The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-02-11

While heaven has light or earth has graves!'
Sanction this Constitution, conceived in sin
and brought forth in iniquity, and you can only
maintain it by the Federal arm and the FEEDER
al bsyonet; it can never receive the voluntary
support OF free people. Sanction this Con
stitutlon, and with it sanction, as it sanctions
that code of denominations which the invaders
OF Kansas enacted, and you compel resistance
Resistance to such legislation would be duty,
not crime; patriotism, not treason. The re.
slstants, or insurgents, or REBELS, if You please
could point you, in vindication of their rebel
lion, to the fact that the history Of Federal in
PREVENTION in Kansas, ever since the day of its
organization, is but history of repeated ipju.
ries and usurpations.
In vindication of their rebellion, they could
point you to the fact, that by your organic act
you solemnly pledged the nations faith that the
people of Kansas should be left perfectly free
to FORM AND REGULATE their domestic institu.
tons In their own way, subject only to the Con.
stitution of the United States" In vindication
OF their rebellion, they could point you to the
glowing words of the great Declaration, that
AL men are created equal, and endowed by
their Creator with the rights of life and liber.
ty; and that to secure these rights, Govern
ments are instituted amongst men, derirtng
their 5Ist potoers FROM THE CONSENT OF THE
GOVERNED" These words of the Declaration
still live; like the words of Luther, they are
half battles; they possess vitality they were
accredited in the day of our nations peril as
the law and the voice of God /; to-day they an.
nouuce the great right of self government, upon
which rests the beautiful fabric of our free in.
stitutions. Let the wronged men of Kansas
in protest against your proposed act of tyran.
ny-your violation of their natural and guaran.
tied right of selfgovernment-but appeal to
the whole people of America in the living and
immortal words of the Declaration, and their
appeal will not be made in vain it will stir the
American heart like the blast of trumpet.
Mr.. CLEMENS. VIII the gentleman from
Ohio allow me to ask him question?
Mr.. BINGHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr.. CLEMENS. You have cited the Ian.
guage of the Declaration of Independence, that
all Governments derive their Just powers from
the consent of the governed. Will you be
kind enough to tell me whether, according to
the popular system of government, the people
can act except under law and by law, or wheth.
er there is any such thing, 80 far as the sover-
eighty of the people is concerned, as acting ex-
cept in consonance and conformity with the
existing law?
MIR. BINGHAM. have not claimed any.
thing else than that; therefore the gentleman
might as well have saved himself the trouble of
presenting such question for my considera-
ton. But would like to ask the gentleman
from Virginia if he undertakes to say that this
Kansas code, called code of laws, and which
this Lecompton Constitution expressly endorses,
is law? Will the gentleman be so good as TO
answer that?
Mr.. CLEMENS. Who is to decide that
question? Is it the people of Kansas?
Mr.. BINGHAM. 1 will tell the gentleman
who is to decide that question. We are to de.
eide it. sir; and that gentleman, in common
with all of US, is bound by his oath to decide it.
Mr.. CLEMENS. Very we'll. l admit that.
l come to another question.
Mr.. BINGHAM. l only gave way to the
gentleman to ask me one question, and not to
occupy my time. He will please excuse me.
When l get through, will, if the Committee
pleases, answer him till shutdown.
Sir, the great right of selfgovernment cannot
now be set aside by the puerile conceits of dem.
agogues, whether embodied in a Presidents
message or an instrument framed by conspira.
tors. The Lecompton Constitution directly con-
travenes this right of sefgovernment, and pro-
poses to legalize forever the violation of life,
and liberty, and property, and to establish
Government, armed with this fatal power,
against the consent of the governed. What
colorado apology can be made for this criminal
conspiracy against the rights of mankind-for
this attempt to repudiate the vital element of
American institutions Surely none can be
found in the assertion of the President, that
"the requirement to submit the whole Consti-
tuition to the people was not inserted in the
Kansas Nebraska act; and the Convention
was not bound by it's terms to submit any other
portion of the instrument to an election, except
that which relates to the domestic institution of
Slavery" This is most remarkable language to
come from the Chief Magistrate of the American
Republic. The requirement to submit the whole
Constitution to the people not inserted in the
organic act of Kansas therefore, the conven-
ton of delegates, the peoples servants, are not
bound to submit the Constitution which they
have framed to their masters, for their approval
or disapproval Is the servant greater than his
lord-the creature greater than his creator
What are these delegates but the servants of
the people? What powers or rights have they,
not delegated by the people? The right to
frame State Constitution is inherent in the
people, and is inalienable. 1t was we'll said,
on q memorable occasion, by distinguished
Senator, then representing with pre-eminent
ability the State of Missouri:
Conventions Ito form State Constitutions were origin
al acts ofthe people They depended upon inherent and
me meet in Convention, without law of their Legsla-
ure, and without provls against provision
frame of Government The sovereign power 10 govern
themselves was in the majority, and they could be
Invested Debates volume H. p 1895
Mr.. CLEMENS. Who said that?
Mr.. BINGHAM. Mr.. Benton.
Mr.. GROW. President Buchanan held the
same.
Mr. BINGHAM. That is true, ard shall
notice that hereafter. That was Democratic
doctrine in 1886, when Michigan applied to be
admitted into the Union. Then, sir, the people
might make State Constitution without Ter
ritorial law, or against Territorial law, because
the validity of the act depended, not upon any
existing statute, but upon the inherent right of
the people-their great right of selEgovernment,
of which they could not be Invested. 1.-THE words
Of the message just cited mean anything, they
do mean that the people have not the inherent
right of self government; that their right to re-
ject Constitution, framed by their delegates,
depends upon requirement in the organic act
binding their delegates to submit the whole Con-
stitution to the people, and that all their rights
in the premises exist only by virtue of Federal
grant, This surely repeats the very words of
the organic act of Kansas, which declares that
"the people of the Territory shall be left per.
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way" They shall be
left to form all their domestic institutions-not
merely the institution of Slavery" as the
President says, but all their local and State in
situations. The organic act, by its words, sim.
ply afirms the right of selfgovernment to be in
the people it does not profess to confer any
such right. A man not yet out of the horn-book
upon the law of construction, ought to know
that this organic Kansas act does not profess
to, and does not, in fact, grant the people the
power to form their own domestic institutions.
The spirit of the act is, that it leaves the peo-
pie, as it found the people, perfectly free by vr-