The Kansas herald of freedom., 1858-01-09

IL 4'o do7t. ActctS lass, OecTetdTgO OF STATE
SIR | resign the Office of Governor oi
the Territory of Kansas. l have been
most reluctantly forced to this conclusion,
after anxious and careful consideration OF
my duty to the country, to the people OF
Kansas, to the President of the United
States, and to myself
The grounds assumed by the President
in his late Message to Congress. aud in
recent instructions in connection with the
events now transpiring here and in Kan
sas, admonish me that as Governor of
that Territory, it will no longer be in my
power to preserve the peace or promote
the public welfare.
At the earnest solicitation of the Pres
ident after repeated refusals, the last be-
ing in writing, finally accepted this Of
fee, upon his letter showing the dangers
and difficulties of the Kansas Question,
and the necessity of my undertaking the
task of adjustment. Under these cir
cumstances, notwithstanding the great
sacrifices to me, personal. political and
pecuniary, felt that could no more re-
fuse. such call from my country through
her Chief Magistrate, than soldier in
battle who is ordered to the command of
forlorn hope.
| accepted, however, on the express
condition that / should advocate the sub,
mission of the Constitution to a vote of
the people for ratification or rejection
These views were clearly understood bv
the President and all his Cabinet. They
were distinctly set forth in my letter, on
my acceptance of this office, of the 26th
March last, and reiterated in my inaugu-
raj address of the 9th of Nav last, as
follows -" Indeed, cannot doubt that
the Convention, after having framed a
State Constitution, will submit it for rati-
hcation or rejection by majority of the
then actual bona fide resident settlers in
Kansas"
With these views, well known to the
President and The Cabinet, and approv-
ed by them, accepted the appointment
of Governor of Kansas. My Instructions
from the President, through the Secretary
of State, uhder date Both March last.
sustain the regular Legislature of the
Territory in assembling Convention to
form Constitution, and they express
the opinion of the President that " when
such Constitution shall be submitted to
the people of the Territory they must be
protected in the exercise of their right of
voting for or against that instrument. and
the fair expression of the popular will
must not be interrupted by fraud or vio-
ience. | repeat, then, as my clear con-
viction, that unless the Convention sub
NIT the Constitution to the vote of all the
actual resident settlers of Kansas, and the
election be fairly and Justly conducted.
the Constitution will be, and ought to be
rejected by Congress"
This inaugural most distinctly asserted
that 1t was not question of Slavery
merely, which believed to be of little
practical importance then in its applica-
tion to Kansas, but of the entire Con-
stitution which should be submitted to
the people for ratification or rejection
These were my words on that subject in
my inaugural =" 1t is not merely. shall
Slavery exist in or disappear from Kan
sas, but shall the great principles of self
government and State sovereignty be
maintained or subverted ?"
In that inaugural I proceed further to
say, the people "may by subsequent
vote defeat the ratification of the Consti
tuition" 1 designate this "a great consti
tutional right" and add, that the Con-
vention is the servant and not the master
of the people" In my official dispatch
to you of the I'd June last, copy of
that inaugural address was transmitted to
you for the further information of the
President and his Cabinet. No exception
was ever taken to any portion of that ad-
dress. On the contrary, it was distinctly
admitted by the President in his Message,
with commendable frankness, that my
instructions in favor of a submission of
the Constitution to vote of the people
were general aud unqualified" By that
inaugural and a subsequent address, l
was pledged to the people of Kansas to
Oppose, by all lawful means, the adoption
of any Constitution which was not fairly
and fully submitted to their vote for rati-
fication or rejection. These pledges l
cannot recall or violate without personal
dishonor and the abandonment of funda-
mental principles and, therefore, it is
impossible for me to support what is
called the Lecompton Constitution, be-
cause it is not submitted to vote of the
people for ratification or rejection.
I have ever uniformly maintained the
principle that sovereignty is vested exclu-
sively in the people of each State, and
that it performs its first and highest func.
ton in forming State Government and
State Constitution. The highest act of
sovereignty, IN my judgment, can only be
performed by the people themselves, and
cannot be delegated to Conventions or
other intermediate bodies.
Indeed, the whole doctrine of the SOW
ereignty of Conventions as distinct from
that of the people, of conventional or
delegated sovereignty as contradistin-
guished from State or popular sovereignty,
has ever been discarded by me, and was
never heard of to my knowledge during
the great canvass of 1856. Indeed, this
is the great principle of State Sovereign
ty, maintained by the Virginia and Ken
lucky Resolutions of 1883, sustained
by the people in the great political revo-
luton of 1900, and embraced in that
amendment to the Federal Constitution
adopted under the auspices of Mr.. Jeffer-
son, declaring that the powers not dele
gated 10 the United States BY the Consti-
tuition, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, OIL
to the people. The reservation 10 9 the
States is as separate States in exercising
the powers granted by the State Constitu-
;ions. and the reservation to "the people,
is to the people of the several States, ad-
mitted or inchoate, exercising their SOW
ereign right of framing or amending thei!
State Constitution. This view was SCI
forth in my printed address, delivered al
at Natchez, Mississippi, in January, 1888
against the Notification, which speech
received the complimentary sanction ol
the great and good Madison, the principal
| founder of our Constitution, as shown by
the letter of the Hon. Charles j. Inger.
soil of Philadelphia, as published in tn
Glo6s at Washington in 1885, By thil