The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1858-12-16
Presidents Message.
FELLow-cITIzENs OF THE SENATE

FELLOw-CITIzENs OF THE SENATE
AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
When we compare the condition of the
country at the present day with what
it was one year ago, at the meeting OF
Congress, we have much reason for
gratitude to that Almighty Providence
which has never failed to interpose for
our relief, at the most critical period OF
our history. One year ago, the Sec
tional strife between the North and the
South on the dangerous subject of
slavery, had again become so intense
as to threaten the peace and perpetuity
of the confederacy. The application
for the admission of Kansas as State
into the Union, fostered this unhappy
agitation, and brought the whole sub
ject once more before Congress. 1t
was the desire of every patriot that
such measure of legislation might be
adopted, as would remove the excite
ment from the States, and confine it to
the Territory where it legitimately be-
longed. Much has been done, / am
happy to say, towards the accomplish
ment of this object, during the last ses-
sion of Congress.
The Supreme Court of the United
States had previously decided, that the
American citizens have an equal right
to take into the Territories, whatever
is held as property under the laws of
any of the States, and to hold such
property there under the guardianship
of the federal constitution, SO long as
the territorial condition shall remain.
This is now well-established condi-
ton, and the proceedings of the last
session were alone wanting to give it
practical effect. The principle has been
recognized, in some form or other, by
an almost unanimous vote of both
Houses of Congress, that a Territory
has right to come into the Union
either as free or slave State, accord
ing to the will of majority of its
people. The just equality of all the
States has thus been vindicated, and a
fruitful source of dangerous dissention
among them has been removed.
Whilst such has been the beneficial
tendency of your Legislative proceed
ings outside Of Kansas, their influence
has been nowhere so happy as within
that Territory itself. Left to manage
and control its own affairs in its own
way, without the pressure of external
influence, the revolutionary Topeka
organization and all resistance to the
territorial government established by
Congress, have been finally abandoned.
AS a natural consequence, that fine
Territory now appears to be tranquil
and prosperous, and is attracting in
creasing thousands of immigrants to
make it their happy home.
The past unfortunate experience of
Kansas has enforced the lesson so often
already taught, that resistance to law
full authority, under our form of gov
ernment, cannot fail in the end to prove
disastrous to its authors. Had the
people Of the Territory yielded obedi-
ence to the laws enacted by their Leg
islature, it would at the present moment
have contained large additional popu-
lation of industrious and enterprising
citizens, who have been deferred from
entering its borders by the existence of
civil strife and organized rebellion.
1t was the resistance to rightful au-
thority and the persevering attempts to
establish a revolutionary government
under the Topeka constitution, which
caused the people of Kansas to commit
the grave error of refusing to vote for
delegates to the convention to frame a
constitution under law not denied to
be fair and just in its provisions. This
refusal to vote has been the prolific
source of all the evils which have fol-
lowed. In their hostility to the Terri
torial government they disregarded the
principle, absolutely essential to the
working of our form of government,
that majority of those who vote-not
the majority who may remain at home,
from whatever cause-must decide the
result of an election. For this reason,
seeking to take advantage of their own
error, they denied the authority of the
convention thus elected to frame u con-
stitution.
The convention, Notwithstanding,
proceeded to adopt constitution un-
exceptionable in its general features,
and providing for the submission of the
slavery question to a vote of the peo-
pie, which, in my opinion, they were
bound to do under the Kansas and Ne
braska act. This was the all-import-
ant question which had alone convulsed
the Territory, and yet the opponents of
the lawful government, persisting in
their first error, refrained from exer-
cising their right to vote, and preferred
that slavery should continue rather
than surrender their revolutionary To-
peka organization.
A wiser and better spirit seemed to
prevail before the first Monday in JAN
uary last, when an election was held
under the constitution. A majority of
the people then voted for a Governor
and other State officers, for a member
of Congress, and members of the State
Legislature. This election was warmly
contested by the two political parties
in Kansas, and greatervote was polled
than at any previous election. A large
majority of the members of the Legis-
lature elect belonged to that party
which had previously refused to vote.
The anti-slavery party were thus placed
in the ascendant, and the political
power of the State was in their own
hands. Had Congress admitted Kan