insurgent factions, nor to accommodate themselves to the views of distant States, but are to be "per- fectly free" to carve out tlieir own destinies, "in their oAvn way." It is ibis ■which makes them sovereign within the sj)here wiiich I have thus described. But on the other hand, there are corresponding riglits and powers of the Union to be observed. This is what is meant by tlie language of the Kansas act — "subject only to the Constitution of the United States." What arc these rights and powers of the Federal Government, in which slie is also supreme, and which are a limitation upon the uncjunlified freedom of the Territories? They are these, and no others: The Constitution provides that "Congress may admit new Stat^ into the Union" — a discretion converted into an absolute obligation by the treaty with France; and the United States 'guaranties to each Slate ie the Union a republican foi-in of government." With the perfonnance of these high constitutional power* and duties, Congress fultills its treaty obligations, and exhausts its wiiole powers. Consistently with these principles, a Territory cannot, by her own act alone, either escape frotii her territorial dejiendenee, set up an independent government of her own Ujiou tlie ruins of lier legitimate government, or induct themselves into the Union, "without the consent of Con- gress." Such an act would be revolution, like that ordained at Topeka. On the contrary, the whole power of Congress (cannot admit a State into the Union against its consent, expressed through its constitutional forms. The admission of a State into the Union is a conipact between the State and the Union, in which each acts in perfect harmony in performing its own appropriate func- tions. It requires the assent of boili. and it matters but little which may take the initiative; whether, as in the case of Minnesota, Congress tenders her con- Beat in advance, and invites a State to propose for admission ; or whether, as in Kansas, the Territory takes tiie first step, and presents iierself a State with her republican constitution, and asks admission into the Union. In either case the legal attitude of both is the same. Each requires the consent of Congress to complete her admission. A republican constitution is alike necessary to both, as well as the recjuisite population. In either ease the act <>f the Territory is the exercise of its whole and highest sovereignty, and valid as such, for that reason. If admitted, they are States; if not, they remain Territories. Mr. President, these are the general principles which I entertain as to the true relation between the Feberal Government and the Territories. A few facts in the history of Kansas of controlling significance will make their application obvious. On the 30th of May, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act was passed. It opened a boundless field for American enterprise, and new conquests for Ameri- can civilization. The western frontier, the advanced posts of our progress, was skirted from the Red to the Missouri river with an Indian empire which, secured by the faitli of treaties, seemed anchored in the great pathway of commerce and emigration to the Pacific. The marcli of civilization had been arrested by a line of longitude. This cheeked for a period the advancing stream of emi- gration which, coursing with ceaseless and swelling tide, and following the path of the sun, shall meet the reflex of the tide from the Pacific, and mingling amid the crests of the Rocky Mountains, end its mission in completing the circuit of the globe. This barrier was removed. The Indian, unfixed in his home, and forced again upon his retreat to accomplish his destiny. Of all this vast empire BO suddenly unlocked, with its countless capacities and treasures, nine-tenths of it was devoted irrevocably, by an irrepealable law of climate, to settlement from the northern States of the Union, and destined inevitabl}' to swell the number of free States; besides which there lay, too, the recently opened Terri- tory of Minnesota — tiie Eden of the continent — and the regions hovering around the great lakes and the heads of the Mississippi. Then tliere. too, beyond the Rocky Mountains, and on the Pacific coast, were Oregon and Washington— all dedicated bj' tiiis great law of climate to the free labor of the North. Here was a pros[iect which ought to have satisfied the highest aspirations of those ■whose whole conception of the objects of the Union consists of the one idea of "free soil." Upon the south of this great empire, tlie ojiening of which for settlement could, at any time, and at every period of acquisition, have been de- feated by less than the vote of southern Senators, lay the small Territory of Kansas, embraced between three parallels of latitude. It lay immediatelj' West of Missouri, and in close proximity to Arkansas; and, as such, its future politi- cal condition was an object of lively interest in the South. The situation of Missouri was peculiar; uj>on her eastern and northern boundaries she had free States for her neighbors, and to complete the circle of hostile infiuences, by ex- tending it to her western border, where most of her slave population was con- gregated, \ras a step which ought, as it d'h\, arouse her most terrible energies for self-preservation. When the fierce struggle was over which ended in a long delayed act of justice to theSoutli, and the principles of non-intervention were eslaijlishedL it Wiis hoped that tliey would receive the sanction of the great he.\rl ol Uie nation, and be enthroned in it as an American principle. The southern States of llie Uoion, in the tiue spirit of this principle, expected only that^ in the fair comiicKtion for the extension of their form of institutions into Kansas, its settlement and political complexion would be determined by the laws of climate and the it'euciesof a nat\iral and legitimate emigration. If, in the hazards ol h fair contest loi- supremacy upon this debatable ground, they should be defeated, tney would liave liad the solace of being vanquished in a fair though unequal contest iJnt thi;* i*-ue was not to be determined in this way. It was not to be settled by those peaceful a id natural agencies which had heretofore determined the institutions of oiher States. The struggle of sections w-as transferred from the Capitol to Kansas, which henceforth was to be the battle ground. The power of intervention, abondoned by Congress, was taken up by Massachusetts. She, true to her traditions and Pharisaical instincts, and with a generous oblivion of her own faults, became devout!}' concerned for the welfare of distant Kansas. A new scheme of assault upon the southern States was devised. Those who had opposed the principles of the Kansas bill, now professing to accept them, determined to subvert them by a resort to what I am free to say is the most offensive and extraordinary interference of one State in the affairs of another that has marked our historJ^ It was nothing less than, virtually, an armed invasion, under the pretext of peaceful emigra- tion. A new pretext was invented. New England, it was said, had been im- prisoned within her regions of ice and granite long enough. Their emigrations were no longer to follow the line of the lakes and of latitude. An error was suddenly discovered in the laws of emigration, and its development was found to be southwest. By a happy coincidence this new gravitation was found to point with unerring index to Kansas, and in conformity with the maxims de- duced from the world's history. The 'march of science, of civilization, and of Christianitj% has moved with steady and untiring step from the East to the West^ while the wars of ambition and of conquest have carried their desolating scourge from the North to the South. Massachusetts organized that stupendous enter- prise, the "Emigrant Aid Society." Its modest" title implied that it was but a philanthropic friend of the poor emigrant, while, in its objects and ends, it was destined to be to Kansas what the East India Company was to the Hindoos. Its capital was §5,000,000, of which only $20,000 could be invested in Massa- chusetts. Its directors, resident in Massachusetts, could each have fifty votes for himself, and as many more by proxy. Sitting there, in Massachusetts, in conclave, upon the afi"airs of Kansas, they develop and publish their plans of operation. They were to contract with some of the "competing bnes of rail- roads" for the transportation of twenty thousand emigrants to Kansas; and while the controlling object of the society was declared to make Kansas a "free State," a keen eye was directed to "the sections of land in which the boarding houses and mills are located." I do not wish to misrepresent the objects and aims of this society, and I shall permit it to speak for itself " Organization, objects, and plan of operations of the Emigrant Aid Com- pany ; also, a description of Kansas, for the information of emigrants. "Trustce.1— Amos A. Lawrence, Boston; J. M. S. Williams, Cambridge; Eli Thayer, Worcester. " Treasurer — Amos A. Lawrence. " Secretary — Thomas H. Webb, Boston. "For the purpase of answering numerous communications concerning the plan of operations of the Emigrant, Aid Compan\', and the resources of Kansas Territorj-, which it is proposed now to settle, the" secretary of the company has deemed it expedient to publish the following definite information in regard to this particular :'*»«*" "For these purposes it is reoommended, first. That the trustees contract mi- mediately with some of the competing lines of travel for the conveyance of twenty thousand persons from Jklassachusetts to that place in the West which the trustees shall select for their first settlement." * * * * * "It is recommended that the company's agents locate and take tip for the company's benefit, the sections of land in which the boarding houses and mills are located, and no others. And further, whenever the Territory shall be or- ganized as a free State, the trustees shall dispose of all its interests there, re- place by the sales the money laid out, declare a dividend to the stockholdera, and that they then select a new field, and mate similar arrangements for the settlement ard organization of another free State of this Union." * * * * " With the advantages attained by such a system of effort, the Territory se- lected as the scene of operations would, it is believed, be filled up with free in- habitants." * * ** * * » * « tt «« " There is reason to suppose several thousand men of New England origin propose to emigrate under the auspices of some such arrangement, this very summer. Of the whole emigration from Europe, amounting to some four hun- dred thousand persons, there can be no difficulty in inducing some thirty or forty thousand to take the same direction." * ***** "Especially will it prove an advantage to Massachusetts, if she create the new State by her foresight, supply the necessities to its inhabitants, and open in the outset communications between their homes and her ports and facto- ries." ************* "It determines in the right way the institutions of the unsettled Territories, in less time than the discussion ot them has required in Congress." It will astonish my constituents to know that the next " field " in which they were to extend their operations of manufacturing "free States" was the Indian country west of Arkansas, which they supposed half abolitionized by the labors of northern missionaries, and the rigid test of the right of Cliristian communion which they have sought to apply, in exclusion of the slaveholding members of the church. To Virginia, it will be interesting to know tliat the person who figures as secretary of tliis mammoth company is one whose name is so inti- mately connected with the scheme of colonizing Virginia with the free labor from the North, and that the venerable mother of States is probably the next field for their operations. How many persons were dispatched under those auspices I am not informed. Tliat movement became the nucleus around which gathered all the elements of this newly-awakened fanaticism. The Abolition societies, the church, the imi- versities, all affiliated in tlie enterprise, and contributed contingencies to swell the numbers of this crusade. Every expedient was enlisted to insure its suc- cess. The church, forgetting its holy mission, preached its sanction of this sec- tional crusade from a thousand pulpits, and sacrilegiously commended "Sharpe's rifles " in place of the Bible, as a more potent agent in propagating their fanat- icism. The press teemed everywhere with fabulous stories and wicked exag- gerations of atrocities of the slave-power in Kansas, and prostituted its powers to inflame the resentments and arouse the worst passions of the people. Con- tributions were levied from the credulous votaries and partisans of the cause. Itinerant missionaries traversed the country, and filled the lecture-rooms with exciting harangues, while monster mass-meetings assembled, and electrified the country with the wrongs of Kansas. These were the appliances and auspices under which unnatural and forced emigration to Kansas was stimulated. It re- sembled more an armed invasion than a peaceful emigration; and it is quite clear that more was expected from the arms than the votes of settlers. The character of many of these immigrants was such that their removal was no loss to New England, and still less an acquisition to Kansas. I do not thus charac- terize all the free States settlers of tl)at Territory. Some were doubtless hon- est and orderly citizens, seeking homes and better fortunes in the West. We have been told that association is a form of enterprise common in New England, and that her history affords frequent instances of peaceful colonization in large bodies, armed for self-protection. That is true ; but I know of no parallel to this most extraordinary movement. In its avowed objects and controlling fea- tures it was a war of Massachusetts against Missouri, without its responsibilities. The sequel is thus graphically portrayed in the report of the Senator from Illi- nois: "When the emigrants sent out by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, and their affiliated societies, passed through the State of Missouri in large num- bers, on their way to Kansas, the violence of their language, and the unmistak- able indications of their determined hostility to the domestic institutions of that State, created apprehensions that the object of the company was to abolitionize Kansas ^s a means of prosecuting a relentless warfare upon the institutions of slavery within the limits of Missouri. These apprehensions increased and spread with the progress of events, until they became the settled convictions of the people of that portion of the State most exposed to the danger by their proximity to the Kansas border. The natural consequence was, that immediate steps were taken by the people of the western counties of Missouri to stimu- late, organize, and carry into effect a system of emigration similar to that of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, for the avowed purpose of counter- acting the eifects, and protecting themselves and their domestic institutions from the consequences of that company's operations. "The material difference in the character of the two rival and conflicting movements consists in the fact that the one had its origin in an aggressive, and the other in a defensive policy ; the one was organized in pursuance of the pro- visions, and claiming to act under the authority of, a legislative enactment of a distanl. State, whose internal prosperity and domestic security did not depend upon the success of the movement; while the other was the spontaneous action of the people living in the immediate vicinity of the theatre of operations, ex- cited, by a sense of common danger, to the necessity of protecting their own firesides from the apprehended horrors of servile insurrection and intestine war. Both parties, conceiving it to be essential to the success of their respective plans that thej' should be upon the field of operations prior to the first election in the Territory, selected principally young men, persons unencumbered by families, and whose condition in life enable them to leave at a moment's Avarning, and move with great celerity, to go at once and select and occupy the most eligible sites and favored locations in the Territor}', to be held by themselves and their associates who should follow them. " For the successful prosecution of such a scheme, the Missourians who lived in the immediate vicinity possessed peculiar advantages over their rivals from the more remote portions of the Union. Each family could send one of its mem- bers across the line to mark out his claim, erect a cabin, and put in a small crop, sufficient to give him as valid a right to be deemed an actual settler and quali- fied voter as those who were being imported by the emigrant aid societies. In an unoccupied Territory, where the lands have not been surveyed, and where there were no marks or lines to indicate the boundaries of sections and quarter sections, and where no legal title could be had until after the surveys should be made, disputes, quarrels, violence, and bloodshed might have been expected as the natural and inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of enii- gration, which divided and arrayed the settlers into two great hostile jinrties, each having an inducement to claim more than his right, in order to hold it for some new comer of his own party, and at the same time prevent persons belong- ing to the opposite party from settling in the neighborhood. As a result of this state of things, the great mass of emigrants from the Northwest and from other States, who went there on tlieir own account, with no other object, and influ- enced by no other motives than to improve their condition and secure good homes for their families, were compelled to array themselves under the banner of one of these hostile parties, in order to insure protection to themselves and .their claims against the aggressions and violence of the other." And thus was introduced into Kansas that relentless strife, which, with varied incidents and details, and but short periods of repose, has continued to the pres- ent time. Through all its phases it has faithfully and consistently preserved its original and distinct features of aggressive policy on the one side, and a de- fensive policy on the other. It matters not in such a contest that scenes tran- spired, and that atrocities were committed, by rival parties which it is not fit should be detailed here. Such consequences were inevitable; and those who first provoked and excited the terrible energies of such a strife are responsible for the blows given, and for those received. The Abolition or free State party there have neVer abandoned tlieir oriicinal purpose of making Kansas a free State by every means, except an obedience to that great principle to which they now profess such devotion. They have declined to resort to the mild mode of detennining the great issue by the ballot. Thej- have refused to vote under the laws of the regular government, openly defied its authority, and de- nounced it as a usurpation. "They formed their partisans into a secret military organization, under the captivating title of the "Kansas Legion," which extend- ed its ramifications throughout the Territory. The avowed object of this or- ganization was to make Kansas a free State ; 'and to this end its members were sworn with imposing form and solemnity. This organization, introduced before the first election of a Legislature, was superseded only by the later organiza- tion of the militia, under color of law of a new Stanton Legislature. Not only ib is their military organization distinct, but their political association is that of separate organized factions, outside of the forms of law, and in defiance of its authority. As soon as the election of 30th March, 1655, by an overwhelming majority, Installed a Legislature largely pro-slavery in its views, they renounced the ballot-box, denounced the government as a Missouri conquest, and defied its enactments. They assembled a convention at Topekn, without the sanction of law, without the authority of either territorial or Federal Government, and or- dained a State constitution and government, which was to be indepent of both. And this open treason, the work of mercenaries and invaders, orgunized into a grand secret military encampment, was set up in hostile rivalry to the lawful government established by Congress. Around this, the idol of their worship, they have rallied all their strength, and all their devotion, to maintain it. From that time they have been a separate people, acting under their own organiza- tion, hostile to the regular government, and never yielding in obedience, or par- ticipating in its administration. Can a people who have thus ostracized them- selves complain of a grievance which they have taken no pains to avert? Can they complain that the constitution was never submitted for approval to those who had repudiated it in advance, and owed allegiance to its rival ? Such com- plaisance to the rights of poprlar sovereignty is an instance of extreme devo- tion to that principle that was not expected by the Topekaites, even at the hands of Governor Walker. The very first Legislature of the Territory, elected on the 30th March, 1855, passed a law for taking the sense of the people upon the question of forming a State government, which, by a large majority, was determined to be in favor of the proposed measure. Thus all parties coincided in the pi-opriety of the change of government. On the 19th February, 1857, the Legishitiire passed a law for the calling of a convention, taking a census, and providing for a registry of all the bonafdc voters of the Territory. It provided with tlie most anxious care and with studied impartiality in all its features, for attaining the true and final expression of the popular will, and attempted to secure the ballot against all invasion of its integrity. This law was vetoe<.l by the Governor because it did not provide for submission of the whole constitution to the people for rati- fication, but was passed by the requisite majority, notwithstanding. This act pursiMd substantially the provisions of the Senate bill, introduced by the Sen- ator iTom Georgia, (Mr. Toombs,) and which the Senator from New Hampshire, (Mr. Hale,) had admitted to be fair in its provisions. In neither was there any provisions submitting the constitution to be thus formed for popular ratifica- cation. This was at least a significant fact of the intentions of those who desired to make a constitution, and no one could be surprised b\- the result. In taking the registry of voters, every obstacle was interposed to defeat the exe- cution of the law. In some counties the officers were openly resisted, or intim- idated from the performance of their duty, while in others the registration of fictitious names frustrated the objects of the law. The result, after all, showed a legal registration of nine thousand two hundred and fifty-one voters in eigh- teen counties, Avhile in fifteen others, believed to contain less than fifteen hun- dred voters, no returns were made at all. Many of these last were but geo- graphical divisions of territory on the map, without settlements, and attached, for all civil purposes, to other more populous counties. They were, of course, omitted in the apportionment of delegates. Elections were held in all but these counties, disfranchised by their own wilful act, and their legitimate right to participate in the election was thus transferred to others. The Republicans, as a part}-, took no part either in the registration of voters or in the election of delegates. The convention assembled and formed the constitution, republican in form, which she has presented for our consideration; and this has opened again, in another form, in all its length and breadth, that great periodical agita- tion which seems doomed to continue until its legitimate and inevitable consfc- quences shall follow and terminate it forever. That convention made their work complete, and referred but the one all-engrossing subject to the people, that of domestic slavery- C)n the 21st of December last this vexed question was decided at an election in which all had the right to vote, and tiie result pro- claimed to the world. It is one which puts at rest all the fabulous boasts of the countless majorities of free-State men with which a credulous public has been entertained for the last two years. The figures are brief but decisive. For slaver j^ 6,226, against it, 569. And now let me briefly review the prominent objections urged against the admission of Kansas with the Lecompton constitution. They are all compre- 11 hended in the idea that it is not "the act and deed" of Kansas. Indeed, the pretension is now openly avowed, which would subordinate tlii;< entire proceed- ing of a people from the just rank of an act of sovereignty to a mere jjetition for the redress of grievances. Her past history is all explored, an inquisitorial scrutiny is instituted into her domestic affairs, and her institutions subjected to unfriendly criticism, that pretexts for her exclusion may be mullii>lied. This is all intervention of the most odious and offensive character in Kansas affairr. We have reserved to ourselves no such poweis; Coiigi-ess has expressly i-csigned that pretension, and conferred it on the Territories By thus investing Kansas with the right to form her institutions, we agreed not to fashion them for her. In allowing hei to form them in her "own wav," wc agreed not to inlerfere in the mode or manner in which slie did so. Whence do we derive this power of going behind her constitution to adjust conflicting equities of rivaj parties, iu an act of admission? It is claimed that there are great irregularities in the whole proceeding. That may be true, but they were sucii as afforded us no right to complain. We had not, as in the case of Minnesota, prescribed a mode of forming a constitution, and tlius afforded a slandnrd by wliich ii regularities could be tested. Kansas was tliiis left to ordain her constitution after her own prescribed forms. If, in so doing, irregularities occurreservance." Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, and California, were all thus adnn'tted; the essen- tial requisites to legitimate such a proceeding are that it should originate with, and be conducted in, subordination to the authority of the local government, establishe or recognized by the Government of the United States. This was the doctrine of the Senator from Illinois; and he traces a parallel and finds a fancied resemblance between the Lecompton and Topeka constit\itions. For this purpose he denounces them both as revolutionary, and as attcm]>ting to set up governments independent of the local government of the Territory. He seizes upon that section which declares that "this constitution shall take effect and be in force from and after its ratification by the people.'j He omits to notice the provision that suspends the convening of the Legislature, and the entrance of the State officers upon the discharge of their official duties until after the admission of the State into the Union, and that all the officers of the Government are still there and in authority. Equally untenable is that objec- tion which has of late acijuired such importance — the failure of the convention to submit the whole constitution for popular ap])roval. This is a new phase of popular sovereignty, and a new construction of the Kansas bill. A majority of the States of the Union have been admitted under constitutions which were not so approved. Others have been submitted. No one questions their validity now. I am not aware of any necessity which requires that the people can exer- cise sovereignty oidy in one form. Their sovereign right to institute govern- ment is not sovereign after all, if thej- cannot exercise it in their own mode. I know of no reason which requires a constitution to be submitted more than a law, or a treaty, or any other act of the supreme power of a State. Our forms of govornment are representative republics, rather than popular democracies. Indeed, the representative principle pervades our whole political system. The sovereignty of the people is claimed to be inalienable, but it is quite consistent ■with this view, that it can be exercised by representatives and agents. Whether exercised by the people directly themselves, or in any other mode, or by any 12 other ageiK-}-, it is slill the act of tlie people. "When the people elected the convention, they investeil that convention with their whole power; and when the convention ordained a constitution complete, it was the act of the people, and as binding as if submitted directly to them. When the slavery clause was submitted to, and decided by, a popular vote on the 21st of December, the last feature of the constitution w'^as added, and the work finished. The act of the special session of the Legislature, which authorized the popular vote on the 4th of January, was a usurpation, as it employed its limited authority to contra- vene a previous s. :o ex- pect it. Tlie only cause for wonder is that the forms of law and the integrity of the ballot were not subjected to moi-e irregularities and graver abuses. Still, I believe that the substantial ends of justice Were attained, and that the frauds, alledged upon one side, were counterbalanced by an offset in kind upon the other. It is charged that thei-e were frauds in the elections at Delaware crossing, at Kickapoo, and at Shawnee. Have the proceedings upon the other side escaped all suspicion? It would be strange indeed if those who had been in oi^anizcv* iiii I 'iiiiiiifr' 13 rebellion and treason to the lawful government, sliould in a moment become honest and impartial in an election. How do Senators account for the signifi- cant disparity between the vote for State officers, and that against tlie constitu- tion at Lawrence? How can they account for that astounding increase in the vote at Leavenworth, which so suddenly swelled its magnitude? And above all, bj' what means was that overwhelnung majorit}- of ten thousand votes pa- raded against the constitution, when, in the exciting election of a member of Congress, the same party polled, on the same day, less than seven thousand? It 13 not ours to adjust the balance between tlie opp(;site sides. The pro-slavery party in Kansas have been the party of law and order. In a contest which they did not provoke, and in which tiiej' stood upon the defensive, they have doubt- less learned something of the tactics of their enemies, and turned them upon them. If in a disreputable contest of tliat kind, tliat party, which has lived outside of the pale of the law, has been beaten by their own weapons, it is not theirs to complain of their fiat. But, sir, I ma}' say of this as of other objections — what power have we over it? Whence do we derive the power to investigate frauds in the municipal elections in Kansas? Some of these which have undergone such severe criticism relate to the elections of State officers, and members of their proposed State legislature — a matter which the constitution has clearly placed beyond our reach. The legislature of Kansas, like everj' legislatsve body, can inquire into frauds and irregularities affecting the elections of its members. It is the only proper judge of that question. No legislative body can be independent in its functions, if any other puwer can decide tliese questions. We, here, imve the same right to judge of the elections of members of this body ; but it would be a monstrous pretension, and usurpation of authority here, to attempt, in a national legislature, to decide upon tlie legality of the local elections in Kansas, and that, too, while we are performing the elevated constitutional duty of iu- ducting a sovereign member into the Confederacy of States. Mr. President, it is a little curious to notice the development of the different phases of this question. Those who opposed tlie extension of the Missouri line in 1850, were its strenuous advocates when it was pro|)osed to repeal it in 1854. Those who tlien thought that the people should receive their institutions ready formed to their hands b}" Congress, ai-e now loyal to the opposite extreme of popular sovereignty. The Republicans in Kansas decline the opportunity to right their fancied wrongs on the 21st of Decembei-. but two weeks after vote against the whole constitution. They dcnuuuce slavery in Kansas, yet refuse to vote it away. They declaim against their govei-nmcnt as a Missouri usurpa- tion, yet vote down the State government wiiich was to supersede it ; and thus continue the territorial condition where slavery has a constitutional existence. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that, with them, there is no purpose to settle this issue, but to keep it open as long as it can influence the passions or feed the excitement of fanaticism. Another argument, which has, in turn, been enlisted to serve a purpose, is that which prescribes the mode of amending the constitution. It is worth "while to give the exact language of this disputed clause. It is contained in the schedule, and provides that — "Sec. 14. After the year 1864. whenever the Legislature shall think it neces- sary to amend, alter, or change this constitution, they shall reca|||mend to the electors at the next general election, two thirds of tlie members^ each House concurring, to vote for or against calling a convention, and if it shall appear that a majority of all citizens of the State have voted for a convention, the Legislature shall at its next regular session call a convention, to consist of as many members as there may be in the House of Representatives at the time, to be chosen in the same manner, at the same places, and by the same electors that choose Representatives; said delegates so elected shall meet within thi-ee months after said election, for the purpose of revisinic, amending, or ciiaiiging the con- stitution; but no alteration shall be made to affect the rights of property in the ownership of slaves." This, it is said, is a prohibition of all amendment before the year 1864. Some- times it has been used as one of the facts arrayed to show a disposstion upon the part of its framers unfairly to place tlieir work beyond the reach of reform or innovation, as they at the same time declined to submit tlie entire constitu- tion for popular approval. Tiie Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Doiglas,) in his mi nority report, attempts to prove that this provision is a prohibition of al 4 14 amendment, except in that mode which is " revolution if successful, nnd rebel- lion in ease of failure." He knows no means by which that "overwhelming" and fabulous majority of ten thousand free-State men can assert their right, except by the "terrible right of revolution;" and afgues that the President holds out delusive hojies of a reform or change in the constitution by suggest- ing a resort to an itnpraeticable scheme. It is to be wished that this provision hud tiie virtue wliioii has been ascribed to it. It would be but a reasonable regulati(jn, and, at most, but a short postponement of the great right of peace- ful and lawful revolution. Many of the older and earlier constitutions, spring- ing from a period convulsed by the throes of the Revolution, or molded under tile auspices of men whose patriotism has been elevated above eithi:r reproach or suspicion, contained cither similar provisions or maintained significant si- lence upon the subject. The time has been when stability of government and of law was considered no mean virtue in our institutions, and when the organic law of States was exempt from the sudden caprices and ruthless innovations by which the institutions of to-day are mai'red or unmade on to-morrow. The time has been when these attempts, futile though they oft«n were, to lend a sliort life to organic law, were respected, and the constitutions which contained them were deemed and accejited as repiiblican in form. But whether such specific provisions, cither regulating or partially limiting the inherent right of altering or abolishing forms of government, be void or valid, it is evident that they nevt-r seriously stoud in the wa}' of change when the people, acting under the forms of law, liave willed it. The President, in his message, has referred to the great State of New York, now governed under the new constitutiom made in direct opposition to the form pi-escribed by its predecessor. The State of Rhode Island, (uitil (juite a recent period in her history, had remained under the government of a royal charter, which, I am informed, contained no provis- ion lor its own amendment. Under it the people lived and prospered, bore their yiavt in the Revolution, and acceded to the Union. Yet this old charter, venerable for its antiquitj-, if not respectable for its wisdom, was finally super- seded when tlie ideas and necessities of a later progress had outgrown its capa- cit,y lor good government. The States of Ohio and Indiana contained prohibi- tions respectively against amendment, the first for twelve, and the second for ten yeari; yet the latter was changed within the prohibted period, and all of them in pursuance of a form prescribed by law, and without a resort to the "terrible right of revolution." Indeed, in the i)ast history of our State consti- tutions, they have probably too often illustrated the views of the President in his late message, that the people "can nnike and unmake constitutions at pleasure," and that " the will of the majority is supreme and irresistible when expressed in an orderly and lawful manner." The chairman of the Committee oh Territories, (Mr. Dougl.\s,) in his report of March 12, 185(5, on the aft'airs of Kansas, in reviewing the history of such of the States as had formed constitutions without the previous authority of Congress, redeems them all fiom illegitimaej- by the assurance that, " in every in.stance, the proceeding has oi'iginated with, and been conducted in subordina- tion to, the local government. Attoi'ney General Butler, in the case of the ad- mission of Arkansas, justifies the proceeding of the Territory in forming a con- stitution, without the previous assent of Congress, on the ground that such measures be commenced and prosecuted in a jieaeeable manner, and in strict subordinfttio^Ao the <'xisting territorial goverimient.." These were all instances of a cliange ^m territorial to State government; but the principle extracted from them illustrates the efficiency of every appeal for a change of government to the sovereignty of the people, when pi'osecuted under the forms of law and in subordination to the existing government. These modes of changing consti- tutions, so familiar in our political history, can solve the problem and relieve the Senator's doubts, and enable the people of Kansas to know " how they are to exercise that great indefeasable right," of which the President speaks when he says " they can make and unmake constitutions at pleasure." The free- State party, so lately denounced by Governor Walker as " insurgents," seem to have a keener appreciation of their " inalienable rights" than the President, and their practical attempts to assert them have gone far beyond the sugges- tions in his message. In their hot haste to reverse the lawful decision of the people on the 21st of December, and inaugurate "a reign of terror," they an- ticipated and outstripp