Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1858-12-17
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
.Fsllo,o CitiSe'as Of the Senate
and House Of Representatives -

The country at the present day with
what it was one year ago, at the meet
ing of Congress, we have much reason for
pratitude to that Almighty Providence,
which has never failed to interpose for
our relief, at the most critical period of
cur history. One year ago, the sectional
strife between the North and the South
on the dangerous subject of slavery, had
again become so intense as to threaten
she peace and perpetuity of the confeder-
acy. The application for the admission
of Kansas as State into the Union, fos
tered this unhappy agitation, and brought
the whole subject once more before Con-
gress. 1t was the desire of every patri-
ot that such measures of legislation
might be adopted, as would remove the
excitement from The States, and confine
L to the Territory where it legitimately
belonged. 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 all
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 fed
eral constitution, SO long as the territori-
al condition shall remain.
This is now a we'll established posi-
ton, and the proceedings of the last ses-
sion were alone wanting to give it practi-
cal effect. The principle has been rec
ognized, in some form or other, by an
almost unanimous vote of both houses of
Congress, that Territory has a right
to come into the Union either as a free
or a slave State, according to the will
of majority of its people. The just
equality of all the States has thus been
vindicated, and a fruitful source of dan
gerous dissension among them has been
removed.
Whilst such has been the beneficial
tendency of your legislative proceedings
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 infu-
ence, the revolutionary Topeka organiz-
alton 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 prosper
Gus, and is attracting increasing thousands
Of migrants to make it their happy home.
The past unfortunate experience of
Kansas has enforced the lesson so often
already taught, that resistance to lawful
authority, under our form of government,
cannot fail in the end to prove disastrous
to its authors. Had the people of the
Territory yielded obedience tothe laws
Enacted by their Legislature, it would
at the present moment have contained a
large additional population of industrious
and enterprising citizens, who have been
deterred from entering its borders by
the existence of civil strife and organized
rebellion.
Il was the resistance to rightful author
sty and the persevering attempts to es-
saDlish a revolutionary government under
the Topeka Constitution, which caused
the people of Kansas to commit the
grave error of refusing to vote for dele
gates to the convention to frame con-
stitution under law not denied to be
fair and just in its provisions. This
refusal tovote has been the prolific source
Of all the evils which have followed. In
their hostility to the Territorial govern
ment they disregarded the principle, ab-
solutely essential to the working of our
form Of government, that majority of
hose who vote-not the majority who
may remain at home, from whatever
eause-must decide the result of an cleo
ion. For this reason, seeking to take
advantage Of their own error, they de-
pied the authority Of the convention thu:
Elected to frame a constitution.
The convention, notwithstanding, pro
eeeded to adopt constitution unexcep
tional in its general features, and provid
lng for the submission of the slavery
Question to vote of the people, which
p my opinion, they were bound to dc
pnder the Kansas and Nebraska act
his was the all-important question which
pad alone conVulsed the Territory anC
yet the opponents of the lawful govern.
'neni, persisting in their first error, re-
Famed from exercising their right to vote