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 THE LECOMPTON QUESTION. 
 
 GOVERNOR WISE'S 
 
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 mmi m illibois 
 
 TOGETHElt WITH 
 
 IITTIRS TO CHARliS W. RUSSELL, ESft. 
 
 BY A VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT. 
 
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LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 GOVERNOR WISE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE NEW YORK TAMMANY SOCIETY. 
 
 RICHMOND, VA. Dec. 30, 1857. 
 
 GrENTLEMEN, 
 
 I have the honor to acknowledge the invitation of 
 the society of Tammany to attend their celebration of the Forty- 
 Third Anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, the evening of 
 the Sth day of January next. I regret that I cannot be with you in 
 person, but I tender to you my warmest sympathy in the sentiments 
 and objects of your celebration. I trust that your venerable order 
 will always uphold the Federal Constitution, with which you proudly 
 claim to be cotemporaneous ; that you will strive to revive and per- 
 petuate the spirit of the Revolutionary fathers, who you boast were 
 your founders, and that you will now, more than ever, cherish na- 
 tional as opposed to sectional feelings — a strict construction of the 
 Constitution, as opposed to all compromises of its provisions — true 
 Democracy in its republican form, as opposed to the licentiousness 
 of mobs or mere majorities enacting their own " higher law" — and 
 the liberties of the people against all power, delegated or undele- 
 gated, upon earth. To these ends you may well commemorate the 
 victory of New Orleans. Its hero was '* guided by law and bound 
 by duty," when he took the responsibility to save a city then, and 
 afterwards to save a country from a foe more formidable than foreign 
 bayonets. He gave us the motto : " The Union must and shall be 
 
preserved ;" and I liope that his great authority still remains potent 
 to stamp it upon every heart, and upon every banner in the whole 
 country. To preserve it we must steadily adhere to the Democratic 
 faith and platform ; we must stand by you in standing by James 
 Buchanan as the people stood by Andrew Jackson. 
 
 He had to contend with the money power, and subdued it b}^ the 
 Samson of Democracy. We now have to meet the black demon of 
 the " higher law," and the same Samson survives in vigor to fight 
 for the chosen people. God forbid that the Samson of Democracy 
 shall at last be a Samson Agonistes, shorn and blinded, to become a 
 / destroyer. Almost every other people and every other party, except 
 the American Democracy, haVe had their " bridges of asses," but I 
 do pray that we may not be such asses ourselves as to make a 
 / bridge of slavery, or of any other subject, for us to s_tall at in a 
 ""cai^eFalid"|rfogr'ess~6T" national greatness. And yet, gentlemen, 
 there are a great many Kans-asses in our country, and they are not 
 half as stubborn asses as the cant-asses. A driver can get along 
 after a manner with an ass that can, but the crudest goad will not 
 prevail with the asses who can't. They are the stubbornest of all, 
 and are sure to stall just in the way and at the very place of most 
 danger. They bray a political religion and religious politics. The 
 best whip which ever touched these asses exactly in the raw, was 
 James Buchanan's Conestoga thong, laid right on upon forty ftinati- 
 cal preachers " all in a row." As to your other motto, "Civil and 
 religious liberty," ours was saved by the Virginia Democracy in 
 1855. We struck the dark lantern out of the hands of ineffable 
 Sam, and none now are found so poor as to " hurrah" for liim. We, 
 therefore, have some riglit to sa}^ to you on other topics that all 
 common sense and justice require is, that we let each other's pro- 
 perty and peace and political privileges alone, and attend to the 
 conservation of our own interests respectively at home. When we 
 happen to meet in the common Territories, to make new homes and 
 neighborhioods there, all we have to do is to respect each other's 
 equal right. If we are Southern slaveholders, don't let our property 
 be invaded or taken away from us ; don't allow any power to pre- 
 vent us from settling upon common lands, or don't drive us away 
 from the settlements we have made upon a domain purchased or 
 won by common treasure and united valor. 
 ( On the other hand, if you jH'efer that slavery shall not be incor- 
 ' porated in \he new body politic of which you are to become mem- 
 
bers, we promise you that it shall not be imposed upon you, witi, 
 our consent, eitlier by torce or by fraud. ~We propose to go together 
 To" thV polls as e'quals7 justly respecting each other's rights, and 
 there determine, by legal votes, what shall be the law of the case. 
 If property be established in one form or another, it shall be re- 
 spected ; and, if forbidden in any other particular form, it shall not 
 in that form exist in that community. Now, has this just, fair and 
 equal course been observed in Kansas? I fearlessly say that it has 
 not been observed. Fraud and force both, on both sides, have been 
 attempted, and have, to a shameful extent, prevailed. And it is the 
 great vocation of Democracy to put down both fraud and force in 
 this and in all other cases. How? The case divides itself into two 
 categories — the one de jure in the Territory, as between the Con- 
 vention and the people ; and the other de facto in the country at 
 large, as between Congress and the Territory, In the first, in 
 Kansas there was an "Enabling Statute." If the Kansas-Nebraska 
 act did not enable the people to hold a Convention, or to make 
 laws for their own self-government, it had no virtue in it at all. 
 The Kansas-Nebraska bill organized a Territory, and the people 
 thereof were enabled thereby to govern themselves. By their own 
 laws they organized a Convention to frame a Constitution of State 
 government. That Convention was, therefore, de jure, legitimate. 
 It formed a Constitution, and had a right to form it. That was its 
 function, and there its power ended, except to submit it, as a pro- 
 posed organic law, to the fair and free election of the sovereign 
 people, to be adopted or to be rejected by them. They, in their 
 organized being of legal voters, are alone sovereign. The entire 
 Constitution ought to have been submitted to their lawful voices at 
 the polls. 
 
 The power was not delegated to the Convention to proclaim and 
 establish a State Constitution; it had to be approved by Congress, 
 and much more had it to be approved by the sovereign principals 
 for whom the mere agent, the Convention, acted. It was not a 
 statute law, repealable at will by a Legislature to sit yearly, and to 
 be chosen by the precincts of annual elections. It was the great 
 fundamental organic law, under which titles and tenures and fran- 
 chises were to be held, and Judges and Legislators were to sit, and 
 Executive authority was to wield the arms of State, and offices 
 were to be filled, and justice was to be administered, and law was 
 to be enacted, and confederate station was to be assumed, and 
 
sovereignty itself was to be assumed — and it was to be irrepealable 
 by Legislation, and to be, in a word, the supreme Constitution of a 
 State, under which she was to be received into the most glorious 
 Union of States which ever protected and fortified the liberties of 
 mankind. What ! Tell us that an instrument of this dignity ; that 
 republican government itself, was not to be submitted in its form 
 and plan proposed, to the only lawful sovereigns — the organized 
 people — not a mere mass of persons, but the bona fide inhabitants 
 and legal voters of the State to be governed, for their election, to 
 adopt or reject it ! Be jure, I say it ought to have been so sub- 
 mitted. Pure and undefiled republicanism, conservative Democracy, 
 required that it should be so submitted. 
 
 There is no mobocracy in that idea. It is even, just, steady, 
 organized, free republican action ; the law of popular liberty, de- 
 fined by citizenship and the rule of election, and is the true example 
 of essential sovereignty in the people. Instead of so submitting 
 this proposed Constitution by the mere agent, the Convention, 
 deferentially to the principals, the organized sovereign people, there 
 was a usurpation — a withholding from them of a fair, free, full and 
 equal election to choose or not to choose their own Constitution of 
 self-government. It was ex ixirte ; it was all on one side; it was, 
 in gambling phrase, the foul " Heads I win and tails you lose ;" the 
 Constitution was obliged to be adopted, with the clause or without 
 the clause; the vote was bound to be "for the Constitution ;" it 
 was all pro and no con, and we may say that was no submission to 
 an election at all. Election is choice of alternatives — to adopt as 
 well as reject. There was no choice in this case, and no equality 
 of voters in this case. Three men went to the polls : A said, " I 
 vote for the Constitution, with or without the clause," but B and C 
 said, " We vote against it, with or without the clause ;" A's vote 
 was counted, B's and C's were not to be counted, and thus one was 
 made not only to offset two, but to be sole substitute in fact for 
 three against the majority of two to one out of three. 
 
 Now this was but the unveiled trickery and shameless fraud of a 
 so-called schedule. There was neither right nor justice in it. The 
 Democracy of Virginia at least scorns a title of any sort founded 
 on a fraud, occult or palpable, like this. We say that as between 
 the Convention of Lecompton and the people of Kansas, the ques- 
 tion was one de jure, and de jure the whole Constitution in all its 
 parts ought to have been submitted to all the legal voters, yro and 
 
5 
 
 cow, and the two voters ought to have been allowed their voices 
 against it as well as the one voter his voice for it. • And, so far as 
 slavery is concerned, it made the case worse againlt that species of 
 property, to submit the slavery clause alone to the election of the 
 people. Why discriminate in respect to that " peculiar institu- 
 tion?" Is it because it was peculiar? If we contend for any thing 
 especially, it is that our property shall not be distinguished or dis- 
 criminated from other property in legislation. It stands on the same 
 footing of right to protection and preservation which is claimed for 
 any other description of thing owned or possessed by others as pro- 
 perty. Why was this singled out for the chances of prohibition? 
 Was it not enough that the Badger amendment of the Kansas-Ne- 
 braska bill had already enacted that all laws protecting and estab- 
 lishing it prior to 1819-'20 should be repealed? Why repeat a dis- 
 crimination against slavery in this schedule of submission ? 
 
 This was ground enough to make pro-slavery partizans reject it. 
 In fact, and of right, if the Constitution had not been submitted at 
 all, in whole or in part, to the people, it would have been more im- 
 partial and more just to the slaveholder than as it was submitted. 
 If there be any mistaken and misguided and misguiding parties in 
 the South who would be guilty of arraying against the equal rights 
 of slave property the irresistible and indisputable rights of popular 
 sovereignty, we would save our property from the guardianship of 
 such folly, and really, as property and protection must always most 
 safely rely, rather upon law and order and the rule of justice and 
 fair dealing — to " ask nothing but what is right, and to submit to 
 nothing which is wrong." On the ground of policy, then, as well 
 as de jure, the whole Constitution ought to have been submitted to 
 all the legal voters, without fear, favor, fraud or force. So much 
 for the case de jure. 3d. The Convention saw fit to submit the 
 Constitution to the one voter alone, and not to all three of the 
 voters, and the Convention was legitimate. It was legitimate de 
 facto. Congress could not go behind the return ; it cannot inter- 
 vene, we are told, except to see that the law has authorized the act, 
 and that the form is republican. 
 
 The law authorized the act, and we grant the form of the Consti- 
 tution itself to be republican. We don't agree with Mr. Senator 
 Douglas, that his own Kansas-Nebraska act was not an " enabling 
 statute," and we don't agree, either, with the President, Mr. Buch- 
 
6 
 
 anan, that slavery was the only " domestic institution" to be sub- 
 mitted, as such, to the people. The Kansas bill enabled the people 
 to govern themsfelves; that was its first essence and its chief excel- 
 lence, and every municipal institution of a State government is a 
 "domestic institution." The President is a bachelor, and he must, 
 therefore, be excused for not comprehending a " domestic institu- 
 tion" as well as we who have houses full of children. He had better 
 reasons for his recommendation than he assisfned. He was bound to 
 look to the fact that this was the work of a legitimate Convention, 
 and that the work itself was in form republican, and that these were 
 subjects for Kansas alone to judge of. But whether Kansas had 
 been allowed to judge — whether her people had been allowed to 
 choose, to elect, to adopt or reject the Constitution of government 
 proposed for them — whether they had been allowed to govern them- 
 selves, was another fact which had also to be looked to — de facto, 
 whether the schedule was republican ? De facto, whether there 
 were not other domestic institutions besides slavery which ought to 
 have been submitted to the sovereign, legal voters? 
 
 It is the very gladness and glory of our State governments, when 
 organized, that they guard and govern the hearth-stones and homes 
 of the people of the United States. The State governments are the 
 municipalities of sovereignty which embrace especially the indivi- 
 dual persons, the families, the households, the altars and the homes 
 of our people. It is that which makes State rights. State laws, 
 State organization. State action, so precious, because so domestic, in 
 our confederacy. The Federal Government embraces rather na- 
 tional and foreign subjects of jurisdiction, and, therefore, it ought to 
 leave all domestic questions to the States and the people. What 
 then? Why, then, if the schedule of submission was anti-Republi- 
 can, if it was partial, if it did not acknowledge and allow the sove- 
 reign right of the people to judge for themselves on the question of 
 highest dignity, the organic law of their Government, and discrimi- 
 nated unequally between the subjects of property, the Congress of 
 the United States ought not to reject the legitimate and Republican 
 Constitution, but ought to adopt it subject to a fair and legal vote of 
 the people of Kansas, according to a law to be prescribed by their 
 Territorial Legislature, and to admit the State under the Constitu- 
 tion whenever the Territory shall proclaim its approval and adoption 
 by the people. If they adopt it, to admit her into the Union iyso 
 
facto ; and if they reject it, to leave tlie people of Kansas in their 
 own way to organize another Convention, and so submit another 
 Constitution to Congress for approval. 
 
 This would be a plain and easy solution, and would take all the 
 asses over the " bridge of shrieks." And for any difference of opi- 
 nion as to the mere mode of submitting or solving this question, I 
 protest that no true, honest, earnest Democrat shall be proscribed. 
 No' Xortherner ought to denounce the President for recognizing the 
 fact of the legitimacy of the Lecompton Convention, and no South- 
 erner ought to denounce Senator Douglas for contending manfully 
 for the right of the sovereign people to adopt or reject their own 
 form of self-government. There is no conflict, in truth, between 
 the two principles de jure and dc facto — the}', combined, rule the 
 case, and rule it riglitly. It may be very desirable to have Kansas 
 admitted as a State as early as practicable, but nothing will be 
 gained by admitting her into the Union in a mode offensive and op- 
 pressive to a large majority of her voters. Wisdom should teach a 
 minority to insist upon nothing but what is sustained by perfect fair- 
 ness and justice. A majority can take care of itself and a minority 
 should be the last to resort to either fraud or force. Nothiiiij less 
 than the highest tone of morality can protect a minority in its rights, 
 or will restrain a majority from wrong. 
 
 The great State of New York should realize the responsibility 
 resting upon her. If she will stand by Mr. Buchanan as she did by 
 Gen. Jackson; if her Democracy will only firmly unite; if she will 
 maintain no other rule than the just rule of the law and .the Con- 
 stitution ; if she will remember her greatest stake in swelting the 
 late Democratic triumphs into a permanency of power, and in main- 
 taining law, order, justice, peace and union; if her Democracy will 
 cease their factious divisions and devotedly and unitedly come up to 
 the patriotic work of saving a happy and prosperous confederacy 
 from the dangers of dissolution, or the disasters of civil war, then 
 truly New York will resume her empire and be an arbitress thrice 
 blessed as the peacemaker. All the sister States already contribute 
 to lier beauty and strength ; she is in position and power to be an 
 arbitress, but to be so in truth and with effect, she must be sanctified 
 to the high and holy office. 
 
 HENRY A. WISE. 
 Col. Daniel E. Delevan, 
 
 Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society. 
 
Review of "A Review 
 
 OF 
 
 GOV. AYISE'S TAMMANY LETTER, 
 
 By an Eminent Virginia Statesman." 
 
 To Charles W. Russell, Esq. of Wheeling, Virginia : 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Whatever may be the personal or political objects in- 
 tended to be effected by your late letter addressed to the Governor 
 of Virginia, through the columns of " The South" newspaper, it 
 must be inferred, by every attentive reader, that you have not be- 
 stowed a careful perusal, either on Governor Wise's letter, which 
 you make the subject of censorious animadversion, or on the Le- 
 compton schedule itself, concerning which the Governor's letter was 
 written. 
 
 At the outset, you charge Governor Wise with " an apparent in- 
 congruity between his sentiments and his voluntary engagements to 
 Virginia, to the South, and to the President." Fairly considered, 
 such a statement should be made the conclusion at which an argu- 
 ment should arrive, and not the premise upon which it is based. 
 And this 'pctitio -princiini is much less objectionable than the follow- 
 ing statements, upon which you mainly depend to sustain your dis- 
 approval of the Governor's conduct. I give your own language : 
 
 " Your avowed object is to defeat the admission of Kansas as a 
 State with the Lecompton Constitution, which protects slavery, and 
 to require the formation of another Constitution, which, you obvi- 
 ously believe, will prohibit slavery." 
 
 Again : ■" You stimulate Congress to reject this Constitution mainly 
 because the Convention which framed it — a legal Convention, as you 
 2 
 
10 
 
 properly claim — submitted to a vote of the people only that portion 
 of it which relates to slavery." 
 
 Again: "You have a theory that 'the people' have aright to 
 vote upon their entire Constitution, however legally and regularly 
 framed by a Convention of their delegates. Because the Lecompton 
 Convention did not wholly conform their action to your^ theor}^, you 
 have denounced their method of submitting the slavery clause to a 
 popular vote as ' unveiled trickery and shameless fraud.' " 
 
 Now, Governor Wise never did avow any such object as that 
 which you impute to him — nor can any such object or intent be at 
 all deduced from his language. He has never proposed that Con- 
 gress shall refuse to admit Kansas as a State under the Lecompton 
 Constitution. He simply argues that Congress may, and, under the 
 circumstances, ought to enable the people of Kansas themselves, by 
 a fair, free, popular vote, to decide whether they will or will not 
 adopt the Lecompton Constitution as their act and deed. This is 
 the mode of Congressional deference to the will of the people of 
 Kansas, which he proposes — and not " mainly because the Conven- 
 tion which framed" the Constitution " submitted to a vote of the 
 people only that portion of it which relates to slavery." Governor 
 Wise expressly denies that the Convention ever did submit the 
 slavery clause to a legal vote by the people. You thus state that 
 Governor Wise asserts the very thing which he denies. You reite- 
 rate, on your own responsibility, the assertion which you impute to 
 him ; and this assertion, as I will presently show, is flatly contra- 
 dicted by the language of the Lecompton schedule itself. And your 
 subsequent allegation is equally incorrect. When Governor Wise 
 denounced the action of the Lecompton Convention as a perpetra- 
 tion of " unveiled trickery and shameless fraud," he did not refer, 
 and cannot be fairly understood to refer, to their mere disregard of 
 the theory of po[)ular sovereignty. He denounced " their method of 
 submitting the slavery clause" — not " because the Lecompton Con- 
 vention did not wholly conform their action to his theory" — but be- 
 cause the method itself of pretended submission adopted by the 
 Convention, was intended to prevent, and did necessarily defeat, 
 that fair expression of the people's will to which the Convention 
 professed to refer for decision. This is the main reason of Governor 
 Wise's opposition ; not, as you state it, to the enaction of the Le- 
 compton Constitution, but to the Congressional endorsement of the 
 Lecompton schedule. He does insist that a Convention elected to 
 
11 
 
 frame a Constitution violates the right of popuhar sovereignty by an 
 attempt, unauthorized by express delegation of power, to enact a 
 Constitution by their own proclamation, and without referring the 
 question to popular choice ; but had the Lecompton Convention 
 openly and without trick or subterfuge, ventured on such a course 
 of action, Governor Wise agrees that Congress might, in the exer- 
 cise of a discretionary power, sanctioned by precedent, immediately 
 admit Kansas as a State, and leave it to the people of the State to 
 inflict appropriate punishment on their own presumptuous servants. 
 For the sake of the rights and interest of the South, Governor Wise 
 does protest against a dangerous innovation which would permit*a 
 mere constitutional convention, by their uncontrolled action,' to dis- 
 criminate between slave property and other species of property, in- 
 vidiously to the former, by a method of partial submission which 
 "would withhold from a Southern man the right to vote for or against 
 a rule of organic law which might entirely exempt from taxation 
 the steam engine of the Northern settler, and at the same time 
 would enable the Northern man to vote against the employment of 
 slave labor by the Southern settler, and even to deprive him, with- 
 out compensation, of property in slaves already in his possession. 
 But there is another question involved in the responsibility of Con- 
 gress with reference to the Lecompton Schedule, a moral question 
 of eminent gravity, and one which involves the most comprehensive 
 issues of expediency. Truth or falsehood, fair dealing or fraud, 
 which of these appears on the face of the schedule itself? Governor 
 Wise enters into an exposition of the schedule, demonstrating from 
 its own terms the betrayal of a scheme of "unveiled trickery and 
 shameless fraud." Without an attempt at argument or counter 
 exposition, oi> this point, you are content to come before the public 
 with a mere denial of his conclusion. And you impute to him an 
 attitude of opposition to the Lecompton Constitution which he has 
 never assumed — attribute to him forms of reasoning which he has 
 not adopted, and refer his conduct to inducements the influence of 
 which he has neither acknowledged nor evinced. 
 
 I shall not attempt to enquire into the motives which have led 
 you to commit these errors. Apart from such a consideration, you 
 have assumed before the public the responsibility of reprehending 
 the conduct of a man who employs a high trust committed to him 
 by the people of Virginia. You have cited him before t^ tribunal 
 of public opinion, to charge him with having misused the influence 
 
12 
 
 attaching to his position. You charge, that by having published an 
 unofficial expression of individual opinion on a question of public 
 morals and public policy, he has displayed a tenacity of adherence 
 to mere theoretical abstraction, which has seriously misled his judg- 
 ment on a practical question of momentous interest to his party 
 and his state; that he has thereby committed an act which tends to 
 jeopardize the interests of both ; and that he has not been restrained 
 from such a course of conduct " by any tenderness for the anxieties 
 of a generous people who exalted him to his present station, or 
 by any reluctance to witness or to cause the exultation of their 
 enemies." 
 
 Such is the substance of the charge contained in your letter, and 
 such the mildest form of statement of which it is susceptible. The 
 accusation is a grave one. It amounts to nothing less than this: 
 that a statesman, who, during a quarter of a century, has been 
 almost uninterruptedly employed in various positions of high na- 
 tional trust, has, after this length of experience, exhibited a mental 
 deficiency dangerous to the public interests necessarily confided in 
 part to his guardianship by his present official station. You, sir, 
 make this charge through the medium of an organ of the metropo- 
 litan press of Virginia, which heralds your accusation as the pro- 
 duction of an " eminent Virginia statesman." Permit me to suggest 
 such an accusation should have been prepared with such a cautious 
 scrutiny of all the circumstances of the case 3s to leave no doubt 
 ' whatever concerning the accuracy of the recital, and accompanied 
 by such a sufficiency of citation, illustration and argument, as to 
 leave before the public no material point entirely dependent on a 
 mere statement of fact or of opinion expressed by the accuser. It 
 remains for the public to decide whether you have thus fulfilled a 
 grave responsibility, voluntarily assumed, or whether (as I am bold 
 to assert, without fear of refutation) you have made this charge 
 carelessly, without study and without deliberation sufficient to in- 
 form you accurately of the facts involved, or to instruct you in the 
 principles to be considered. 
 
 Upon the question of the right of the people to dictate their own 
 form of government, you do not venture to express an opinion. 
 And yet it must be conceded that no element of greater importance 
 is suggested by the present discussion. It involves the fundamental 
 principle it)f practical as well as of theoretical government. To 
 ignore tlieoretical principle for the attainment of apparent tempo- 
 
13 
 
 ravy expediency, is a policy which has indeed been frequently attri- 
 buted (whether justly or unjustly, I will not presume to say) to 
 that political party with which you have until lately been asso- 
 ciated. But the founders and the leaders of the Democratic Re- 
 publican party have persistently denied both the morality and the 
 expediency of such a system. They have regarded it as destructive 
 to the vital energy of free government — because its necessary ten- 
 dency is to confuse sovereign power with mere delegated authority — 
 because it leads to encroachment by the latter upon the province of 
 the former — because it serves to render the agent irresponsible to 
 the principal. And the right of self government, by the repeated 
 acknowledgments of the people of our own country, has been re- 
 moved from the province of mere contemplative speculation. It 
 has been recognized as the starting point — the first governmental 
 axiom necessary for tiie solution of each political problem. The 
 instinct, the judgment, the faith of the American people have 
 recognized the moral principle that tiie God of nature, who has 
 made society a human necessity, and government a social necessity, 
 has Himself revealed, through the constitution of material and 
 spiritual creation, certain great natural laws for the foundation and 
 perpetuity of Grovernment, and has not left this great necessity of 
 our aggregate existence to depend on the requirements of a shifting 
 expediency. And we have been taught to recognize among these 
 dictates of natural \SvY, the moral truth that sovereign power is the 
 inalienable right of the whole people of each political community. 
 And this right involves a duty and a responsibility existing in the 
 people, to preserve unimpaired to themselves the full exercise of 
 sovereignty, by delegations of mere municipal and subsidiary power. 
 And by reason of nature and necessity, a sovereign people can only 
 exercise sovereign right by tiie enactment of organic law. And 
 when the enactment of organic law becomes vested in any man or 
 body of men, save and except the whole people, j^ro Umto, the exer- 
 cise of a divine right of sovereignty is removed from the hands of 
 the people, sTnd to the same extent, a monarchical or oligarchical 
 authority is raised above the heads of the people. The sovereign 
 people may, indeed, cast away their birth-right of sovereignty, 
 without responsibility, except before the throne of that God who 
 has committed a talent to their keeping; but such a renunciation of 
 moral duty can only be effected by an express act of the people. 
 The ancient maxim, vox pojruii, vox Dei, has become the sheet 
 
14 
 
 anchor of our political system. It may be theoretically ignored by 
 individual thinkers, who prefer an anti-Democratic theory, or who 
 deny the existence of any correct political theory founded on moral 
 necessity. But these dissentei's among us must effect a revolution 
 in Government, before they can practically impugn the vital prin- 
 ciple which has been recognized and established as the corner-stone 
 of our governmental fabric. The right of popular sovereignty con- 
 stitutes, de facto as well as de jure, the pre-eminent rule of American 
 law. How can there be, then, such a state of things as asserted in 
 your letter with regard to Kansas? How can the two principles 
 of popular sovereignty and the supremacy of the law, be " made 
 to clash against each other," in a Democratic Republic, where the 
 right of popular sovereignty is itself the supreme law ? 
 
 The right of the people to dictate their own form of organic law 
 is beyond the pale of dispute. And there are but tliree modes in 
 which this right can possibly be exercised : 1st, by popular ratifica- 
 tion of a proposed Constitution ; 2nd, by the enactment of a Con- 
 stitution by a convention expressly authorized by the people to enact 
 the same ; 3rd, by popular acquiescence in a Constitution proclaimed 
 by a convention acting with express authorization. It cannot be 
 denied that the first of these is the only manner of the exercise of 
 popular sovereignty unattended with danger of the infringement of 
 the right of sovereignty. The second method constitutes a most 
 dangerous extension of delegated power. Th^third leaves in abey- 
 ance the question of the legality or illegality of a Constitution, until 
 a lapse of time shall have decided it by suthcient evidences of popu- 
 lar dissent or acquiescence. Neither system, however, denies, or ever 
 was intended to deny, the ultimate right of popular decision. The 
 two instances which you cite are in themselves sufficient to demon- 
 strate this proposition. The convention which framed our Federal 
 Constitution did not pretend to enact or proclaim the same. It was 
 submitted for ratification by each of the separate States; and this 
 ratification was effected by conventions expressly authorized by the 
 people of each State. And the first constitution of "Virginia fur- 
 nishes the best possible example of a system of law proclaimed by 
 a convention unauthorized even io frame a constitution, which con- 
 stitution was afterwards adopted by popular acquiescence. 
 
 That Governor Wise has not failed to consider this instance in 
 connection with Kansas affairs, is apparent from liis letter of the 
 19th November last, from which I will hereafter quote at length. 
 
15 
 
 Mr. Jefferson's views on the same subject are expressed in the fol- 
 lovviiiif lauGfuaije : 
 
 " To our convention no special authority has been delegated by 
 the people to form a permanent Constitution, over which their suc- 
 cessors in legislation should have no power of alteration. They had 
 been elected for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, and at a 
 time when the establishment of a new government had not been 
 proposed nor contemplated. Although, therefore, they gave to this 
 act the title of a Constitution, yet it could be no more than an act 
 of legislation, subject, as their other acts were, to alteration by their 
 successors. It has been said, indeed, that the acquiescence of the 
 people has supplied the want of original power. But it is a dan- 
 gerous doctrine to say to them, ' whenever your functionaries exer- 
 cise unlawful authority over you, if you do not go into actual resis- 
 tance it will be deemed acquiescence and confirmation.' Besides, 
 no authority has yet decided whether the resistance must be instan- 
 taneous ; when the right to resist ceases ; or whether it has yet 
 ceased." 
 
 Indeed it is apparent that the whole doctrine of popular acqui- 
 escence pre-supposes a usurpation of authority on the part of a 
 convention, and there is no other principle except that of popular 
 acquiescence from which a constitution thus proclaimed by a con- 
 vention, can derive binding eflicacy. 
 
 So much for the general doctrine. Let us now turn to the duties 
 and powers of Congress, in the instance of a territory applying for 
 admission as a state. And here we may safely consider the prece- 
 dents, as well as the principles involved. Let us first suppose that 
 the Lecompton Convention had sent to Congress a constitution, with- 
 out submission, real or pretended, to popular ratification or rejec- 
 tion. As you properly admit, the old " notion of Congressional con- 
 trol" is " exploded." Congress cannot rightfully alter the Constitu- 
 tion, nor substitute a Constitution of its own enactment. It must 
 accept or reject. But may it not accept the whole Constitution 
 provisionally? The Constitution, if accepted at all, must be ac- 
 cepted as the act and deed of the people of Kansas. You may say 
 that the fact of its being presented by a Convention raises the pre- 
 sumption that it is the act and deed of the people. But may not 
 Congress require, instead of a mere presumption, the best positive 
 evidence of this essential fact? May not Congress enquire whether 
 the Convention has been authorized by the people, to enact and yro- 
 
16 
 
 claim, as well as merely to frame a Constitution? If it be* found 
 that the Convention has no express authority for such extensive 
 powders, may not Congress require, that the Constitution shall be 
 enacted by the unmistakable authority of the people, before it vvill 
 agree to impose the Constitution on the people? I can imagine no 
 principle of Constitutional right, or of moral duty, which makes it 
 imperative on Congress to abstain from thus protecting the people 
 of a territory from even the possibility of being subjected to a Con- 
 stitution repugnant to their wishes. Can you? On what ground, 
 then, do you object to such a right of congressional action. On 
 precedent? You cannot find a single precedent which denies the 
 power. You can find, indeed, precedents which would j^crmlt Con- 
 gress to accept a Constitution unsanctioned by express popular au- 
 thority. But these precedents go no further than to vest in Con- 
 gress a discretionary power, and by no means make it imperative on 
 Congress to accept a Constitution merely because it is presented by 
 a legally constituted Convention. And other precedents directly 
 establish the power of Congress to admit a territory provisionally. 
 These I will more particularly refer to in the further discussion of 
 this question. 
 
 Eeferring to the supposed case of the application of Kansas to be 
 admitted under a Constitution submitted to Congress without re- 
 ference, or a pretence of reference to popular ratification. Governor 
 Wise has denied the light of the Convention, as a question of power 
 between the Convention and the people, to proceed to the unautho- 
 rized enactment of the Constitution ; he has contended that such an 
 attempt by the Lecompton Convention must prove injurious to the 
 interests of the South, and has impliedly asserted the discretionary 
 power of Congress in the case supposed. Further than this, lie has 
 not pushed the question of tlieorctical riglit. 
 
 He has, moreover, assured us that, under the circumstances of the 
 case, he would recommend the immediate admission by Congress. 
 Here is his ov/n language : 
 
 " It is true that he (Mr. Hunter) scctns to be opposed to the sub- 
 mission of the Constitution of Kansas by her Convention, to the bona 
 fide inhabitants and legal voters of that Territory. He takes the 
 ground that if the people are silent about the power of the Conven- 
 tion in this respect, that if the Convention was not expressly restrained 
 from proclaiming whatever form they adopt as the Constitution of 
 the State, then they have the power so to proclaim it, and to send 
 
17 
 
 it to congress, without submitting it to the people. I know that 
 there are precedents for this exercise of power by Conventions, but 
 the precedents are in their inception exceptionable cases, and the 
 doctrine which upholds them is, in my humble opinion, anti-demo- 
 cratic. The true doctrine is, that the poivers not delegated hy the people 
 are reserved to them. They may grant such a power to the Convention ; 
 but if not granted, it is reserved, that a Constitution, framed and pro- 
 posed by a Convention, which is"i)ut a representative body, shall be 
 submitted to the people, who alone are Sovereign. The Convention 
 to form a Constitution is not sovereign or supreme. The act of 
 making a State is the highest act of sovereign power, and is the act 
 of humanity, next highest to that of Deity, in making a being of 
 any sort. The act is no less than to create a sovereignty itself. As a 
 Democratic Republican, then, I would never delegate conventional 
 powers to any body of agents to create a State, without requiring 
 them to submit the act to their principals, the people. In 1776, an 
 unauthorized body of patriots assembled at Williamsburg, consti- 
 tuted themselves a Convention, and formed and proclaimed a Con- 
 stitution for Virginia, without submitting it to the votes of the 
 Colonists. But revolution began in that way. There was no time 
 and no opportunity to poll votes, in a moment of rebellion, under 
 the domination of British arms. 
 
 " The masses never did make a revolution — never can and never 
 will. A devoted, and self-sacrificing few must ever take the initia- 
 tive and lead the first movements of resistance. It required a Patrick 
 Henry to seize the powder of the old magazine, and the Convention 
 of 177G s?iatched liberty for the people, rather than a Constitution from, 
 them. In such times inter arma silent leges. The saliis poyuli was 
 then the plea and the justification. But what does the salus j^opidi 
 call for in piping times of peace, when there are none to make us 
 afraid at the polls of a Republic? Why a very different rule and 
 order of proceeding, when there is time and place and opportunity 
 of consulting the sovereign people themselves, protected in their as- 
 semblies and votes. Accordingly, when Virginia formed a Constitu- 
 tion a second time, in 1S29-30, and a third time in 1850-51, the 
 form, adopted by the Convention was in both instances submitted to 
 the legal voters — aye, more, to the new voters created by the new form 
 before itself was adopted. That the people shall of right judge for 
 themselves, at the polls, of their own organic law, unless they ex- 
 pressly authorize agents to make and to adopt a Constitution for 
 3 
 
18 
 
 them, is a principle for which, as a member of the last Convention 
 of Virginia, I would have contended as strenuously as I did for any- 
 other principle of popular sovereignty or of self-government. There 
 was no such authority delegated by the people to the Convention of 
 Kansas. Yet, if upon precedent, the Convention of Kansas adopts 
 a Republican form of State Government, and reports it to Congress, 
 without submitting it to the people, I agree with Mr. Hunter, in ac- 
 cepting it and voting to receive Kansas as a State — slave or free — 
 into the Union. And why ? Because, first, of precedent, and se- 
 condly, whether it be accepted or rejected, it has to be submitted, 
 or is subject at last, in either event, to the popular will. If a ma- 
 jority do not approve of the Constitution, they may organize another 
 Convention immediately, and adopt any republican form, after they 
 are once a State, without submlttlvg it at all lo Congress. The ques- 
 tion now is, then, not whether Congress should adopt or reject the 
 Constitution of Kansas, submitted to the popular vote or not, but 
 
 WHETHER IT OUGHT NOT TO BE SUBMITTED TO THE PEOPLE BEFORE 
 
 IT IS SUBMITTED TO CoNGREss ? Which is the better policy for the 
 pro-slavery party to pursue? To submit the Constitution at once to 
 the people, and have an end of the agitation, or to continue the 
 shrieks for freedom a while longer ? If a majority of the legal voters 
 are opposed to the plan of government proposed by the Convention, 
 their voices ought to prevail ; a constitutional form ought not to be 
 imjyosed upon them, and cannot be but for a day, and their sovereign 
 power ougiit not to be snatched from them even for a moment. If 
 Congress should aid and abet a Convention in doing so, would 
 ■NOT Congress be intervening against non-intervention? And 
 if a majority is in favor of the form proposed, they will prevail, and 
 the controversy will end. If strict impartialit}'^, justice and fairness 
 are observed, the people will not be incensed ; but if a minority 
 shall abuse the adventitious advantages of an organized Convention 
 to send their Constitution to Congress, without first submitting it to 
 the people, they will be goaded by indignation to acts of violence, 
 they will tear the Constitution into tatters and trample it into the 
 dust, and upbraid the pro-slavery party with a willingness and an 
 attempt to rule i^er fas aid lufas, and they will organize more strin- 
 gently, doubtless, against slavery, than they would ever have done 
 at first. Again : if the Constitution be submitted to them first, it 
 must be submitted to Congress afterwards, to see that its provisions 
 are republican, and it must pass in review of the Representatives in 
 
19 
 
 Congress as well as in the Territory. But, if not submitted to the 
 people in the first instance, and Congress accepts it, and then the 
 people of Kansas change and adopt another, and, it may be a worse 
 Constitution, this latter will not have to be, and will not be, sub- 
 mitted to Congress at all. Aiming then at the same end, to protect 
 the equal rights of slaveholders, and to end the excitement and strife 
 soonest and safest, which is the better policy, to appeal to the peo- 
 ple at once, in a ^^eaceful, fliir and just mode, or to be obliged at 
 last to abide by their anger and resentment, after impairing our own 
 moral attitude before the country?" 
 
 These reflections and considerations must serve as an introduction 
 to the discussion which I propose, concerning the mode of constitu- 
 tional enactment which has been resorted to by the Lecompton Con- 
 vention. In another letter I will demonstrate : — 
 
 1st. That the Convention of Kansas does, by its schedule annexed 
 to and made a part of the Constitution, specifically deny its own 
 authority to proclaim a Constitution unsanctioned by popular ra- 
 tification. 
 
 2d. That the mode of ratification attempted, is itself unsanctioned 
 by any principle of republican faith, or any precedent of republican 
 history. 
 
 3d. That this reflection applies as forcibly to the slavery clause, 
 as to any other clause of the Lecompton Constitution. 
 
 4th. That Governor Wise's denunciation of this anti-republican 
 method by which it has been attempted to foist upon the people of 
 Kansas a Constitution, adopted neither by a vote of the Convention, 
 nor by a vote of the people, is entirely consistent with the whole 
 tenor of his letter of November last. 
 
 5th. That an immediate acceptance by Congress of the Lecomp- 
 ton Constitution, would involve the grossest act of congressional in- 
 tervention in the domestic affairs of Kansas; that it would impose 
 upon Kansas an anti-republican form of government, by the mere 
 force of an unconstitutional exercise of arbitrary power. 
 
 6th. That any such step would necessarily prove the severest 
 blow to the interests of the Southern States and to the entire Demo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 A VIRGINLl DEMOCRAT. 
 
CONTINUATION 
 
 OF A 
 
 Review of "A Review 
 
 OF 
 
 GOV. ¥ISE'S TAMMANY LETTER, 
 
 By an Eminent Virginia Statesman." 
 
 To Charles W. Russell, Esq. of Wheeling, Virginia: 
 Sir, 
 
 In my last letter, I have undertaken to demonstrate : 
 1st. That the Lecompton Convention does, by its schedule an- 
 nexed to and sent to Congress together with the Constitution, 
 specifically deny its own authority to proclaim a Constitution un- 
 sanctioned by popular ratification. 
 
 For an entire corroboration of this assertion, I refer to the follow- 
 ing extracts from the schedule itself: 
 
 "Sec. 11. Before this Constltulion shall be sent to Congress for 
 admission into the Union, as a State, it shall be submitted to all the 
 white male inhabitants of this Territory for api)roval or disapproval, as 
 follows: The President of this Convention shall, by proclamation, 
 declare that on the 21st day of December 1857, at the different 
 election precincts now established by law, or which may be es- 
 tablished as herein provided, in the Territory of Kansas, an election 
 shall be held, over which shall preside three judges, or a majority 
 of three, to be appointed as follows: The President of this Coa- 
 
22 
 
 vention shall appoint three Commissioners in each county in the 
 Territory, whose duty it shall be to appoint three judges of election 
 in the several precincts of their respective counties, at which election 
 the Constitution framed bij this Conventioh shall be submitted to all the 
 white male inhabitants of the Territory of Kansas, in the said Territory 
 upon that day, and over the age of twenty-one years, for ratification 
 or rejection, in the following manner and form : The voting shall be 
 by ballot. The judges of said election shall cause to be kept two 
 poll books, by two clerks by them appointed. The ballots cast at 
 said election shall be endorsed '■'■ Constitution with slavery,''^ and ^^Constitu- 
 tion with no Slaverijy One of said poll books shall be returned 
 within eight days to the President of this Convention, and the other 
 shall be retained by the judges of the election and kept open for 
 inspection. The President, with two or more members of this Con- 
 vention, shall examine said poll books, and if it shall appear, upon 
 said examination, that a, majority of the legal votes cast at said election be 
 in favor of the ^^Co7istitution with Slavery,''^ he shall immediately have the 
 same transmitted to the Congress of the United States, as hereinbefore pro- 
 vided. ' But if, upon such examination of said poll books, it shall appear 
 that a 7nnjority of the legal votes cast at said election be in favor of the 
 ^^Constitution with no Slavery,'''' then the article pyroviding for slavery shall 
 be stricken from the Constitution by the President of this Convention, and 
 no slavery shall exist in the State of Kansas, except that the right of 
 property in slaves now in this Territory shall in no manner be in- 
 terfered with, and shall have transmitted the Constitution so ratified 
 to the Congress of the United States, as hereinbefore provided." 
 
 * * * * ' * * * 
 
 " Sec. 14. Every person offering to vote at the aforesaid election 
 upon said Constitution, shall, if challenged, take an oath to support 
 the Constitution of the United States, and to support this Constitu- 
 tion, if adopted, under the penalty of perjury under the territorial 
 laws. 
 
 " Sec. 17. This Constitution shall take effect and be in force from 
 and after its ratification by the people, as hereinbefore provided." 
 
 Thus there no longer exists a question as to the absoluteness or 
 the limited power of the Convention. That body has, by its own 
 solemn act, renounced all authority, rightful or pretended, to enact 
 a Constitution by its own vote. Had the Convention avowedly 
 presumed to enact a Constitution without popular ratification, then 
 there might have been a question as to whether Congress could go 
 
23 
 
 behind the act of the Convention, to decide between the Convention 
 and the people. But now the Convention has avowedly decided 
 that the wliole Constitution shall be submitted to all the v;hile male 
 inluihilants of the Territory, for their ^^ approval or disapproval,^^ for 
 their ^^ ratijication or rejection.''^ The same provision is repeated in 
 the same section, under two different forms of expression, the most 
 forcible and the most explicit. 
 
 Whatever authority may attach to the act of the Convention, has 
 gone forth to assert the unqualified right of the people, and of the 
 people alone, to enact the Constitution, or to reject it. From the 
 act of the people, by their express ratification, it can only derive 
 force and existence. It can only " take effect and be in force from 
 and after its ratification by the people." By the express words of 
 the schedule. Congress is only authorized to act upon the Constitu- 
 tion, after it shall be "m///zeJ" by means of a popular ^' elect io7i." 
 Mark the words of the schedule. " Before this Constitution shall be 
 sent to Congress,''^ " it shall be submitted to all the white male inhabitants 
 of this Territoru for ayyroval or disapproval.^^ Thus an election by 
 which the Constitution shall be submitted for approval or disap- 
 proval, by all the citizehs of Kansas, is the only prescribed mode by 
 which to authorize an act of Congress to admit Kansas to the Union. 
 
 A further examination of the schedule demonstrates my second 
 proposition, which I take the liberty to repeat more fully and more 
 forcibly than in my last; letter: — 2. That the mode in which the 
 Lecompton Convention has pretended to give effect to the proposed 
 submission of the Constitution for popular ratification or rejection, 
 is itself not only unsanctioned by, but irreconcilable with,. any prin- 
 ciple of republican faith, or any precedent of republican history. 
 
 The same schedule which prescribes an election by all the citizens 
 of Kansas to determine the question of ratification or rejection of 
 a proposed Constitution, provides that each voter shall be permitted 
 to vote only by one of two ballots-^br "the Constitution with 
 slavery," or fur "the Constitution with no slaver}'." The schedule 
 provides that the Constitution shall be adopted or rejected by elec- 
 tion, and then adopts a mode of submission by which there can be 
 no election — for election is a choice between alternatives, and here 
 there is no alternative — no choice; every voter is obliged to vote 
 for the Constitution ; not one is allowed to vote against it. The 
 schedule [)rovides that the Constitution shall be submitted for ratifi- 
 cation or rejection, and the mode of «uLmision adopted does not per- 
 
24 
 
 mit a single vote to be cast for rejection — no citizen is permitted to 
 vote at all, unless he will vote for ratification ; and ratification is it- 
 self defeated, for there is properly no ratification w^here there is no 
 power to reject. 
 
 The schedule provides that the Constitution shall be submitted to 
 all the citizens of Kansas, and the mode of submission adopted ex- 
 cludes from the polls every citizen who will not vote for the Consti- 
 tution, thus rendering it possible for the smallest conceivable mi- 
 nority to enact a Constitution, despite the wishes of the largest pos- 
 sible majority. One man who desires to vote for the Constitution 
 shall be allowed to vote, and a thousand men who desire to vote 
 against the Constitution, shall not be allowed to vote — and this 
 under a schedule which professes to submit the Constitution for 
 ratification or rejection by all the citizens of Kansas. The lan- 
 guage addressed by the Convention to each citizen is simply this : 
 " You may vote for the Constitution or against it — whichever yo2i please; 
 but if you do not vote for the Constitution you shall not vote at all.^^ But 
 this is not all. By the 14th section of the schedule, each citizen 
 challenged at the polls is obliged to take an oath to support the 
 Constitution, if adopted, " under the penalties of perjury." Thus 
 a majority of the citizens going to the polls to vote against the 
 Constitution, relying on the provision of the schedule, which enti- 
 tles them to vote for rejection', are first to be insulted with a test 
 oath to support the Constitution, ^' if adopted,''^ and after they are 
 bound to support it under the penalties of perjury, must then see 
 their votes rejected, and learn that the Constitution is to be uncondi- 
 tionally adopted. 
 
 Thus the schedule which in the first instance acknowledsres the 
 principle of submission, which provides for an election by all the 
 citizens to decide the question of ratification or rejection, goes on to 
 prescribe a mode of submission which defeats the principle of sub- 
 mission, defeats the possibility of election, excludes the possibility 
 of rejection, reduces ratification to a pretence and a delusion, dis- 
 franchises every citizen who refuses to cast an affirmative vote, and 
 by force of an odious test oath binds it upon the consciences of men 
 to support a constitution which claims for its adoption no better 
 sanction than this seriee of insults applied to an outraged people. 
 Is this law ? Is this republicanism ? Is this common sense or common 
 honesty ? 
 
 But you insist that " the question of slavery-— the ostensible point 
 
25 
 
 of controversy," was submitted to a fair, full, fl-ee vote for ratifica- 
 tion or rejection. I utterly deny this assertion. The language of 
 the Lecompton schedule demonstrates my proposition : 
 
 3d. That the mode of ratification applied to the slavery clause is 
 irreconcilable with any republican precedent or principle. 
 
 To illustrate this fact, I need not step aside to prove tliat the Le- 
 compton Constitution, with or without the so-called slavery clause, 
 is in either case, a pro-slavery Constitution. I will not stop to en- 
 quire whether the President's annual message correctly interprets 
 the Kansas act, when it declares that the organizing statute made it 
 the right and duty of the people to decide the whole question of 
 slavery by a general vote. I will not proceed to argue, that if the 
 construction adopted by the President, be the true construction, no 
 feature or contingency included in the question could rightfully be 
 subjected to a final adjustment, by the mere action of the Conven- 
 tion. I will consider the matter as if the slavery clause embodied 
 the entire slavery question. 
 
 It will be remembered that, according to the schedule, no voter 
 is allovk^ed to vote purely and simply for or against the slavery 
 clause; that the only form of ballot permitted is, ^'■Constkution with 
 slavery," or ^'■ConsLilutlon with no slavery;" thus the right of voting 
 at all is restricted to such citizens as are willing to vote fur the Con- 
 stitution ; no citizen conscientiously opposed to voting for the Con- 
 stitution, is permitted to vote for or against the slavery clause ; and 
 that eacii citizen, before voting at all, must take an oath to support 
 the Constitution under the penalties of perjury. Thus the slavery 
 clause is submitted for ratification or rejection, neither to a vote of 
 the people, nor even to a vote of a majority of the people. It must 
 be ratified or rejected — not even by the whole number of votes cast 
 for the ratification of the other clauses of the Constitution. The 
 slavery clause may be ratified or rejected by a mere majority of the 
 persons voting to ratify the rest of the Constitution, however sniall 
 a proportion their number may bear to the whole number of legal 
 voters in Kansas. 
 
 Let us illustrate more precisely the effect of this -method of sub- 
 mission. Su[)pose that four neighbors, "A," " B," " C" and " D" 
 meet at tiie polls; they may all be pro-slavery men, or all anti- 
 slavery, or some pro-slavery and others anti-slavery — neither suppo- 
 sition is material. 
 
 "A" desires to vote on the slavery clause; but there are other 
 4 
 
26 
 
 clauses in tlie C )nstitution wliich lie cannot conscientiously endorse ; 
 hence, he is not permitted to vote. 
 
 "B" entertains opinions similar to those of "A" — but is some- 
 what less scrupulous. He would agree to purchase the privilege of 
 voting on the shivery clause, by voting for certain obnoxious clauses, 
 could he be permitted to do so under protest of compulsion ; but 
 he feels that he may hereafter be called on to oppose the enforce- 
 ment of such obnoxious clauses, and therefore refuses to submit to 
 the test oath to support the Constitution under the penalties of per- 
 jury. He is challenged and not permitted to vote. 
 
 "C" does not object either to the test oath, nor to any part of 
 the Constitution ; but is restrained from voting because he is unwil- 
 ling to sanction an innovation by which a mere Convention has un- 
 dertaken to discriminate invidiously against slave property. 
 
 " D" is not deterred from voting by any of these objections ; but 
 he says: "Neighbors, I have seen enough to convince me that this 
 is not a fair election. Unnecessary obstacles are thrown in the way 
 to keep men from the polls. You are all wantonly prohibited from 
 votino- according to the dictates of your reason and conscience. I 
 will not participate in an unfair election." 
 
 Thus four men are excluded from the polls, each by an honest and 
 reasonable objection. Has the Convention, or has Congress the right 
 to decide that any one of these is not a sufficient objection ? More- 
 over, is there any means of determining whether four thousand or 
 fourteen thousand voters may not be kept from the polls by the same 
 objections? Not only every man who is opposed to the Constitu- 
 tion, but many in favor of it, are thus prohibited from voting on the 
 slavery clause. By whom, then, was the shivery clause adopted? 
 Not by a vote of the Convention; that body decided that it should 
 be referred to a popular vote. Not by a vote of the whole people. 
 Not by the votes of such of the people as would have voted on it, 
 had they been permitted to cast unconditional votes. But the ques- 
 tion of "slavery or no slavery" has been decided by a majority of 
 the votes of such persons only as would agree to participate in an 
 unfair election,* to vote /yr the Constitution, and to submit to an 
 odious test oath. It was thus rendered morally impossible to obtain 
 for the slavery clause either adoption or rejection, by a majority of 
 the leo-al voters of Kansas. The decision was referred to a minority 
 of citizens, as necessarily and as effectually as if the Convention had 
 limited the right of suffVage to men over sixty years of age. As an 
 
27 
 
 honest ninn and a Democratic Republican, I undertake to say that 
 the metliod adopted by the Lecompton Convention, of deciding the 
 question of "slavery or no slavery," was as anti-republican and as 
 dishonest, as if the members of the Convention had agreed to decide 
 the question by a throw of dice or a deal of cards. 
 
 Sucli is the necessary and unavoidable exposition of the Lecomp- 
 ton schedule, which is presented to Congress, together with the 
 Lecompton Constitution. Now, there are two questions to be an- 
 swered affirmatively, before Congress can rightfully admit Kansas 
 into the Union under this proposed form of Constitution. 
 
 1st. Is this paper the act and deed of the people of Kansas, either 
 by their own immediate act, or by the act of a convention legally 
 authorized to enact the same? 
 
 2d. Does this paper embody a Republican form of Government? 
 
 Let us consider these questions in the order presented. There is 
 no necessity for Congress to look for extrinsic evidence. The sche- 
 dule itself answers as follows: "The Convention has refused to en- 
 act the Constitution by its own vote. It has required that the Con- 
 stitution shall be adopted or rejected by a fair, full, free popular 
 vote." 
 
 " The Constitution has not yet been so adopted. One part of the 
 Constitution has been submitted to a pretence of ratification, by the 
 enrollment of all votes polled for ratification, and the refusal to per- 
 mit any vote to be polled for rejection. Another part has been sub- 
 mitted for ratification or rejection — not by a majority of the legal 
 voters of Kansas, but by a majority of a restricted number of 
 voters." 
 
 Can Congress, with this evidence before it, decide that the Le- 
 compton Constitution is either the immediate act and deed of the 
 people, or their act and deed through their authorized agent, the 
 Convention of Kansas? Does not the schedule manifest the utter 
 impossibility of either supposition? 
 
 But, for the sake of continuing the investigation to the utmost 
 supposable limit, let us imagine that Congress could, by some rule 
 of construction hidden from the uninitiated, decide that this Consti- 
 tution is the act and deed of the people of Kansas. What then? 
 Why the schedule under which they have enacted their Constitution, 
 embodies an anti-republican mode of Constitutional adoption. The 
 first and most important item of their proposed form of government, 
 the mode of their enactment of organic law, constitutes a wide de- 
 
28 
 
 parture from Republican liberty and Republican order, worse than 
 monarchy, or oligarchy, or anarchy. It is a mixture of fraud and 
 chance, unprecedented in the history of civilized government. 
 
 I trust, sir, that my suggestions on these points will induce you, 
 at least, to study for yourself the intent and bearing of the Lecomp- 
 ton schedule. If so, I venture to predict that you will understand 
 somewhat better than your letter indicates, the position which Gov. 
 Wise has assumed with regard to this matter, and which I propose 
 to make the subject of an additional communication. 
 
 A VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT. 
 
CONTINUATION 
 
 OF a 
 
 Eeview of ''A Eeview 
 
 OF 
 
 GOV. WISE'S TAMMANY LETTER, 
 
 By an Eminent Virginia Statesman." 
 
 To Charles W. Russell, Esq. of Wheeling, Virg'mia: 
 
 Sir, • 
 
 In my first letter, I undertook to show : 
 4th. That Governor Wise's denunciation of the anti-republican 
 method by which it has been attempted to foist upon the people of 
 Kansas a Constitution adopted neither by a vote of the Convention, 
 nor by a vote of the people, is entirely consistent with the whole 
 tenor of his letter of November last. 
 
 The position assumed in the letter of November, was: 1st. That, 
 as a question between the Convention and the people, the Conven- 
 tion was not authorized to proclaim a Constitution unsanctioned by 
 popular ratification, because no such authority had been delegated 
 by the people. 2d. Yet, if upon precedent, the Convention of 
 Kansas should adopt a Republican form of Slate Government, and 
 should report it to Congress, without submitting it to the people, Go- 
 vernor Wise agreed in the policy of accepting it and voting to 
 receive Kansas as a state — slave or free — into the Union. 
 
 The case here supposed has never occurred. Congress has not 
 
30 
 
 been called on to decide upon the right or the expediency of enqui- 
 ring into the extent of authorization extended to the people by the 
 Convention. The Convention itself has decided that the Consti- 
 tution must be referred to all the white male inhabitants of the 
 Territory, over tw^enty-one years of age, for their ratification or 
 rejection. And the Convention, which did not presume to adopt 
 the Constitution by its own immediate act, has resorted to a means 
 of submission, contradicting its own language, by which to secure 
 the color of popular adoption, and at the same time to defeat the 
 possibility of popular ratification or rejection. The people have 
 been told in one breath that they are all free to vote for the ratifica- 
 tion or rejection of the uliole Conslilution ; and in the next breath they 
 are told that they may vote to ratify, but shall not vote to reject 
 one part of the Constitution, and, that as concerns the other part of 
 the Constitution, no citizen shall vote either to ratify or reject the 
 same, except he shall first vote to ratify the first part and swear 
 to support the whole Constitution, with or without amendment, 
 under the penalties of perjury. Thus the Constitution has not been 
 adopted by the immediate act of the Convention ; it has not been 
 adopted by the popular, voice ; it has not even been submitted to 
 the people in any manner at all reconcilable with precedent or witii 
 republican principle. 
 
 Thus, Governor Wise's letter of December 30th, referred to a 
 state of things entirely different from that supposed in his letter of 
 November 16th. Nor could he in any manner have foreseen, at the 
 date of his first letter, the position of affairs, which w^as only re- 
 vealed to him more than a week afterwards, through the public 
 press. 
 
 I am aware, sir, that you have not made any express charge of 
 inconsistency between the positions assumed in the two letters re- 
 ferred to. But such a charge has been openly made by certain 
 organs of an inimical faction, and your letter seems to give credit 
 to the charge, by the following assertion : " Because the Lecompton 
 Convention did not wholly conform their action to your theory, you 
 (Governor Wise) have denounced their method of submitting the 
 slavery clause to a popular vote as 'unveiled trickery and shame- 
 less fraud.' " By an examination of this whole matter, you will be 
 satisfied that Governor Wise's denunciation was applied, not to a 
 mere disregard of the theory of popular sovereignty, but to the 
 fraudulent mode of pretended submission, which was so arranged 
 
31 
 
 as to prevent a fair expression of the people's will, either on the 
 slavery clause, or any other clause of the Constitution. 
 
 In view of this state of things, Governor Wise lias taken a po- 
 sition which may be stated at large as follows : 1st, That the 
 Convention was a legitimate Convention, and fully authorized to 
 frame a constitution and propose the same for popular ratification 
 or rejection. 2d, That the Convention did pretend to submit the 
 constitution. 3d, That in the mode of submission, an unprece- 
 dented attempt was made to discriminate invidiously against slave 
 property. 4th, That the whole mode of submission was unprece- 
 dented and anti-republican, because, under the pretence of deference 
 to the popular will, it was intended and did prevail to prevent the 
 possibility of a fair popular election — it clearly appearing from the 
 schedule itself that voters were kept from the polls, not because 
 they would not vote, but because they could not vole — because they 
 were not permitted to vote either on the slavery clause, or on the 
 main body of the constitution. 5th, That Congress ought not ab- 
 solutely to reject a constitution framed by a legitimate convention; 
 nor can Congress by its own authority impose upon the people of 
 Kansas a constitution which has no sanction of adoption, either by 
 the Convention or by the people of the Territory. But that the 
 only means by which to assert the legitimacy of tlie Convention, 
 and at the same time to avoid the fraud attempted by the Conven- 
 tion, and to avoid any resort to Congressional intervention in the 
 domestic institutions of Kansas — is to adopt the amstitution, subject to 
 a fair and legal vote of the people of Kansas — to be prescribed — not by 
 Congress — but by the territorial Legislature, and to admit the State 
 under the Constitution whenever the Territory shall proclaim its ap- 
 proval and adoption by the people. "If they adopt it, to admit 
 her into the Union ipso facto ; and if they reject it, to leave the peo- 
 ple of Kiinsas in their own way to organize another Convention, and 
 to submit another Constitution to Congress for approval." 
 
 The expediency of this suggestion, I shall presently make the sulj- 
 ject of discussion. Its consistency with the position assumed in the 
 letter of November, is clearl}'- apparent from the fact, that both posi- 
 tions admit the legitimacy of the Convention, and as concerns the 
 rest, neither position at all conflicts with the other, since each is 
 based upon a different position of afl'airs — the one upon a supposed 
 state of things which has never occurred — the other upon the actual 
 course of different procedure adopted by the Lecompton Convention. 
 
32 
 
 As regards the constitutionality of this proposed mode of Con- 
 gressional deference to territorial authority, I have already, in my 
 first letter, called your attention to the fact, that no precedent of 
 our governmental history at all tends to make it imperative on Con- 
 gress to accept a Constitution of a territory applying for admission 
 into the Union, if such Constitution be unsanctioned by express 
 popular authority. The most that can be asserted for any precedent 
 is, that it vests a discretionary power in Congress, to accept the 
 Constitution immediately under the presumption of popular sanc- 
 tion, to be inferred from the legitimacy of the Convention, or to in- 
 sist upon actual and express popular sanction. This view of the 
 case sets aside, of course, the " exploded notion" that Congress may 
 dictate, on its own authority, the form of a Constitution. 
 
 And other precedents, old and new, establish beyond controversy 
 the authority of Congress to admit a State provisionally, and to 
 make popular sanction of a proposed manner of admission the sine 
 qua non of admission itself. 
 
 By act of Congress, of June 15th, 1836, the territory of Michigan 
 was admitted to the Union, u'i[)on condition that the boundary lines 
 described in the same act, should " receive the assent of a Conven- 
 tion of delegates elected bi/ the yeo-plc of the said State, for the sole 
 
 PURPOSE OF GIVING THE ASSENT HEREIN REQUIRED." 
 
 On the 15th December, 1836, a Convention elected by the peo- 
 ple, for the purpose, did give the required assent. And on the 26th 
 January, 1837, Michigan was admitted to the Union, by act of 
 Congress. 
 
 Thus it was made a condition of the admission — not only that a 
 Convention should assent to a proposition made by Congress, but 
 that such Convention should be directly authorized by a iwpular vote to 
 give the required assent. 
 
 The instance of the admission of Wisconsin is still more pertinent 
 to onr inquiry. By act of Congress of March 3d, 1847, Wisconsin 
 was admitted to the Union, under the following provision : " That 
 it is made and declared to be a fundamental condition of the admis- 
 sion of the said State of Wisconsin into the Union, that the Consti- 
 tution adopted at Madison, on the 16th day of December 1846, shall 
 be assented to by the qualified electors in the manner and at the 
 times prescribed in the 9th section of the 20th article of the said 
 Constitution. And as soon as such assent shall be given, the Presi- 
 dent of the United States shall announce the same by proclamation ; 
 
33 
 
 and therefrom, and without further proceedings on the part of Con- 
 gress, the admission of said State of Wisconsin into the Union, on 
 an equal footing in all respects whatever with the original States, 
 shall be considered as complete." 
 
 This constitution was rejected by the people of Wisconsin, and 
 the State was admitted to the Union, under another Constitution, by 
 act of Congress, of May 29th, 1848. 
 
 And when the people of California applied for admission and pre- 
 sented a Constitution ratified by a popular vote, a very large num- 
 ber of the Southern people opposed the admission, and our two Vir- 
 ginia Senators very properly voted against it, on the ground that the 
 Territory was not authorized by act of Congress to call a Constitu- 
 tional Convention. 
 
 Again. Congress has made it a condition of the future admission 
 of Minnesota, that that Territory shall present a Constitution ratified 
 by a popular vote. — And the President in his annual message, has 
 recommended that all future acts of Congress organizing Territories 
 shall contain similar provisions. Is there any legal reason why Con- 
 gress may not apply directly to Kansas the same rule applied pros- 
 pectively to Minnesota? 
 
 If there is any Constitutional requirement that the authority of 
 Congress to annex a condition to the admission of a new State, shall 
 be exercised anterior, and shall not be exercised subsequent, to the 
 application of a Territory for admission — then, this unheard of rule 
 of Constitutional exposition was most palpably violated in the cases 
 of Michigan and Wisconsin. 
 
 Further, if Congress may, as in the case of Minnesota, annex a 
 prospective condition to admission, it may certainly insist on the 
 fulfillment of the condition, when the Territory applies for admission. 
 Now, in the case of Kansas, Congress did provide "to leave the peo- 
 ple of the Territory perfectly free" in framing their Constitution "to 
 form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." 
 Thus Congress has not only renounced all pretence of authority, 
 itself to dictate a Constitution for Kansas, but has asserted the sole 
 right and authority of ''the -peoyle of the Territory" to enact the 
 same. Were the people of Kansas left " perfectly free," in the elec- 
 tion of December 21st, to form a Constitution in their own way? 
 Were they not obliged to vote /or the Constitution if they voted at 
 all ? And when they were obliged to submit to a test oath, to sup- 
 port the Constitution, and vote for the Constitution, whatever may 
 5 
 
34 
 
 have been their opinion as to its merits and demerits — wiien such 
 conditions were made imperative and preliminary to a vote for or 
 against the slavery clause — were the people left perfectly free to 
 form and regulate even the institution of slavery in their own way? 
 The mere statement of these questions furnishes a complete and un- 
 answerable argument. The prospective condition contained in the 
 Kansas act has been violated, and Congress is now requested to 
 sanction the violation of a popular right guaranteed by its own 
 enabling statute. 
 
 Not only is the form of procedure recommended by Governor 
 Wise entirely constitutional ; not only is it sanctioned by precedent 
 and by principle ; but there is, on the other hand, no principle and 
 no precedent which would authorize the immediate acceptance by 
 Congress of the Lecompton Constitution. The Convention of 
 Kansas has not pretended to enact tiie Constitution. It has pro- 
 fessedly submitted the Constitution for popular enactment, and the 
 possibility of popular enactment has been defeated by the very 
 method of submission. 
 
 The Constitution has been sanctioned only by an anti-Republican 
 submission of a part of the instrument for ratification only, and not 
 for the choice of ratification or rejection — and the equally anti-Re- 
 publican submission of another part for ratification or rejection by 
 a minority of the legal voters. Congress has no constitutional autho- 
 rity to sanction an anti-Republican mode of so-called election, and 
 j)ro tanto to subject the people of Kansas to an anti-Republican form 
 of government. And the doctrine is long since exploded, that Con- 
 gress can dictate a Constitution to be adopted by a territory about 
 to be admitted as a State. And these considerations unavoidably 
 substantiate my proposition : 
 
 5th. That an immediate acceptance by Congress of the Lecomp- 
 ton Constitution would involve the grossest act of congressional 
 intervention in the domestic affairs of Kansas ; that it would impose 
 upon Kansas an anti-Republican form of government, by the mere 
 force of an unconstitutional exercise of arbitrary power. 
 
 But your apology touches liglitly on the ground of principle and 
 constitutional authority. You would justify the action of the Con- 
 vention and urge its speedy endorsement by Congress, because of a 
 supposed expediency. You argue that the Topeka men were strong 
 enough, and obstinate enough, to have voted down the Constitution, 
 if fairly submitted for ratification or rejection — not on account of 
 
85 
 
 intrinsic demerit in the Constitution itself, but by reason of a sup- 
 posed want of authority in the Convention. Your argument might 
 have more force, were it not evident that the Topeka men were not 
 the only class disfranchised by the Lecompton schedule ; that instru- 
 ment disfranchised all persons who might desire to reject the Con- 
 stitution, for any motive whatever. But apart from this I would 
 ask by what right the Convention presumed to decide who were 
 good, and who were bad citizens? By what right could the Con- 
 vention presume to decide that a certain class of citizens, who had 
 never been disfranchised either by Judicial sentence or by Legisla- 
 tive enactment — would, if permitted to reject the Constitution, ex- 
 ercise the right for an insutficient motive? By what right did the 
 Convention thus attempt to go behind the motives of legal voters, 
 and to weigh the sufficiency or insufficiency of such motives? And 
 if the Convention by inquisitorial right, was thus entitled to play 
 father confessor to the secret motives of voters, and thereby in its 
 penetrative wisdom discovered that it was unsafe to submit the Con- 
 stitution to a full, free, fair popular vote, why was not the instru- 
 ment withheld altogether from the polls? Why did the Convention 
 resort to the farce of pretending to submit the Constitution for rati- 
 fication or rejection? Why was the Constitution submitted to be 
 voted /or, and no man permitted to vote against it? And if the 
 slavery clause ought to have been submitted separately or alone, 
 why was it not thus fairly submitted ? Why were legal voters, who 
 desired to vote for or against the slavery clause, driven from the 
 polls by a test oath, merely because they might nut choose to vote 
 for an instrument which they were not permitted to reject? Why 
 was not the question of "slavery or no slavery" left to a fair deci- 
 sion, unembarrassed by a test oath, or by any coupling with the 
 residue of the Constitution? There is but one possible answer. 
 The Convention intended to perpetrate fraud, " shameless fraud and 
 unveiled trickery," under the ragged guise of pretended popular 
 election. But, in any event, how can you contend that after the 
 Convention has agreed to submit the Constitution for ratification or 
 rejection, thus determining that the Constitution shall be the act 
 and deed of the people themselves, enacted by a full popular vote, 
 and afterwards adopting a mode of submission wbich necessarily 
 defeats the principle itself — absolutely preventing the enactment of 
 the Constitution as the act and deed of the popular voice — under 
 these circumstances, how can you contend that Congress may right- 
 
36 
 
 fully interpose, under the plea of expediency, to thrust upon the 
 people of Kansas a Constitution which they have never ratified, and 
 which the Convention has decided shall only " take effect and be in 
 force from and after its ratification by the people ? (See section 
 17th of the schedule.) 
 
 Expediency ! Can any real expediency arise from Congressional 
 usurpation? Must we be taught, at this day, that it is competent 
 for Congress to disregard the Constitutional limitation of its powers 
 in the pursuit of expediency? Or can there be expediency atten- 
 dant on the sanction of a fraud perpetrated on the freedom of elec- 
 tion ? Is it expedient for Congress to proclaim the falsehood, that 
 the Lecompton Constitution is the act and deed of the people of 
 Kansas, when the schedule before them denies such a possibility? 
 But you say that the people of Kansas desire peace. Let them 
 have peace, then, by all means. The arm of the Federal Executive 
 is strong enough to preserve peace in Kansas. Do the Topeka men 
 push rebellion to violent outrage? Then let military force be em- 
 ployed to suppress them, and let the civil power do what it should 
 have done long ago. Let the ringleaders of rebellion be lawfully 
 tried, condemned and punished. This will certainly preserve peace 
 much more effectually than immediately to admit Kansas as a state, 
 suddenly to withdraw the restraint of Federal control, at the same 
 time to insult the people by arbitrarily thrusting a Constitution 
 upon them, thus incensing rebellion and offering rebels a pretext for 
 rightful insurrection, and swelling the ranks of insurrection with 
 fair-minded men, who have no sympathy either with Topeka rebel- 
 lion or Lecompton fraud. The " peace" plea is against you, sir. 
 You must try another. 
 
 I propose, in a subsequent communication, to trace the history of 
 the present issue, and to consider its probable effect on the interests 
 of the South, the Democratic party and the present Administration. 
 
 A VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 OF A 
 
 Review of *'A Review 
 
 OF 
 
 GOV. WISE'S TAMMANY LETTER, 
 
 By an Eminent Virginia Statesman." 
 
 To Charles W. Russell, Esq. of Wheeling, Virginia: 
 
 Sir, 
 
 My last letter concluded with a reference to the inte- 
 rests of the people of Kansas, as affected by the proposed congres- 
 sional sanction of the Lecompton schedule. 
 
 There are other interests to be considered, besides those of the 
 people of Kansas, and I am prepared to demonstrate my proposition : 
 
 6tl]. That the immediate acceptance by Congress of the Le- 
 compton Constitution, would necessarily prove the severest blow to 
 the interests of the Southern States, and to the entire Democratic 
 party. 
 
 In every territory hereafter to be organized for future admission 
 to the Union, the question of " slavery or no slavery" must neces- 
 sarily arise, and there is no method by which it can be peaceably 
 settled, except by strict deference to the wishes of the people of 
 each territory. If the precedent be once established, of urging the 
 speedy admission of a State, without reference to this criterion — 
 then there is no check to be applied to any machination of fraud by 
 
' 38 
 
 which a minority may obtain control of a convention, and thereby 
 fix an odious Constitution on a majority. Fraud and force will taive 
 the place of a fair reference to popular election. The Southern 
 slaveholder, moving with his property to a new territory, will place 
 every slave at the mercy of an uncertain game of lawless conten- 
 tion. Nor is this the only disadvantage to which Southern men will 
 thus be subjected. Southern capital is fixed capital — fixed in land 
 and negroes — in all cases difficult of conversion or of transmission. 
 And the South has no surplus population. On the other hand, the 
 North wields an immense floating capital and teems with an over- 
 flowing population. The simple transaction of the negotiation of a 
 bill of exchange on New York will immediately transfer immense 
 sums to any point of the frontier; and thousands of men are con- 
 stantly eager to borrow funds to assist their immediate emigration 
 to any spot where labor is in high demand and bread and land are 
 cheap. Thus, wherever slavery becomes the subject of angry con- 
 tention and political intrigue, the Southern slaveholder suffers a 
 triple disadvantage. And yet, are we to be told by Southern men, 
 that emigrant aid societies from the North may employ men and 
 money for limitless corruption, may intrigue in New Mexico until 
 they obtain the control of a Convention, and then present to a pro- 
 slavery majority a Constitution embodying an anti-slavery clause, 
 require every legal voter to vote for — permit none to vote against — 
 this anti-slavery Constitution, and submit another clause of the Con- 
 stitution for ratification or rejection, by all voters willing to vote for 
 the Constitution, and bind themselves to support it under the penal- 
 ties of perjury ? — and then that Congress has no authority to enquire 
 by reference to a fair vote, whether this is not a fraud on the rights 
 of the people of the territory — but Congress must "speedily" ac- 
 cept such a Constitution and endorse such a schedule? You cannot 
 deny, sir, that this picture, the realization of which would rouse the 
 whole Southern people to arms, affords a just parallel to the case of 
 the Lecompton schedule. Any course of reasoning which can be 
 adduced in favor of the one case, would equally justify the other. 
 The case supposed is only the other side of the same theory — the 
 same principle of "legitimacy" — the same doctrine of the absolute- 
 ness of a Convention. 
 
 No ! The principle adduced is a false principle — false in theory 
 and ruinous in practical application. There is no possibility for the 
 extension of slavery, except by a strict adherence to right and jus- 
 
39 
 
 tice, preserving the purity of election and the sanctity of popular 
 sovereignty. Let these be uniformly regarded, and abolition agita- 
 tors will lose their occupation. Northern sentiment will no longer 
 be misled. Southern men will preserve the yrcstigc attaching to 
 justice and right — and Southern property will be peacefully extended 
 wherever it can be profitably employed. There are but two objects 
 to be attained by forcibly creating an unnatural antagonism be- 
 tween the right of slave property and the right of poi)uhir sove- 
 reignty. These objects have long been the prime desiderata of arch 
 enemies at the North and arch traitors at tlie South. Each has cal- 
 culated on the certainty that the right of franchise is stronger than 
 the right of property. The object of one class is to destroy slave 
 property ; the object of the other class is to dismember the Union. 
 Abolitionists and disunionists arc employing the same means for the 
 accomplishment of their several objects. Black Republican leaders 
 in Congress are, at this moment, lending a feeble and unwilling sup- 
 port to the doctrine of popular sovereignty. During the last Presi- 
 dential canvass, their whole party openly ignored it. They dare 
 not oppose it now, for, by opposing it, they would themselves re- 
 nounce the moral position of which they are striving to divest the 
 South and the Democratic party. But they arc doing all that can 
 be done to defeat the princip'le by a feeble and sickly apparent en- 
 dorsement. The defeat of popular sovereignty in Kansas, without 
 their apparent concurrence, is the object most devoutly desired by 
 all the subtile intellects which direct their machiavelian policy. 
 The Black Republican leaders are holding back. They see, in a 
 triumph of the Lecompton schedule, the promised defeat of the 
 Democratic party in the next Presidential election. The Southern 
 destructionists are earnestly looking for the same result, which they 
 will gladly hail as the tocsin of disunion. 
 
 Each faction seeks to drive the Democratic party from its adhe- 
 rence to honest principle — to make Democrats deny the first princi- 
 ple of Democracy — to fix upon the party the disgraceful responsi- 
 bility of a consummated fraud — to strip the only guardian of South- 
 ern rights and the preservation of the Union of all moral strength — 
 to shear the locks of Samson — blind and maim the stnouij man with 
 the tortures of fanaticism, and then bring him forth to mingle in the 
 orgies of disunion. 
 
 It is by waging war on these nefarious schemes that Gov. Wise 
 
40 
 
 has endeavored to fulfill his " voluntary engagement to Virginia and 
 to the South." None but a Southern man could perform the duty 
 effectually — none so effectually as a citizen of Virginia. But we are 
 told that his effort was " ill-timed." When would be the proper 
 time? If the Lecompton fraud is to be exposed — as it must be ex- 
 posed sooner or later — when will the exposure beneficially affect the 
 interests of the party and the country, if not permitted to influence 
 the action of Congress, while the question of fraud is pending before 
 that body ? The " ill-timed" criticism is a mere evasion of the me- 
 rits of the question. Not one of the critics has ventured to desig- 
 nate another time, or a better time, for the publication of Gov. 
 "Wise's protest against the Lecompton fraud. But you assert an 
 "apparent incongruity" between Gov. Wise's "sentiment" and his 
 " voluntary engagements to the President." An historical sketch of 
 the manner in which the present issue between Governor Wise and 
 the President has arisen, will suffice to place this matter in its proper 
 light. 
 
 In the National Convention at Baltimore in 1852, the Virginia 
 delegation, of which Gov. Wise was a member, voted as a unit for 
 James Buchanan in thirty-four successive ballotings. Pennsylvania 
 and other leading States, united with Virginia to offer Mr. Buchanan 
 a support sufficiently strong to prevent the nomination of a rival. 
 The opposition to Mr. Buchanan's nomination was equally obsti- 
 nate, and enlisted the earnest sympathies and urgent efforts of a 
 number of Virginia politicians outside the Convention, including a 
 majority of the Virginia delegation in Congress. Mr. Buchanan's 
 friends found it politic to turn their votes in favor of another candi- 
 date. Virginia led the movement by a vote for Franklin Pierce, and 
 his nomination was the result of the combined efforts of Mr. Buch- 
 anan's friends. Thus it was, that politicians from Virginia and else- 
 where, who had exhibited such a decided repugnance to Mr. Buch- 
 anan, were afterwards ranged in an unmistakable opposition to the 
 Administration of President Pierce, which manifested itself in va- 
 rious forms shortly after the period of his inauguration. A Demo- 
 cratic paper was established at Washington, and its columns devel- 
 oped a course of scrutiny, questioning and open censure applied to 
 the policy of the Administration. It was known as the organ of a 
 number of Democratic members of both Houses of Congress. Its 
 partisans even succeeded in defeating the organ of the Administra- 
 
41 
 
 tion, and securing for the "Sentinel" the printing of the Senate. 
 Southern men were foremost in this opposition, to a President whose 
 every message embodied a defence of Soutliern Rights. 
 
 While this systematic course of opposition was pursued, other 
 political occurrences were developed which may well be considered 
 in connection with questions now prominent in political discussion. 
 The Kansas-Nebraska law was enacted, Congressional authority de- 
 clared its own incapacity to intervene in the decision of the question 
 of slavery in the territories, declared that the people of each terri- 
 tory should be left *' perfectly free to form and regulate their do- 
 mestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States," and finally Co7igress did intervene, with 
 the so-called " Badger amendment," to repeal a law establishing and 
 protecting slavery in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This 
 amendment was ostensibly proposed by Mr. Badger of North Caro- 
 lina. The public have not yet been informed whether that Senator 
 was the real author of the proposal. The fact may yet be made 
 known that Democratic Senators from the South took part in the 
 concoction of the measure. Let members of Congress speak out. 
 There are members from Virginia honest enough and brave enough 
 to speak the whole truth. Who did frame the Badger amendment? 
 Who composed the committee who considered and recommended it 
 before or after its submission to the Senate? Whoever claims the 
 merit or demerit of the suggestion — certain it is that Southern De- 
 mocrats, Senators and Representatives co-operated to secure its in- 
 sertion in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, as well as to effect its final en- 
 actment as a part of the statute. Thus Southern politicians have 
 already sanctioned an act of Congressional intervention against 
 slavery in the territory of Kansas. The Southern people, it may be 
 presumed, have forgiven this. But it may be more difficult to for- 
 give the more aggravated offence of resorting to Congressional inter- 
 vention to array the right of self-government against the extension 
 of slaver3\ 
 
 For nearly three years — until the month of January 1S56 — Presi- 
 dent Pierce was subjected continually to embarrassments resulting 
 from the course of the Democratic membei^ of Congress, who held 
 themselves aloof from the administration and maintained a separate 
 political organ of non-conformity to its policy. Suddenly the 
 "Sentinel" was abandoned by its supporters, who began to exhibit 
 decided indications of affiliation with the adherents of the Adminis- 
 6 
 
42 
 
 tration. It was evident that a new coalition had been formed. 
 Subsequent developments exposed the nature and intent of the alli- 
 ance. Tiie friends of President Pierce were urging his name for 
 another nomination. Other aspirants were to be found among the 
 late partizans of the "Sentinel." But neither division was strong 
 enough to maintain a single-handed contest with a third powerful 
 legion of the Democracy, tlie same which had effected Mr. Pierce's 
 nomination in 1852. Neither Mr. Pierce's party nor that of his late 
 opponents could hope to secure the nomination at Cincinnati, until 
 by a combined effort, they should remove Mr. Buchanan's name from 
 the list of aspirants. The necessary coalition was efiected. It was 
 so arranged that Mr. Pierce was to occupy the first position, and 
 bear the brunt of the battle. His name was first to be proposed for 
 nomination — if unsuccessfully — then his friends must unite with his 
 late opponents to nominate the candidate of their choice. Mr. Pierce 
 received the compliment of precedence — but the second choice had 
 apparently the best of the bargain. 
 
 As the time for decisive action approached, an unrelenting war 
 was waged on Mr. Buchanan. Nowhere was it fiercer than in Vir- 
 ginia. This is perhaps to be attributed to the fact that the Virginia 
 politicians who led the attack were not Pierce men — but belonged 
 to the other wing of the coalition. They were fighting ostensibly 
 for Mr. Pierce, and he received the whole recoil of the shock. But 
 in spite of all the appliances brought to bear, two-thirds of the 
 Virginia delegation declared for Mr. Buchanan, and cast the whole 
 vote of the state for his nomination, on the first and every succeed- 
 ing ballot at Cincinnati. The anti-Buchanan coalition fought till 
 hope was gone. In their desperation, some leaders even resorted to 
 unprecedented and illegitimate modes of strategy. Certain Virginia 
 politicians attempted an offensive alliance with the "softs" of New 
 York— a party which, twelve months before had stood on an aboli- 
 tion platform. This was one means attempted of opposition to the 
 nomination of James Buchanan. And for the accomplishment of 
 the same object, it was openly threatened to divide the vote of Vir- 
 ginia, which for more than half a century has been cast as a unit. 
 
 No one is more accurately informed than yourself, as to the extent 
 and authorship of these intrigues. And here passing notice may be 
 taken of a matter which has not yet appeared in the public press. 
 It will be remembered that the prompt and generous act of Senator 
 Douglas first placed Mr. Buchanan's nomination beyond the possi- 
 
bility of defeat. When Mr. Douglas telegraphed to his friends at 
 Cincinnati, the request that they would combine to secure Mr. 
 Buchanan's nomination, the intelligence came like a thunderbolt on 
 the little faction who had determined to defeat Mr. Buchanan, by 
 fair means or foul. It is well known, at least in Virginia, that these 
 politcians returned from the Convention heaping bitter curses on 
 the head of Stephen A. Douglas, and swearing that they would 
 watch unceasingly for an opportunity of revenge. Collate these 
 facts with the obvious fact that the quasi-Democratic press, still 
 engaged in an insidious war on the Administration, now constantly 
 applies the abusive epithets, "traitor" and "Black Republican," to 
 Mr. Douglas, and it is easily perceptible that the real cause of this 
 pretended indignation is not to be referred to his late manly efforts 
 in favor of popuhir sovereignty in Kansas, but to his agency in se- 
 curing the nomination of James Buchanan at Cincinnati. 
 
 Many of these malcontents with the nomination, were equally 
 dissatisfied with the election of Mr. Buchanan, and the faction 
 united to perpetrate as deliberate an instance of party treachery as 
 ever was concocted by political intrigue. So called Democratic 
 presses were established at Richmond and other points in the South. 
 The President had hardly published his inaugural address before 
 every inkling and indication of his policy, which could be disco- 
 vered or imagined, was made the subject of hostile animadversion 
 by these pretended organs of Democratic sentiment. The defence 
 of the Administration was left to isolated efforts of friendly presses. 
 There was no organized administration press — not even an organ at 
 Washington to indicate the proper line of defence to be adopted. 
 While the friends of the Administration were thus fighting at a dis- 
 advantage. Governor Walker was permitted to proclaim, with every 
 possible evidence of Administrative sanction, that the President had 
 based his Kansas policy on the broad ground of requiring the fulfill- 
 ment of the letter and spirit of the Kansas act, to be consummated 
 by a fair, full, free popular vote for the ratification or rejection of a 
 constitution to be framed and proposed by a convention of delegates. 
 So universal was the impression thus created, that not only the 
 press of the malcontent Democrats, but the entire Whig and Know- 
 Nothing press immediately seized the opportunity for a combined 
 assault upon the administration, many of them uttering the identical 
 sentiments expressed in the President's late message accompanying 
 the Lecompton Constitution. All the clap trap of agitation was 
 
44 
 
 resorted to, and the press of the combined opposition had partially 
 succeeded in manufacturing a factitious semblance of popular oppo- 
 sition at the South, before the people had time to deliberate on the 
 question, or the volunteer force of the administration could rally in 
 defence of a great Democratic principle, until then undisputed. 
 
 But the administration press fought the battle effectually. In 
 spite of every attempt to embarrass the issue, by complicating it 
 with local questions, a few^ weeks sufficed to bring into contempt 
 the open and violent assailants of the President, and shortly after- 
 wards to silence the fire of the more dangerous, because more cau- 
 tious and more insidious portion of the opposition press. Before 
 the annual messege of the President could be written, the conserva- 
 tive sentiment of the South was prepared to discountenance every 
 fraudulent attempt to pervert popular election in Kansas. Among 
 candid and well informed men, there can be no question, that had 
 the President immediately condemned the fraud perpetrated at Le- 
 compton, he would have carried with him, not only every Northern 
 Democratic vote in Congress, but also a majority ot the Southern 
 Democratic votes. 
 
 But the annual message took no decisive ground. Many friends 
 and all the foes of the Administration interpreted it, indeed, as a vir- 
 tual endorsement of the Lecompton schedule. Other friends of the 
 Administration regarded it as a temporary non-committal. Those 
 friends at the South, who had actively engaged in, or cheerfully 
 applauded the battle for popular sovereignty, fought in defence of 
 the Administration, could not be induced to believe that the Presi- 
 dent had made the endorsement of the schedule a test-measure of 
 his Administrative policy. They justly regarded such a policy as 
 calculated to drive into opposition the mass of the Northern Demo- 
 cracy ; and to afford, at least, an apparent triumph to the assailants 
 of the Administration. But the enemies of the President already 
 boasted of the triumph, and left no opportunity unimproved to 
 estrange from the Administration every Democrat who refused to 
 endorse the Lecompton schedule. And while it was thus attempted 
 to drive the Northern Democracy into opposition on the Kansas 
 question, the fillibustering question was made a pretext to array 
 Southern Democrats in similar hostility. 
 
 Such was the political juncture which called forth Grov. Wise's 
 letter of December 30. That letter was directed against an oppo- 
 sition party who were insidiously endeavoring to wreck the Admin- 
 
45 
 
 istration, and the Democratic party, on the endorsement by Congress 
 of a political fraud. 
 
 Thus, in my several communications addressed to yourself, I have 
 endeavored to discuss separately and fairly, each of the questions 
 suggested by the political issue now pending, as well as by the posi- 
 tion assumed by Gov. Wise with relation to the subject. I am 
 aware that the manner in which I have treated the subject has ne- 
 cessarily occasioned much repetition. Such was my design. I 
 know of no better manner by which to justify Grov. Wise, or to 
 expose the Lecompton fraud before the people of Virginia, than to 
 discuss the whole subject under every phase in which it has been 
 presented for my consideration. But there is one master-key to 
 every problem involved. Fraud is patent on the face of the Le- 
 compton schedule itself. I again quote for your attentive perusal 
 the very language of the instrument. 
 
 "Section 11. Before this Constitution shall he sent to Congress for 
 admission into the Union as a State, it shall be submitted to all the white 
 male inhabitants of this Territory for approval or disapproval, as fol- 
 lows : The President of this Convention shall, by proclamation, 
 declare that on the 21st day of December, 1857, at the different 
 election precincts now established by law, or which may be estab- 
 lished as herein provided, an election shall be held, over which 
 shall preside three judges, or a majority of three, to be appointed 
 as follows : The President of this Convention shall appoint three 
 Commissioners in each county in the Territory, whose duty it shall 
 be to appoint three judges of election in the several precincts of 
 their respective counties, at which election the Constitution framed by 
 this Convention shall be submitted to all the white male inhabitants of the 
 Territory of Katisas in the said Territory upon that day, and over the age 
 of twenty-one years, for ratif cation or rejection in the following 
 MANNER and FORM: The voting shall be by ballot. The judges 
 of said election shall cause to be kept two poll books by two clerks 
 by them appointed. The ballots cast at said election shall be endorsed 
 " Constitution with slavery" and " Constitution with no slavery.^^ 
 One of the said poll books shall be returned within eight days, to 
 the President of this Convention, and the other shall be retained by 
 the judges of election, and kept open for inspection. The President 
 and two or more members of this Convention shall examine said 
 poll books, and if it shall appear upon said examination that a majority 
 
46 
 
 of the legal votes cast at said election he in favor of the Constitu- 
 tion with slavery, he shall immediatehj have the same transmitted to the 
 Congress of the United States as hercinhrfore i^rovided. But if vyon 
 such examinatio7i of said 'poll books, it shall appear that a. majorifij of the 
 legal votes cast at said election be in favor of the " Constitution 
 with no slavery,^'' then the article providing for slavery shall be 
 stricken from the Constitution by the President of this Convention, 
 and no slavery shall exist in the State of Kansas, except that the 
 right of property in slaves nov/ in this Territory, shall in no manner 
 be interfered w^ith, and shall have transmitted the Constitution so 
 ratified to the Congress of the United States as hereinbefore pro- 
 vided." * * * # 
 
 "Sec. 14. Every person offering to vote at the aforesaid election 
 upon said Constitution shall, if challenged, take an oath to support 
 the Constitution of the United States, ^/?ic/ to support this Constitution, 
 if adopted, tinder the penalties of perjury iinder the territorial laws.'''' 
 
 Now, sir, with this schedule before you, I beg that you will pre- 
 pare, for yourself at least, frank and direct answers to the following 
 questions: Does not this schedule first provide that i/<e Constitution 
 shall be submitted to all the white male inhabitants of Kansas, over 
 twenty-one years of age, for ratification or rejection ? Does it not 
 then provide a mode of submission which renders rejection of the 
 Constitution impossible ? Does not the same mode of submission 
 disfranchise every legal voter who will not agree to vote for the 
 Constitution? Does it not equally exclude all such voters from 
 voting either for or against the slavery clause ? Does it not impose 
 an unprecedented and unfair restriction on the freedom of election, 
 by excluding from the polls all persons who are not willing to take 
 an oath, under the penalties of perjury to support a Constitution 
 proposed for their ratification ? Can a ratification, thus effected, of 
 a Constitution, bo properly considered a ratification at all ? Does 
 not the mode of submission entirely remove the decision of the 
 slavery question from the control of a majority of all the legal 
 voters, and subject it to the control of a mere majority of such 
 voters as are willing to vote for the Constitution ? Has not the 
 Convention, then, uttered a palpable falsehood in declaring that the 
 Constitution, or any part of the same, was to be submitted for rati- 
 fication or rejection by all the legal voters of Kansas ? Is not the 
 pretended mode of submission thus adopted a fraudulent evasion of 
 
47 
 
 the freedom and fairness of popular election ? Does it not constitute 
 an anti-republican mode of constitutional adoption? Does not all 
 this appear on the face of the schedule itself? Is it not, therefore, 
 unnecessary for Congress to look behind or beyond the schedule for 
 evidence that the accompanying Constitution is not and cannot be 
 the act and deed of the people of Kansas, either directly or through 
 the legitimate act of an authorized agent? 
 
 When you shall be prepared to answer each and all of these ques- 
 tions with a satisfactory negative, then, and not until then, you may 
 be able to substantiate the crimination which you have so hastily 
 applied to Governor Wise's unofficial conduct. 
 
 A VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT. 
 
LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 GOVERNOR WISE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA ANTI-LECOMPTON MEETING. 
 
 RICHMOND, February 6, 1858. 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 In reply to your telegraph, received this morning, 
 I have said that I cannot attend the mass meeting of the Democracy 
 of Philadelphia, proposed to be held on Monday evening next. And 
 I have hardly time to respond to your letter, since received, and the 
 request to present ray views on the question of the admission of Kan- 
 sas, as a State of this Union, under the Lecompton Constitution, as 
 presented to Congress by the President of the United States. For 
 the last seventeen years I have been advocating the nomination of 
 James Buchanan for the Presidency ; for more than twenty years I 
 have been his warm, personal friend ; and I am as responsible, per- 
 haps, as any other man in the United States for his election, and as 
 deeply anxious as any other person that liis Administration shall be 
 successful, and above all, be worthy of confidence and respect. Our 
 personal relations are as nothing compared to the importance of sup- 
 porting his Administration on questions of mere expediency, and 
 where it is based in its action on moral and legal right. But per- 
 sonal and administrative relations combined arc as nothing, on the 
 other hand, compared with great fundamental, moral and political 
 principles involved in the issues now presented to the country in the 
 7 
 
50 
 
 question of admitting Kansas under the Constitution, now presented 
 as the act and deed of her people, and as an instnimc7it reimhlimn inform. 
 
 These are the two issues now pending before Congress: 
 
 1st. Is the Lecompton Constitution the act and deed of the peo- 
 ple of Kansas ? 
 
 2d. Is it republican in form? 
 
 These are the only two essential issues to be tried. And with a 
 view to a full, fair, and friendly verdict as to the fact, and judgment 
 as to the law of the case, I have carefully, patiently, and repeatedly 
 read the President's message of the 2d inst., in which he recommends 
 the speedy approval by Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, 
 and the reception of Kansas under it, as a State into the Union. I 
 regret to say that the earnest, honest convictions of my mind con- 
 strain me to differ from the President of my choice, and to declare I 
 cannot endorse the Lecompton Constitution as the act and deed of 
 the sovereign people, whose act and deed it professes to be, and that 
 I protest against the mode in which it was pretended to be submit- 
 ted to the people, as anti-republican and oppressive, and offensive 
 to the self respect and moral sense of a free people. 
 
 These convictions of mine have been deliberately formed", and I 
 mean calmly to maintain them, reasoning with friends, and not back- 
 ing from foes, though I stand alone against a host. I propose a rapid 
 review of the message of the President; but before doing so, it is 
 proper to recur to antecedent facts which settled certain points of 
 principle which are now the tests of truth and argument in the case. 
 
 Prior to the act to organize the Territories of Kansas and Ne- 
 braska, the course of Grovernment had been to regiilate by Congress 
 the mode and manner of application by new States for admission 
 into the Union. And the Missouri Compromise had existed from 
 lS19-'20, recognising intervention by Congress in a way deemed 
 unconstitutional and highly obnoxious to the slaveholding States. 
 The former act made a revolution in territorial policy which is stri- 
 king in three particulars : 
 
 1st. It repealed the Missouri Compromise, and established the 
 principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States 
 and Territories. 
 
 2d. It declared for the people of Territories popular sovereignty 
 and self government, by "leaving them perfeclhj free to form and 
 regulate their domestic institutions in their own ivay, subject only to the 
 Constitution of the United States.'''' 
 
51 
 
 3d. It repealed the territorial laws of Louisiana, existing pre- 
 viously to 1S20, protecting and establishing slavery. 
 
 Thus, if any thing new, if any thing valuable, was established by 
 this act, it was non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States 
 and Territories ; and, above all, the " perfect" freedom of the peoyle 
 of those Territories to form and regulate not one, but all their domestic 
 inst.itxitions in their own way, subordinate only to the supreme law of 
 the Union. They were to be trammelled by no views of expediency 
 of the Federal Government or any of its departments ; but the peo- 
 ple for themselves were to form and regulate their own affairs in 
 their own way, subject onl}'^ to the Constitution of the United States. 
 Popular sovereignty and the right of self government in the people 
 of Kansas, then, is not an open question now. It was closed by the 
 positive enactment of this act, declaratory of their riglits. True, the 
 people were, of course, to exercise this sovereignty of self government 
 in a practical and usual mode. They were not left to primary as- 
 semblies, to mobs, or aggregate meetings. The American mode of 
 self goverment is by conventional, representative or municipal 
 bodies. But all these bodies are but agents, servants, and represen- 
 tatives. When they " form and regulate," they still form and regu- 
 late for the people, and not for themselves. Their acts, at last, are 
 but the acts of the people, and their deeds but the deeds of the people. 
 When, therefore, a Convention sends a Constitution to Congress to be 
 approved, as it goes up not as their act and deed, but as the act and 
 deed of the people, done and performed by them as their agents ; the 
 question, then, is always — not whether the act and deed is the act 
 and deed of a Convention, but is it the act and deed of the people? 
 and this, no matter whether the instrument goes up from the Con- 
 vention proclaiming, or from the ballot box of the people voting it. 
 By the very Kansas act itself, it is obliged to be the act and deed of 
 the people — theirs, and none others — whether it proceeds from them 
 directly, or through their representatives. 
 
 And, for these reasons, I had no difficulty in determining that the 
 act of 1854, the Kansas and Nebraska law, was an '■'enabling act. 
 It created no right not pre-existing — for popular sovereignty is self 
 existing — but declared and admitted and recognized in th e pe opl^e 
 the right of self government, to form and regulate all their domestic 
 institutions in th eir own way, consistent with paramountTaw. 
 
 Under this law they were formed into an organized Territory ; and 
 under the territorial law thev formed a Convention to make a Con- 
 
52 
 
 stitution of State Government, with a view to admission into the 
 Union. All this was legitimate ; and, as to how the election of mem- 
 bers to the Convention should be held, and how contested elections 
 were to be determined — all matters of this sort were left to them- 
 selves, without the right of intervention from any quarter. I avoid 
 enquiring into the frauds which may have been perpetrated, and 
 which, doubtless, were perpetrated, on both sides, in this election 
 to constitute a Convention. 
 
 But, that body, however legitimate, or however fairly or unfairly 
 constituted, was not empowered to make a Constitution and to pro- 
 claim it, without submitting it to the people before it was submit- 
 ted to Congress as the act and deed of the people of Kansas. And 
 herein is the first point of difference with the President. He says 
 that if the Convention was not prohibited from proclaiming it with- 
 out submission to the people, they had authority to proclaim it. I 
 say that it is a settled Democratic principle of American institutions 
 " that tJie 2>owcrs not delegated by the j)coj)Ie are reserved to them.^^ But 
 this point of difference does not arise in this case ; for, as I will show 
 presently, whatever power the Convention had in this respect, they 
 did not pretend to exercise it, or to claim it ; but, as a represeta- 
 tive body and not a primary, submitted the work of their agency, 
 the Constitution, to their principals, the people. 
 
 In my letter dated the 19th of November, addressed to the editors 
 of the Richmond Enquirer, I took the ground that there was no autho- 
 rity delegated by the people to the Convention of Kansas to pro- 
 claim a Constitution without submitting it to the people for ratifi- 
 cation or rejection by them ; "yet," said that, "if upon precedent, 
 the Coveution of Kansas adopted a republican form of State govern- 
 ment, and reported it to Congress, without submitting It to the yeople,''^ 
 I agreed in accepting it, and in receiving Kansas as a State, " slave 
 or free, into the Union." This letter was written on the 19th of 
 November 1857, and on the 24th of the same month, five days after- 
 wards, I saw for the first time, published in the Richmond Enquirer, 
 the schedule of the Lecompton Constitution. 
 
 The publication of this document presented the subject under a 
 new phase, adverted to by the President in his message of Decem- 
 ber 1857. The result of the election in Kansas had still to be ascer- 
 tained, and certainly it could not be clearly said what were the Pre- 
 sident's conclusions on the affairs of that Territory. His argument 
 fairly admitted and claimed for the people the right of passing on 
 
53 
 
 the work of the Convention, and his conclusion seemed to be re- 
 served. His counsel was not "dark," or double," or dubious; but 
 he was uncommitted to any practical conclusion by his December 
 message, and I supposed that the friends of the Administration 
 would be left free to take ground according to their conscientious 
 convictions, on a full development of the whole subject. 
 
 More than a month had elapsed since the publication of the sche- 
 dule. I had full time to understand the provisions of this submis- 
 sion to the people, and was prepared to take the grounds occupied 
 in my letter to the Tammany Society, dated the 30th December last. 
 That letter was deliberately written, was kept in my possession 
 for days, w^as re-written, and put forth with a firm purpose to serve 
 the Administration and the country. I saw a formidable opposition, 
 thorougiily organized, in the Democratic ranks, of those opposed to 
 Mr. Buchanan's nomination, bent on driving from his support every 
 Northern Democrat on the Kansas question, and every Southern De- 
 mocrat on the fillibustering Puenta Arenas question. I sawafac- 
 tion of extremists who are bent on rushing the South, slavery. De- 
 mocracy and the Union, on the very bosses of the buc kler of popu lar 
 "sovereighfyi and upon the moral sense of the whole country, and 
 -tesing^fhe moralprestige of a minority of the Union who are d e- 
 manding justice ancl equality, by denying justice and equality to a' 
 majority against a minority of peopled Ka nsas. I left that I might 
 interpose a timely blow to save the Administration from the diTemma 
 of hojding its Northern friends to the hard neceisTty^ofdeiTying 
 popular sovereignty, and of withholding justice and equality from 
 the peopTe~arthe_polls, in a~Ter ntory vvliere self -government and 
 perfect f reedom of election were guarantied by the very a ct organ- 
 izing it. No Northern man could strike that blow with effect, and 
 I felt the moral obligation to strike it for "justice, even to my own 
 hurt." I saw what would be the effect upon me, personally ; that 
 misrepresentation and =^buse would follow, and many of my best 
 friends would condemn the apparent rashness of the act. In all 
 this I have not been disappointed. But now that the thunders have 
 rolled over my head, and I see the full effect, even beyond my anti- 
 cipations — the effect of the special message of the President — his 
 authority wielded against the position which I devotedly assumed 
 for his defence- j-I c jilmly sur vey the su bject ag ain, and, ins t ead of 
 j;etreating, advance on th e positj on I have assumed. In November 
 I said that if the Convention had proclaimed the Lecompton Con- 
 
54 
 
 stitution without submitting it at all to the people, I would accept it 
 as a legitimate and de facto instrument. But now that it has been 
 submitted in the manner and form of the eleventh and fourteenth 
 sections of its schedule, I repeat the position of my Tammany letter, 
 and would adopt it only subject to a fair and legal vote of the people 
 of Kansas, to be prescribed by their Territorial Legislature — not 
 by Congress. 
 
 In reviewing the message I pass over all that is said respecting 
 the rebellion and usurpation of the Topekaites. Their course has 
 been violent and unlawful in the extreme. I claim, on the other 
 hand, that their opponents in Kansas have acted under lawful au- 
 thority ; that they have proceeded under the act of Congress and of 
 territorial organization, and that up to the point of the schedule of 
 submission of the Lecompton Constitution to the people, their acts 
 were dc jure and dc facto rightful in the legitimate sense. But what 
 has that to do, legally or logically, with the issue? — Is the Lecomp- 
 ton Constitution the act and deed of the people? — Is its schedule 
 Republican ? 
 
 If insurrection and rebellion were arraying themselves against 
 law and order in a Territory, all I can say is that they ought to have 
 been arrested and punished long ago by the Federal Executive of 
 the United States. When the whiskey insurrection broke out in 
 Pennsylvania, would it iiave authorized a lawful Convention in that 
 State to have submitted a Constitution to the people in such a 
 schedule as allowed men to vote for it, but not against it ; as allowed 
 one man to vote down 1,000 men, all having equal rights; as pre- 
 tended to submit one question alone, and yet submitted it in such a 
 way, that in order to vote for or against that^ the people were obliged 
 to vote for and not against something else which might be obnoxious 
 or odious to them ; as insulted and oppressed them with a test oath, 
 the most odious instrument of tyranny, to support a Constitution, if 
 adopted, hefore it was adoiited, and then, after being forced to gulp the 
 oath in order to vote at all, to have the vote not counted, because it 
 was against and not for what he was sworn to support, if adopted 
 against his will? No. Gen. Washington put down the insurrection, 
 and he would have made it no excuse for fraud, injustice, inequality, 
 or oppression on the part of others who were acting under the color 
 of lawful authority. So the Topekaites ought to have been made to 
 submit to lawful authority; but no one can contend that they for- 
 feited their elective franchise or their freedom of choice to disap- 
 
55 
 
 prove or approve, to ratify or reject, an organic law when submitted 
 to them. But were Topekaites alone opposed to the Lecompton 
 Constitution ? No. Some pro-slavery men were opposed to it, and 
 this schedule deprived them of their sovereign rights as well as the 
 Topekaites. Law-abiding citizens, as well as rebels, were compelled 
 to vote for and not against this Constitution, or not to vote at all. 
 The wrong of the Topekaites will not justify the wrong of the 
 Lecompton Convention, nor cure the defects of the Lecompton 
 schedule. What is that schedule? 
 
 Its 11th section reads: 
 
 "Before this Constitution shall be sent to Congress for admission 
 into the Union as a State, it shall be submitted to all the white male 
 inhabitants of this Territory, for a2)provul or disapproval, as follows : 
 The President of this Convention shall, by proclamation, declare 
 that on the 21st day of December 1857, at the different election 
 precincts now established by law, or which may be established as 
 herein provided, in the Territor}'- of Kansas, an election shall be 
 held, over which shall preside three judges, or a majority of three, 
 to be appointed as follows : The president of this Convention shall 
 appoint three commissioners in each county in the Territory, whose 
 duty it shall be to appoint three judges of election in the several 
 precincts of their respective counties, at which election the Constitu- 
 tion framed by this Convention shall be submitted to all the white male 
 inhabitants of the Territory of Kansas in the said Territory upon 
 that day, and over the age of twenty-one years, for ratification or re- 
 jection, in the following manner and form," &c. 
 
 Now, it must surely be admitted, that is a plain submission of the 
 whole Constitution framed by the Convention. The submission of 
 the whole Constitution is repeated twice in this clause, in a way 
 not to be mistaken. And yet is it not strange that Mr. Buchanan 
 should have made the mistake of saying in his message that the 
 whole of the Lecompton Constitution was not, and that a part, the 
 slavery clause alone, was submitted to the people? Will it be said 
 in reply that the whole was submitted only sub mode, after a speci- 
 fied manner and form? Well, let us look at the manner and form. 
 The manner and form is : 
 
 "The voting shall be by ballot. The judges of said election shall 
 cause to be kept, two poll books by two clerks, by them appointed. 
 The ballots cast at said election shall be endorsed '■Constitution with 
 Slacery,^^ and ^Constitution with no Slavery,''^ &c. There is no other 
 
56 
 
 form touching this point but this; and is it not plain, still, that the 
 whole Constitution ivas submitted by the form as well as by the 
 preceding clause embodying the principle of entire submission? 
 The whole was submitted in form as well as substance, but theyb?-m 
 of submission was made to contradict the principle of submission. 
 The principle was submission of the whole for ^'approval or disaj)- 
 provaW'' fur " ralijication or rejection,'''' but the form was for "approval" 
 and "ratification" alone, and there was no form for ^UllsapprovaV or 
 ^^ rejection.''^ 
 
 Is it answered that this was in substance but a submission of a 
 part, for there was a form approving or disapproving, ratifying or 
 rejecting slavery? I beg pardon, and won't repeat tliat it was an 
 odious discrimination to me to allow slavery alone to be disapproved 
 and rejected, and nothing else. But, passing that by, is it not plain, 
 I reply, that no one was allowed to vote for or against slavery, a 
 part, unless he would also vote ybr the Constitution, the whole of 
 it, without exception? Any one might vote to reject or to adopt 
 slavery, provided he would vote to adopt the Constitution, and no 
 one was allowed to vote for or against slavery who did not vote for 
 the whole Constitution. Is it not plain, then, that the object was 
 not to submit a part only, but to force the adoption of the whole ? 
 
 The whole was not fairly submitted. One thousand voters went 
 to the polls; nine hundred and ninety-nine might desire to vote 
 against the Constitution, and one for it; the one would be counted, 
 and the nine hundred and ninety-nine would not be counted. 
 
 The part as to slavery, which was submitted for alternate voting, 
 for and against, was not fairly submitted. One thousand pro-slavery 
 men might go to the polls, desiring to vote for slavery, but against 
 the Constitution, their votes could not be counted, and one free- 
 soiler, who voted for the Constitution and against slavery, would be 
 counted, and overcome the nine hundred and ninety-nine. It is idle 
 to say that this was as fair for the one side as the other ; for, though 
 this be equally true as to the nine hundred and ninety-nine free-soil 
 voters against the one pro-slavery voter, yet this would only prove 
 the case to be one of a double instead of a single injustice. It 
 proves only it was a wrong, injuriously affecting both sides and the 
 whole people, and not a part only. 
 
 The truth is, there was obviously a sinister and anti-republican 
 purpose in thus giving an unfair election as to a part, coupled with 
 no election as to the whole. It was to force the people to adopt the 
 
57 
 
 Constitution framed by the Convention. No man was allowed to 
 vote for slavery who did not also vote for the Constitution ; and no 
 man was allowed to vote against slavery who did not vote for the 
 Constitution. He might reject slavery or adopt it, provided he 
 would vote for the Constitution ; and if he voted against the Con- 
 stitution, his vote for or against slavery was not allowed to be 
 counted. 
 
 This was not all. The 14th section is worse than the iniquity of 
 the 11th: 
 
 " Section 14th. Every person oftering to vote at the aforesaid 
 election, upon the said Constitution, shall, if challenged, take an 
 oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and to sup- 
 port this Constitution, if adopted, under the penalties of perjury 
 under the territorial laws." 
 
 The Democratic party had just come out of a severe and doubt- 
 ful conflict with the Know-Nothing secret society, the most odious 
 feature of which was a " lest oatliP Now, behold an honest, peace- 
 ful, law-abiding citizen approaching the polls in Kansas under this 
 schedule; I imagine myself an ultra Southern slaveholder potto 
 the ordeal of a challenge under this clause of the schedule ; I am 
 anxious, very anxious, to record my vote for my right to hold the 
 chief part of the little property I own ; I am told that I have the 
 right, by the grant of the high Lecompton Convention, to vote for or 
 against property in slaves ; I approach the polls to exercise the 
 right; I am challenged; the Bible is held out to me to swear first 
 to " support the Constitution of the United States ;" I ask why im- 
 pose on me that oath? I urge that the obligation is binding on me 
 without the oath — that I love and obey the Constitution of the 
 United States, and that it is made the supreme law of the land, 
 binding of itself — but being willing to support that instrument, and 
 anxious to vote for my property, I assent to swear to support it. 
 But I am told I must, in the second place, swear also to support 
 the Lecompton " Constitution, if adopted, under the penalties of 
 perjury under the territorial laws." I redden into wrath under the 
 insult of such an oath tendered to a freeman at the polls — to sup- 
 port a Constitution, if adopted, hefore its adoption! I denounce the 
 obstacle to my freedom of election. It is in vain ; I must take it 
 or leave my property unprotected. I suppose — the supposition is 
 almost intolerable — I take the oath ; I am then, and then only, 
 granted the privilege of voting. I vote for slavery^ hut against the 
 
58 
 
 Constitution. I am then told that my vote cannot be counted^ yet I am 
 sworn to siipport, if adopted, what 1 have voted against! Stun^^ by in- 
 sult, and then disfranchised, I go away maddened to violence by 
 injustice, inequality and insult added to injury ! Is that my act and 
 deed ? Is that republican ? If Caligula was a tyrant for posting 
 laws too liigh to be read by the Roman people, what does this de- 
 serve to be called, which puts the whole and a part together, so 
 that a minority for the whole may prevail over a majority for or 
 against the part? Is it not the very hocus pocus and legerdemain 
 of keeping the promise to the ear of the people and breaking it to 
 their hopes? ' I tell you that no proud, free people will stand insult 
 and outrage like this, and such despotism is enough to drive peaceful 
 and good citizens to violence for a redress of grievances. But the 
 question is not whether the Lecompton Constitution has been op- 
 posed unlawfully, but is it the act and deed of the sovereign people, 
 whose it purports to be — and is it republican in its submission by 
 the schedule of the Lecompton Constitution ? And mark, too, that 
 this test oath is applied when the Constitution is to be sent to Con- 
 gress from a territory for approval. After taking this oath, the 
 casuist may determine whether he could, if the Constitution be 
 adopted, oppose it before .Congress, though he voted against it at 
 the polls. 
 
 But it is urged in the message that the people, if opposed to 
 slavery, might have voted it out of the Constitution on the 21st 
 December. I deny that they could have voted for or against slavery 
 under this schedule, unless they voted also for the Constitution. As 
 I have said, nine hundred and ninety-nine might have gone to the 
 polls and voted for or against slavery, and yet have been out voted 
 by one man, if they voted against the Constitution and the one voted 
 for it. In a word, no one who voted against the Constitution could 
 vote at all. How unfair, then, to urge that those who were opposed 
 to the Constitution, though for or against slavery, staid away from 
 the polls on the 21st December, and let the election go by defliult? 
 Could they have voted at all if they were against the Constitution? 
 Could they be counted for or against slavery, unless they voted for 
 the Constitution? ' Wiiy hold the people responsible for not attend- 
 ing the polls, vi^hen, if they had attended them, they were not 
 allowed to vote but in one way, not all allowed to vote tlieir own 
 way, and the minority of one was given the majority of one over 
 a thousand? Do you call i\\h election ? Election has which of the 
 
59 
 
 two " at least to choose." But here there was no alternative but in 
 respect to slavery, and that was not allowed unless you voted the 
 one way on the Constitution. Such monstrous injustice and ine- 
 quality never offended the moral sense of freemen before in this 
 country. I cannot agree with the President, therefore, when he 
 says : " It is impossible that any people could have proceeded with 
 more regularity in the formation of a Constitution than the people 
 of Kansas have done." The people of Kansas have not been al- 
 lowed to hold a fair, free and full election at all, though the whole 
 Constitution was pretended to be submitted to them. No ; not 
 upon the part which the President says was alone submitted to 
 them. 
 
 You see, gentlemen, that I arrive at these facts from the face of 
 the record — from the schedule itself. I don't go into Kansas for 
 evidences of fraud or any other fact. I don't go behind the schedule 
 which is annexed to the Lecompton Constitution itself. It shows 
 on its face a fact stronger than any proof, that the people did not 
 vote — it shows that it was im-possible for them to vote their sovereign 
 will in a fair, free, and full election. Such an election cannot pos- 
 sibly be held under such a schedule. This Congress is bound to 
 look at. I am bound in certain cases to cause the seal of this State 
 to be affixed to papers for the purpose of authentication. I have 
 no election. If the paper is proper to be certified, I must affix the 
 seal. But suppose that in the act of authentication, by affixing the 
 seal, it appears to me that there is a doubt even whether the paper 
 is the act and deed of the party whose act and deed it purports to 
 be. Must I not enquire whether it be the act and deed of the 
 party ? If I affix authentication to what is not his, I may do him 
 irreparable damage. But suppose that it appears on the face of the 
 paper itself that it coiddii't be his act and deed — that he was not 
 left a free agent — am I bound to certify that to be his act and deed, 
 which not only is not, but could not be his act and deed? Now, as 
 I said in November, if the Convention had proclaimed this Constitu- 
 tion, and sent it to Congress, without submitting it at all to the 'people, 
 then Congress would have had simply the evidence of the Conven- 
 tion, the representative and agent, that this was the authorized in- 
 strument of their principals — the people. The evidence to the 
 contrary wouldn't have appeared in the record and on the return 
 itself. And we wouldn't have been authorized, if you please to go 
 
60 
 
 behind the return of the Convention, or to have taken evidence 
 aliunde, or admitted a plea to matter dehors the record. But the 
 Lecompton Convention submitted their Constitution to popular 
 approval or disapproval, ratification or rejection. It purports to be 
 the act of the people — not of the Convention only, but of the 
 people also. The Convention did not fully and finally adopt it, and 
 this schedule shows that the people did not, because they could not 
 as it was proposed. It is, then, neither the act of the Convention 
 nor of the people. It is, in fact, adopted by neither, and couldn't 
 be by the latter. 
 
 If Congress receives and ddopts it as a State Constitution for 
 Kansas under these circumstances, will not Congress be intervening 
 to impose a Constitution upon a people which is not theirs? Will 
 they not arbitrarily intervene to decide a question which belongs to 
 the people of Kansas alone — to all and all alike allowed b}^ law to 
 vote? Have all and all alike been allowed to vote? Were those 
 who did vote allowed to vote against the Constitution as well as 
 for it ? 
 
 We are told that we are to shut our eyes to the record. What 
 evidence have we, then, that it is a Constitution at all? We are 
 told, then, that this is not the time to raise the question, de facto, 
 whether it is the act and deed of the people of Kansas. When 
 would be the time, when was the time, if it be not the time now, 
 to enquire whether this is a genuine Constitution of the people of 
 Kansas, and whether it is or is not republican, when these, and 
 these only, are the questions before Congress ? 
 
 Why, it is asked, has the issue of fact been delayed so long? I 
 answer, how could the issue be made up before the returns were 
 made, and the evidence appeared on the record submitted to 
 Congress ? 
 
 Ah ! but we are told that it is inexpedient to raise this question 
 at all ; that expediency requires Congress to decide the question. 
 When was it morally determined that the policy of this nation 
 should be governed by expediency rather than by justice or right? 
 But what right has Congress to set up its decrees of expediency 
 over and above the sovereign rights of a people to free and fair 
 election ? Is expediency to be carried so far as to allow Congress 
 to intervene so as to set its will over the will of the people of Kan- 
 sas, or to substitute its will for theirs, and to give a minority Con- 
 
61 
 
 stitution to a majority? This would be intervention with a ven- 
 geance, in the teeth of non-intervention, so much exclaimed for by 
 those who advocate this Constitution ! 
 
 But the President offers an inducement to the anti-slavery party 
 in Kansas by saying: "If a majority of them" (the people of Kan- 
 sas) " desired to abolish domestic slavery within the State there is 
 no other possible mode by which this can be effected so speedily, as 
 by prompt admission." This hint is somewhat dangerous in point 
 of policy. It cuts both ways. It might be asked whether this 
 commends itself to pro-slavery gentlemen who are advocating the 
 " prompt admission." Some of them once repealed laws protecting 
 and establishing slavery in Kansas. They had better not make it 
 too apparent in the South that " prompt admission" would most 
 speedily unmake the slavery there which was restored by the Dred 
 Scott decision. But this was not the President's fair meaning. He 
 meant to say only that it was in his opinion the speediest way to 
 obtain a fair vote by the people. 
 
 In other words, Congress is to do a thing in order that it may be 
 immediately undone! Why do it to be undone? Is Congress to 
 give the Territory a Constitution obnoxious to a majority in order 
 that that majority may have State sovereignty to put it to the 
 tortures of its indignation ? Why not rather allow the sovereign 
 people directly and at once to select for themselve the form of 
 government they prefer, instead of submitting to their passions an 
 instrument which the argument admits they abhor? Would it be 
 less trouble, or take less time, to refer the matter back to their deci- 
 sion, and to avoid the issues which might and would arise under an 
 adopted and admitted Constitution which undertakes to bind the 
 sovereignty of the people not to change their form of government 
 before Anno Domini 1864? By authenticating this instrument by 
 the arbitrary intervention of Congress, every sort of question of 
 vested right and of bounden sovereignty would arise. B}-- "leaving 
 the people perfectly free to elect their own form of government in 
 their own way, without fear, force, fraud or intervention, those issues 
 and worse would be avoided. The agitation in Kansas would be in- 
 tense, to adopt this Lecompton instrument, and the excitement 
 there would be roused in a new and more fearful form than ever, 
 and remain still in Congress, the Cabinet, and the country univer- 
 sally. I proposed, on the contrary, in my Tammany letter, that 
 Congress should not decide the question of fact, but refer it back to 
 
62 
 
 the Territorial Legislature for submission under territorial law, to the 
 •whole of the legal voters, under a fair, free and full election. Tliis 
 was done both in the case of Wisconsin and of Michigan, under 
 cases involving the principle of this case of reference and submis- 
 sion. This imposes no condition of admission, but receives the 
 State into the Union provisionally — provided only that the Consti- 
 tution is the will of the people fairly and legally polled. 
 
 And why impose this Constitution of a minority on a majority? 
 Cui hone ? Does any Southern man imagine that this is a practicable 
 or sufferable way of making a slave State? Who believes now that 
 Kansas will be made a slave State, or kept one for any time, by the 
 admission of this Constitution ? Who will carry a slave there now 
 to become a bone of contention in a border war? the sport of vio- 
 lence and fraud and force like that which has so long endangered 
 person and iDroperty, and political franchise, in that unhappy bat- 
 tle-ground of sectional feuds ? To what end is this to be done, if 
 speedily it is to be undone with State authority, created to drive 
 slave property from the Territory ? 
 
 We have proudly, heretofore, contended only for equality and 
 justice; but if this be wantonly done without winning a stake — the 
 power of a slave State thereby — it will be worse than vain. It will 
 be snatching power per fas aut nefas, to be lost "speedily" with the 
 loss of something of far more worth than political votes — our moral 
 l^estige. If we are not willing to do justice, we can't ask for jus- 
 tice ; if we can't agree to equality, we must expect to be denied it. 
 It is our bull goring the anti-slavery ox. Suppose we had had a 
 majority of slaveholders in that Territory; suppose a minority of 
 abolitionists had gotten the census and registry into their hands and 
 had kept fifteen out of thirty-four counties out of the Convention ; 
 suppose they had formed a Constitution with a clause prohibiting 
 slavery, and had sent it to Congress without submitting it to a ma- 
 jority of the legal voters; or suppose they had submitted all parts 
 of the Constitution to the popular vote, except the one clause prohibit- 
 ing slavery, knowing it would be voted down if submitted to the 
 majority of the people ; suppose such a " boot on the other leg" had 
 been submitted to Congress, and we had then heard the absoluteness 
 of a Convention contended for by Black Eepublicans, demanding of 
 Congress to sustain the doctrine of " legitimacy^ I tell you that 
 every Southern man would have been in arms and would be roused 
 to the shedding of blood, rather than submit to Congress, fastening 
 
63 
 
 upon a majority of pro-slavery people an arbitrary rescript of a naere 
 Convention, unauthorized to proclaim its Constitution vi^ithout an 
 express grant. This is the same principle, accompanied by trickery 
 and fraud. "We are willing to do unto others as we would have 
 them do unto us." The Southern people ask for no injustice, no 
 inequality. 
 
 We are told that " prompt admission" of Kansas as a State, will 
 end the agitation in Congress and localize it in Kansas. What is 
 the Kansas question? Is it local to Kansas? No. It never can be 
 local again. It has pervaded all places and all classes in our coun- 
 try. Let Congress endorse this schedule of legerdemain, let the 
 South insist on it, let the Northern Democracy be required to con- 
 sent to the injustice, and the precedent becomes of universal appli- 
 cation and citation against us for all time. Not only will the exam- 
 ple plead, but it will be a plea in continuous cases of similar import 
 and danger, rising successively as long as our vast territories to the 
 Pacific shall be filling up. It comes up again and again, every year, 
 from territories extending from Mesilla Valley to Dacotah. Flatter 
 not ourselves, then, that any mode of adjustment will do because it 
 is the " speediest" for Kansas. It is all essential that the settlement 
 shall be just and right and equal. If not it is sure to be mischievous 
 to that party which has snatched power without right, and done 
 wrong that good may come of it. To do justice is always the best 
 policy. If all would " demand only what is right and submit to 
 nothing that is wrong," injustice and oppression could never be 
 perpetrated or tolerated. 
 
 The ulterior effects of adopting the Lecompton Constitution, with 
 its schedule annexed, will be worse than referring back the question 
 to the Territorial decision. It will arraign this administration and 
 the Democracy and the South for demanding more than its right, 
 and for forcing resistance to wrong. It will be jagging the lion of 
 a majority whilst the hand of a minority is in its mouth. It will 
 return the chalice to our own lips when the Kansas question again 
 and again arises in North Texas, in New Mexico, in Mesilla Valley, 
 and in all our boundless domain of unsettled and fast settling terri- 
 tory. It will drive from us thousands of honest Democrats in the 
 North, who can willingly stand by us for justice and equality, but 
 who must leave us when we demand more and refuse justice and 
 equality to others. It will raise the Black Republican flag over the 
 capitol in the next struggle for power, and that, then will raise the 
 
64 
 
 last dread issue of union or disunion ! Are not some aiming to drive 
 us to such extremities as will raise that issue past being laid ? 
 
 For my part, gentlemen, I address you as the friend of Mr. Bu- 
 chanan and his Administration. They have my best wishes and 
 warmest friendship, and I would save both from danger and defeat. 
 I trust in their pure and patriotic motives, but I regard much more 
 the Democracy, the South, and the Union, and I am anxious for 
 their fate. As for myself, I fear nothing when firmly standing on 
 the right, in spite of friends and foes. 
 
 I received your letter yesterday morning, an8 have written this 
 in great haste, to be in time for the mail this evening. You will 
 please see that it is correctly published. I have not time to revise 
 and condense it. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 HENRY A. WISE. 
 
 John W. Forney, David Webster, Daniel Dougherty, 
 E. G. Webb, Esqrs. Committee. 
 
LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 GOVERNOR WISE 
 
 TO [ 
 
 THE OEISTTR-AL COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF ILLINOIS. 
 
 RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 13, 1858. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I cannot express to you the emotions of my bosom, 
 excited by your appeal to me for aid in the warm contest which 
 your noble Democracy is waging with abolitionism. Every impulse 
 prompts me to rush to your side. Your position is a grand one, and 
 in some respects unexampled. In the face of doubt and distrust at- 
 tempted to be thrown upon your Democracy and its gallant leader 
 by the pretext of pretenders that you were giving aid and comfort 
 to the arch enemy of our country's peace and safety and our party » 
 integrity, I see you standing alone, isolated by a tyrannical proscrip- 
 tion, which would, alike foolishly and wickedly, lop off one of the 
 most vigorous limbs of National Democracy — the limb of glorious 
 Illinois ! I see you, in spite of this imputation, firmly fronting the 
 foe, and battling to maintain : — 
 
 Conservative nationality against embittered and implacable sec- 
 tionalism ; 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 Constitutional rights, operating froprio vigore, and every way 
 against all unequal and unjust Federal or Territorial Legislation. 
 
 The right of the people to govern themselves against all force or 
 fraud ; 
 
 The right of the sovereign people to look at the "returns" and 
 behind the "returns" of all their representative bodies, agents, trus- 
 tees or servants ; 
 
 The responsibility of all governors, representatives, trustees, 
 agents, and servants to the principals, the people, who are " the 
 governed" and the source of all political power ; 
 
 Utter opposition to the detestable doctrine of the absolutism of 
 Conventions to prescribe and proclaim fundamental forms of govern- 
 ment, at their will, without submission to the sovereign people — a 
 doctrine fit only for slaves, and claimed only by legitimists and des- 
 pots of the Old World ; 
 
 Powers of any sort, not expressly delegated to any man, or body 
 of men, are expressly "reserved to the people ;" 
 
 No absolute or dictatorial authority in representative bodies ; 
 
 The representative principle as claiming submission and obedience 
 to the will of the constituents ; 
 
 The sovereignty of the organized people, supreme above all mere 
 representative bodies. Conventions or Legislatures, to decide, vote 
 upon, and determine what shall be their supreme law ; 
 
 Justice and equality between States and their citizens, and be- 
 tween voters to elect their agents and representatives, and to ratify 
 or reject any proposed system of government; 
 
 Submission to the Constitution and laws of the Federal Union, 
 and strict observance of all the rights of the States and their citi- 
 zens, but resistance to the dictation or bribes of Congress, or any 
 other power to yield the inalienable right of self-government ; 
 
 Protection in the Territories and every where to all rights of per- 
 sons and of property, in accordance with the rights of the States, 
 and with the Constitution and Laws of the Union ; 
 
 Equity and uniformity in the mode of admitting new States into 
 the Union, making the same rules and ratios to apply to all alike; 
 
 The rejection of all compromises, conditions, or terms which 
 would discriminate between forms of republican constitutions, ad- 
 mitting one with one number of population and requiring three 
 times that number for another form equally republican ; 
 
 The great law of settlement of the public domain of the United 
 
67 
 
 States, free, equal and just, never to be "temporized" or "local- 
 ized" by temporary or partial expedients, but to be adjusted by per- 
 manent, uniform, and universal rules of riglit and justice. 
 
 Maintaining these and the like principles, I deem them to be the 
 aim of the struggle of the devoted Democracy in this signal contest y 
 and so understanding them, I glory in their declaration and defence. 
 I would sacrifice much and go far to uphold your arms in this bat- 
 tle. I would most gladly visit your people, address them, and in- 
 voke them to stand fast by the standard of their faith and freedom, 
 and never to let go the truths for which they contend, for they are 
 vital and cardinal and essential, and can never be yielded without 
 yielding liberty itself But, sir, I am like a tied man, bound to my 
 duties here ; and if my office would allow me to leave it, I could 
 not depart from the bedside of illness in my family, which would 
 probably recall me before I could reach Illinois ; and my own state 
 of health admonishes me that I ought not to undertake a campaign 
 as arduous as that you propose. I know what the labors of the 
 stump are, and am not yet done suffering bodily from my efforts for 
 Democracy in 1855. For these reasons I cannot obey your call ; 
 but, permit me to add, fight on ! fight on ! fiight on ! Never yield 
 but in death or victory ! And oh that I was unbound, and could 
 do more than look on, throbbing with every pulse of your glorious 
 struggle — with its every blow and breath — cheered with its hopes 
 and chafed by its doubts. You have my prayers, 
 
 And I am yours, truly, 
 
 HENRY A. WISE. 
 Hon. John Moore, Chairman, &c. . 
 
4 t> ^ / 
 
 /53 
 
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