The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-12-04

many acts of disorder, it is undeniable, have
been perpetrated in Kansas, to the occasional
interruption, rather than the permanent sus-
pension, of regular government. Aggressive
and most reprehensible incursions into the
Territory were undertaken, both in the North
and the South, and entered it on its northern
border by the way of Iowa, as well as on the
eastern by way of Missouri; and there has ex-
listed within it a state of instruction against
the constituted authorities, not without counte-
nance from inconsiderate persons in each of the
great sections of the Union. But the difficult
ties in that Territory have been extravagantly
exaggerated for purposes of political agitation
elsewhere. The number and gravity of the
acts of violence have been magnifed partly by
statements entirely untrue, and partly by reite
rated accounts of the same rumors or facts
Thus the Territory has been seemingly filed
with extreme violence, when the whole amount
of such acts has not been greater than what
occasionally passes before in single cities, to
the regret of all good citizens, but without being
regarded as of general or permanent political
consequence.
Imputed irregularities in the elections had in
Kansas, like occasional irregularities of the
same description in the States, were beyond the
sphere of action of the Executive. But Incl
dents of actual violence or of organized obstruc-
ton of law, pertinaciously renewed from time
to time, have been met, as they occurred, by
such means as were available, and as the cir
cumstances required and nothing of this char
acter now remains to affect the general peace
of the Union. The attempt of a part of the in.
habitants of the Territory to erect revolution
airy Government, though sedulously encouraged
and supplied with pecuniary aid from active
agents of disorder in some of the States, has
completely failed. Bodies of armed men, for
eign to the Territory, have been prevented from
entering, or compelled to leave it. Predatory
bands, engaged in acts of rapne, under cover
of the existing political disturbances, have been
arrested or dispersed. And every well-disposed
person is now enabled once more to devote
himself in peace to the pursuits of prosperous
industry, for the prosecution of which he under
took to participate in the settlement of the Ter
ritory.
1t affords me unmingled satisfaction thus to
announce the peaceful condition of things in
Kansas, especially considering the means to
which it was necessary to have recourse for
the attainment of the end, namely, the employ
ment of part of the military force of the
United States The withdrawal of that force
from its proper duty of defending the country
against foreign foes or the savages of the from
tier, to employ it for the suppression of domes-
tic insurrection, is, when the exigency occurs,
a matter of the most earnest solicitude. On
this occasion of imperative necessity it has
been done with the best results, and my salts
faction in the attainment of such results by
such means is greatly enhanced by the consid-
Grafton, that, through the wisdom and energy
of the present Executive of Kansas, and the
prudence, frmness, and vigilance of the mill.
| tary officers on duty there tranquility has
been restored, without one drop of blood hav-
| ing been shed in its accomplishment by the
forces of the United States.
The restoration of comparative tranquility
| in that Territory furnishes the means of OBJ
serving calmly, and apprecisting at their just
value, the events which have occurred there,
and the discussions of which the Government
of the Territory has been the subject.
We perceive that controversy concerning
its future domestic institutions was inevitable !;
that no human prudence, no form of legisa
ton, no wisdom on the part of Congress, could
have prevented this.
1t is idle to suppose that the particular pro-
visions of their organic law were the cause of
agitation. Those provisions were but the oc.
casion, or the pretext of an agitation, which
was inherent in the nature of things. Con-
gress legislated upon the subject in such terms
as were most consonant with the principle of
| popular sovereignty which underlies our Gov
ernment. 1t could not have legislated other
wise without doing violence to another great
principle of our institutions, the imprescripti-
| BILE right of equality of the several States.
We preceive, also, that sectional interests and
party passions have been the great impedi-
ment to the salutary operation of the organic
principles adopted, and the chief cause of the
successive disturbances in Kansas. The as
sumption that, because in the organization of
the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, Con-
gress abstained from imposing restraints upon
them to which certain other Territories had
been subject, therefore disorders occurred in the
latter Territory, is emphatcally contradicted
by the fact that none have occurred in the for
mer. Those disorders were not the consequence,
in Kansas, Of the freedom of selfgovernment,
conceded to that Territory by Congress, but of
unjust interference on the part of persons not
inhabitants of the Territory. Such interference
wherever it has exhibited itself, by acts of in
surrectionary character, or of obstruction to pro
cess of law, has been repealed or suppressed, by
all the means which the Constitution and the
laws place in the hands of the Executive.
In those parts ofthe United States where, by rea-
son of the infamed state of the public mind false
rumors and misrepresentation have the greatest
currency, it has been assumed that it was the
duty of the Executive not only to suppress in
| surrectionary movements in Kansas, but also
to see to the regularity of local elections. 1t
needs little argument to show that the President
has no such power. All government in the
| United States rests substantially upon popular
election. The freedom of elections is liable to
be impaired by the intrusion of unlawful votes,
or the exclusion of lawful ones, by improper in
| fuences, by violence, or by fraud. But the
| people of the United States are themselves the
al-sufiicient guardians ofther own rights and to
suppose that they will not remedy, in due season,
any such incidents of civil freedom, is to sup
pose them to have ceased to be capable of self
government. The President of the United States
has not power to interpose in elections to see
to their freedom, to canvass their votes, or to
pass upon their legality in the Territories any
more than in the States. If he had such power,
the Government might be republican in form,
but it would be monarchy in fact; and if he
had undertaken to exercise it in the case of
Kansas, he would have been Justly subject to
the charge of usurpation, and ofviolation of the
dearest rights of the people of the United
States.
Unwise laws, equally with irregularities at
elections, are, in periods Of great excitement,
the occasional incidents of even the freest and
| best political institutions. But all experience
demonstrates that in a country like ours, where
the right of selfconstitution exists in the com.
pletest form, the attempt to remedy unwise leg.
isation by resort to revolution is totally out of
place; inasmuch as existing legal institutions
afford more prompt and efficacious means for the
redress of wrong.
1 confidently trust that now, when the peace
ful condition of Kansas affords opportunity for
calm reflection and wise legislation, either the
Legislative Assembly of the Territory, or Con-
gress, will see that no act shall remain on its
statute book violative of the provisions of the
Constitution, or subversive of the great objects
| for which that was ordained and established.