The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-07-17

all take it, for better or for worse-ju st as it
is-or we cannot admit the State at all. The
people in new States make their Constitutions.
Our power is limited to the admission or rejec-
ton of State, whatever its Constitution may
be. Again, it is not clear that the provision
complained of by the Senator from Georgia
will prevent the people of Kansas from subvert-
ing this Constitution, and establishing q new
one at any time short of the expiration of nine
years. The Constitution of the State of New
York, established in 1921, provided for altera-
successive Legislatures. A party desiring rad
ical innovation, and finding it impossible to
obtain that object in the form prescribed in
the Constitution, secured majority in the
Legislature, and, without any constitutional
authority, carried through a law by which pro-
ceedings were instituted for calling Conven-
ton, which was subsequently held, and which
framed new Constitution. This new Consti-
tuition being submitted to the people, and ap-
proved by them, in derogation of the old one,
became, and it yet remains, the supreme law of
the land. a.
Mr.. DOUGLAS. 1 will state to the Sena-
tor from New York, so that he may know the
fact, that the Constitution of Kansas, of which
he speaks, provides that amendments may be
proposed by two-thirds of each House of the
Legislature, for two successive Legislatures
and if adopted by two successive Legislatures,
by twothirds of each House, they are to be
submitted to the people, and then majority of
the people may amend it; but it provides that
no such amendment shall be made, either by
Mr. WELLER. A State Constitution must
only be Republican in form.
Mr. SEWARD. thank the honorable Sen
ator for the suggestion, that the only question
necessary and practical here ia, whether Kan
sas has Constitution which is Republican in
form. To most Senators, that is enough, under
any circumstances. confess it is not enough
for me.
If the provisional State of Deseret shall come
here with Constitution which shall sanction
polygamy, certainly shall vote against admit
ting as State community which has revived
that eminently- patriarchal institution, without
stopping to decide whether the institution is in
harmony with Republication or not.
pass now from my own bill, to consider the
new bill presented by the Committee on Terri
tories. So far as the subject of Slavery is con-
cerned, the most which can be claimed for this
bill is, that it gives an equal chance to the peo-
pie of Kansas to choose between Freedom and
Slavery. can well understand that the Sena-
tor from Georgia and the Committee on Terri
tories regard this feature of the bill as being
entirely Just. differ from them only because
the standard of political justice which COM
mends itself to me, is more rigid one. rec
ognise no equality, in moral right or political
expediency, between Slavery and Freedom. /
hold the one to be decidedly good, and the other
to be positively bad. j do not think it wise, or
just, or necessary, to give to the people of a
Territory, where Slavery does not exist, and
never has existed, the privilege of choosing
Slavery. The inhabitants of new Territory
are necessarily in condition of pupilage,
needing the guardian care as well as counsel
of Congress. The experience of Kansas con-
firms this truth. On the 18th day of May, 1854,
there was no civil community, practically
there was not one lawful citizen, within the
Territory. The Kansas organic law passed,
and 10! there was at once civil community
there. But what was its condition? There
were few emigrants scattered throughout
Territory of vast extent, unknown to each
other; unorganized absolutely without civil
institutions; without treasury, or a militia,
or public edi6ces; without organized politi-
cal parties; and without cultivated fields or
workshops, or established markets, and almost
without habitations or homes; incompetent
to selfdefence or selfgovernment, they were
overborne by small intrusive force from an
State addressed by foreign factions,
with present temptations and seducti0ns, with
out having any concert of action amongst them.
selves, they were appealed to, on the one side,
to institute Slavery, not for their own benefit,
but for the supposed benefit of the slavebold-
ing States, and to weaken the power of the
free States-and on the other, by arguments
having little weight, amid the confusion incident
to the organization of Territory. Thus the
greatest political question that could be sub
mitted to any people, a question which Con-
gress itself has been unable to solve, vas de-
volved for its settlement upon a community
which, although it, possessed extraordinary In.
telligence, was, by reason of its immaturity,
unable to elect even a legislature and a magis-
tracy for itself. The result has been, not the
voluntary establishment of popular sovereign
ty. or of selfgOvernment, with or without Sla-
very, but conquest and subjugstion or the
Territory with the establishment of Slavery,
by shareholders from Missouri / maintain,
and no one here will deny, that it would have
besn upviss end injurious to the people of
Kansas, If Congress had directly established
Slavery in that Territory by the organic law.
Congress was bound to foresee the operation of
the organic law which it passed. And Congress
could not pass I. lev, the operation of which
would be to establish Slavery within the Terri.
tory by indirect means, with any more wisdom,
or justice, or benevolence, than it could have
directly established Slavery inere. saw . .
fore, That the existing state Of things in Kan.
sas is the result of the wrongful and injurious
legislation of Congress itself. L maintain, still
more, that, since there was possibility that
Slavery might be established within the Terri.
tory through popular mistake, or surprise, or
conquest, it was 8 solemn responsibility resting
upon Congress to withhold from the people
AZ -.
and deficient in the consolidation which is
essential to every civil State, at least until they
should have attained something more of organ
ization and maturity-the power to decide so
fearful question. You will tell me that this
is a denial of the capacity snd of the right of
civil community to exercise selfgovernment.
1t ia very different thing. 1t is only insisting
that people must have the necessary elements
of civil community, before the power of self
government can safely be conferred on them.
| admit and maintain the right Of every indi-
vidual citizen to enjoy and exercise freedom
and self control, subject to the municipal law
of the land. But deny, at the same time, that
it is parental right or duty to refer to the in.
FAINT child, who is ultimately to become citizen,
the choice, during his minority, between health
and disease, or between virtue and crime Sir,
the long and thu short of the whole matter is,
that until tne Territories OF the Y nlted States
become matured and qualified to assume all
the powers of municipal government, and TO be
admitted as States into the Union, they are de-
Tendencies in pupilage on the Federal Govern
mlent, end Congress is their only real and SOW
ereign legislature. If Slavery is a good insti.
tuition, a necessary one, and one consistent with
the Constitution of the United States, we ought
at once to establish it by our own act within
every Territory of the United States. If on
tie contrary, Slavery is the opposite of all
these things, IS in my judgment it is, then we
ought by our own act to save every Territory
of the United States from Slayerv On tb;ss