The Kansas herald of freedom., 1858-04-24
Gov. walker 10 sAsDemoeraoy of New Jer.s,



HoBoKEN, n. j., March q, 1853.
GENTLEMEE:-I regret that it is not in
my power to accept your kind invitation
to address the Democracy of Sussex
County, New jersey, at the meeting called
for Tuesday next, to express their opposi-'
ton to the Leeompten Constitution
That is al appropriate name for that in
strument, for it is not the Constitution OF
the State of Kansas. The Constitution
of State is their first great fundamental
law-their Magma Charta-not embody-
ing, however, rights, as mere privileges
granted by royal power, either to loyal or
rebellious subjects, but as the free will OF
the people themselves. By that people
it must be fairly and freely made, and by
gess; and if it be not the will of the
people of Kansas, it is not their Constitu-
| ton, under whatever specious forms, or
| fraudulent devices, or transparent forge
ries, it may be forced upon them. The
Lecompton fiction is not State Constitu-
ton, for that can only be fairly and freely
made by the people of State; but it is
a wretched counterfeit, sought to be forced
by violence, fraud and forgeries, under the
pretended forms of law, upon protesting
people. And when did not usurpation,
fraud and forgery invest themselves with
the semblance of legal forms and powers?
When the British Parliament adopted
the obnoxious tea tax and stamp duties, it
was done under all the forms of law. 1t
passed the British Parliament; it itreeeived
the royal signet; asserting or expectant
place men, tiInid or corrupt, gave it their
wretched sanction. Nay, more; the royal
George Qike his Stuart predecessor, james
the 1st,) denounced our ancestors, who
| opposed these laws, as rebels and traitors;
! but we the people, who have simply pro-
tested against the adoption of such laws,
are visited with similar threats and con-
demnation. Rebels against what? Trai-
| tors to whom? Is it to our country which
we love, to the Federal Constitution We
revere, to the Union we would perpetuate,
to State and popular sovereignty We would
fortify and uphold, or is it to our insolent
servants, now by our votes exercising a
little brief authority, and derouncing the
people, their masters, with treason and
rebellion?
When the usurpations preceding the
Revolution occurred, under the forms of
law, the people, asserting their majesty,
rose in opposition. First, they petitioned:
next they protested, then they denounced;
and last they fought for the great princi-
| pie of self-government. Among the rest,
the people of New jersey then rose to
the rescue of their threatened liberty
They conquered, even by bullets, where
we may now succeed by ballots only
New jersey in that day was not only then
the headquarters of Washington-the
strategical line of military operations
but also the victorious battlefield of the
Revolution. From the glorious hills of
old Morris, first touched by the sunlight
Of liberty ere it reached the plains below,
from the bloody ground of Monmouth to
| the decisive triumphs of Trenton and
Princeton, the people of New jersey rose
in defense of their rights and liberties Af-
ter long night of gloom and darkness, vic
tory perched at length upon our standard.
Marathon witnessed the birth of Grecian
liberty, but Trenton and Princeton not
only beheld the dawn of our freedom, but
it is hoped also, unlike Marathon, will
never witness our decline.
/ But we are now in the midst of the
battle; the bugle notes are sounding to
the advance of the approaching columns;
the principles of our Revolutionary Faith
ers are now endangered; the right of self
government is again invaded, and the peo-
| pie of New jersey are called once more
to the rescue. Talk to us not now of any
Democracy which admits not in form only,
but in reality, the power Of the people,
1 Talk to us not now of State rights, if,
under frauds and forgeries, proved and
established, under forms or fictions how
ever specious, the people of State do
not, in fact, make their constitution. Talk
to us not of popular sovereignty, if the
/ people in fact do not establish all their
own domestic institutions. Many Grim
inals have escaped under the forms OF
law; but sovereign State is not a criminal.
No miserable quibbles, worthy the lowest
Pie Poudre Court, can touch the case of a
sovereign State upon the great question
of her admission into the Union. On
such an occasion, affecting the sacred and
sovereign rights of the people of State,
the great question is: do they present
their own Constitution, framed by them
selves, and ask, under its provisions to be
admitted into the Union? If not, there is
an end of the question; aud if, under such
circumstances, Congress should force the
people of State into the Union against
their will, our Government would have
become aconsolidated despotism, the lib
critics of the people would have vanished,
and State rights have sunk, as undiscov-
erable spots upon the orb of resistiess
central power. If this can now happen
under the pretcxt that (wrong and unjust
as it may be) the people may hereafter
strike off the chains of usurping minori-
ty, that although Congress may now sub
vert the viii of the people, that they may
hereafter redress their grievance, with OF
without revolution-whst then? Shall
we strike down the great principle of State
and popular sovereignty in the miscalled
compulsory admission of State, under
the apology that the people may hereaf.
ter overthrow the usurpation, which Con
gress would have forced upon them2-
Shall we drag Kansas from the camp and
prison. house of Lecompton, as chained
and eollared convict into the Union, il
the hope thas she viii hereafter strike of
T her shackies, Iise from her abiect degra.
dation, and from subject become SOW.
ereign State at some future period? i
this can now be done; if fraud, and forge.
RES, and usurpation, can now be Endorsed
and sanctioned; If miserable and dis.
graced minority can be clothed by Con,
j gress with the panoply of State sovereign.
II ty; If the felon fox can be covered with
the lions skin; if Kansas can be drag
, ged through the streets of Washington
, ike a captive in an imperial Roman
/ ovation, in the hope that the degraded
victim viii hereafter put on the cap of ;
. freedman, and resume her liberty; If al