The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-04-08

them State, preparatory to admission into the
Union, is presented The sovereign right of
the people is denied, and the sovereign right
of o convention of delegates affirmed. The
question raised in the case of Kansas is not a
question for Kansas alone. 1t is for every
Territory hereafter. to be organized, and for
every State hereafter to be admitted into
the Union, as well as for Kansas. 1t is a
question of constitutional and political right of
the first magnitude. Indeed, it is the question
of the inherent sovereignty of the people, vital
to the people inhabiting the territory now be-
longing to the United States and to all which
may hereafter be acquired or come within our
ever-expanding borders. % tH se exc
1t is no less vital to the people Of every
State now in the Union, because it y the cues
ton where sovereignty resides, whether in rep
resentatives and Representative bodies in the
Federal Government or in the people. Our
existence as republican Government rests
upon the principle involved in this question.
When the sovereignty of the people is sub
verted or successfully denied by any represent
alive body, or by any other power, the rights
and the liberties of the people are in the hands
and at the mercy of that power. The Gov
eminent of the United States, inaugurated
upon the principles of the Revolution of 1776,
recognised the sovereignty of the States, and
the sovereign right of the people Of the States
to frame and adopt their forms of government,
and to make and to adopt their constitutions.
1t is constitutional right of the people of a
State, essential to its equality as one of the
States of the Union, and necessary to the re-
publican character Of its constitution right
never before denied or questioned. If those
who now, in the case of the people of Kansas,
deny this right. had before the day of election
in November, 1856, only whispered their de-
sign to subvert this sovereign right of the peo-
ple the Administration which is now pressing
upon Congress the proposition to subvert the
rights of the people of Kansas, would never
have come into power to make such question.
No State has ever been brought into the Union
where it was denied, questioned, or doubted,
that the people of the State to be admitted ap-
proved their constitution. The enabling acts,
the forms of law, and the modes of proceeding
on the part of the people, preparatory to their
admission as States into the Union, have wide
ly varied / do not know that they have been
exactly alike in the cases of any two States.
But observance of the vital principle that all
just government derives it authority from the
consent of the governed, has been the one es-
sential thing required in all Are the Presi-
dent and Congress prepared to 60 back to the
reign of the Georges in England, and assume
the prerogatives of the Grown and the unlim-
tied power of Parliament And are they
ready to renew in this country the controver-
sizes of those days between the prerOgative
and power of the central Government, and the
constitutional power and political rights of the
people-questions supposed to have been for
ever settled in America by the success of the
Revolution, and the adoption of the Constitu.
ton of the United States? Whatever the
President may be willing to do, is Congress
prepared to deny the absolute and sovereign
right of the people of a new State to form and
adopt their own constitution? And is Con-
gress prepared to assume the sovereign power
to impose q constitution upon the people of a
new State? Congress has the power to admit
new States into the Union, but it has not the
constitutional power to make constitution for
State, or to adopt one made by others, and
impose it upon the people of State.
The President possesses no such constitu-
tional power, and cannot be invested with such
authority by an act of Congress. The Presi-
dent who recommends such a measure to Con-
gress, and proposes to enforce such an act upon
the unwilling people Of State, is false to the
high trust reposed in him by the people of all
the States in the Union. 1t is subversion of
the rights of the States. 1t is consolidation.
. When the Federal Government shall exercise
the power to impose constitution upon the
people of a State, who shall say what limita-
tons to its power remain; what shall stay its
arbitrary will and how and where shall its
tyranny be arrested? But, Mr.. President,
monstrous and utterly indefensible as the prop
osition to bring Kansas into the Union under
the Lecompton constitution stands upon the
case as made by the majority of the committee
dark colOrs are yet to be added to the true
picture of violence to the constitutional prin-
cples of republican government, and of out
rage against the rights of the people of Kansas
+ The report of the majority of the committee
does not state the facts of the case correctly.
The assumption that the first Territorial Legisla
ture of Kansas was fairly elected, and valid in
law, is contradicted by record evidence. The
assumption that the Lecompton convention
was fairly elected by the people of Kansas, is
contradicted by evidence that can be neither
contradicted nor controverted. Upon these
two assumptions, the majority of the committee
maintain the sovereignty of convention, and
deny the sovereignty of the people.
The history of Kansas, from the beginning
to the end of it, is one of fraud and violence,
of wrong and outrage. Although the majority
here have refused to authorize any inquiry or
investigation that would bring the facts Off
cially before the Senate, yet they are notorious
to the whole country, and they cannot be ex-
cluded from our sight The act of Congress
that organized the Territory repealed the eighth
section of the act for the admission of Missouri
into the Union, commonly called the Missouri
compromise lava law which excluded slavery
from the Territory of Kansas. This was
breach Of that faith and honor among men,
which statutes can neither create nor destroy;
a breach Of that faith and honor between COM
munities, which is their only strong bond of
peace and friendship. Successive statutes are
monuments that mark the existence and decay
of faith and honor in the men who make them,
and in the nations which accept them.
Under charter for Territorial Government,
instituted by such statute, the President APP
pointed Governor, Secretary, Judges, mar
shals, and other officers and the day was APP
pointed for an election of members of Legis-
lature by the people, which would complete the
organization of their Territorial Government
AS the time for the election of members of the
Legislature approached, four thousand nine
hundred armed men, not residing in Kansas,
organized for that purpose by secret lodges in
the State Of Missouri, passed over from that
State into the Territory of Kansas, and on the
day fixed for the election Of the first Territorial
Legislature, seized, by force, the control at
most Of the precincts in the Territory, dis
placed by violence the judges Of the election,
took possession of the ballot boxes, and ex-
Guiding the citizens residing in Kansas from
the polls, proceeded to stuff the ballot boxes,
and in that way to designate and appoint per-
sons to be legislators for Kansas. Incontro-
vertible evidence of these facts stands of record
in the proceedings of the House of Represent
atives Of the last Congress.
-A The invasion from Missouri was successful
and complete, and the invaders, having accom-
plished their purpose, returned in organized
bands to Missouri. The persons thus created