The Kanzas news., 1858-03-27

once have been forced upon them. Lett be
abandoned now What guaranty can you
give against your own Intervention to pre-
yens that future change? What security
can you give for your own adherence TO the
construction of the Constitution which you
adopt. from expediency. to-day What
better is q Constitution than . by-law of a
corporation, if it may be forced on State
today, and rejected tomorrow, in derega-
ton of its own express inhibition
I perceive, Mr.. President, that in the
way of argument, I have passed already
from the ground of expediency, on which
was standing, to that of right and justice.
Among all our refnements of constitution
al learning, one principle, one fundamental
principle, has been faithfully preserved,
namely That the new States must come
voluntarily into the Union-they must not
be forced into it. 'sUnite or Die, J" was the
motto addressed to the States in the time of
the Revolution. Though Kanzas should per-
ish, she cannot be brought into the Union
by force.
So long as the States shall come in by
free consent, their admission will be an act
of union, and this will be Confederacy.-
Whenever they shall be brought in by fraud
or force, their admission will be an act of
consolidation, and the nation, ceasing to be
a Confederacy, will become In reality an En-
pire. All our elementary instruction is
wrong, or else this change of the Consti-
tuition will subyert the liberties of the
American people.
You argue the consent of Kanzas from
documentary proofs, or her forced and par
tial acquiescence, under your tyrannical
rule, from elections fraudulently conducted,
from her own centumacy and from her own
records, made up here against her. 1 an
swer the whole argument at once: Kan
zas protests here, and stands, by your own
confession, in an attitude of rebellion at
home, to resist the annexation which you
contend she is soliciting at your hands.
Sir, if your proofs were thousand times
stronger, would not hold the people of
Kanzas bound by them. They are all con-
tradicted by stern facts. A people can be
bound by no action conducted in their name,
and pretending to their sanction, unless
they enjoy perfect freedom and safety In
giving that consent. You have held the
people of Kanzas in duress from the first
hour of their attempted organization as a
community. To crown this duress by an
act, atonce forcing slavery on them, which
they hate, and them into a union with you,
on terms which they abhor, would be but
to illustrate anew, and on grand scale, the
maxim:
{" "Prosperums ct .feliz seelus, virtus Uocatur. :"
Mr.. President, it is an occasion for Joy
and triumph when community that has
gathered itself together under Circumstance
es of privation and exile, and proceeded
through season of territorial or provincial
dependence on distant central authority, be-
comes State, in the full enjoyment of civ
il and religious liberty, and rises into the
dignity of a member of this Imperial Union.
But in the case of Kanzas, her whole exist
ence has been, and yet is, a trial, tempest,
chaos, and now, you propose to make her
nuptials the celebration of the funeral of her
freedom. The people of Kanzas are enti-
tied to save that freedom, for they have won
it back when it had been wrested from them
by invasion and usurpation. Sir, you are
great and strong. On this continent there
is no power that can resist you. On any
other there is hardly power that would not
reluctantly engage with you, but you can
never, never conquer Kanzas. Your pow
er, like athrone which is built pine boards,
and covered with purple, is weakness, ex-
cept it be defended by people confding in
you, because satisfied that you are Just,
and grateful for the freedom that, under you,
they enjoy.
Sir, in view, once more, of this subject
of slavery, I submit that our own dignity
requires that we shall give over this cham
perty with shareholders, which we practice
in prescribing acquiescence in their rule as
a condition of liberation of self-government
in the Territories. We are defeated in it.
We may wisely give it up, and admit Kan
zas as a free State, since she will consent to
be admitted only in that character.
Mr.. President, if could at all suppose
it desirable or expedient to enlarge the field
of slave labor, and of slaveholding sway in
this Republic, should, nevertheless, main
tain that it is wise to relinquish the effort
to sustain slavery in Kanzas. The Ques-
ton in regard to that Territory, has risen
from private one about slavery as do
mestic institution, to one of slavery as
national policy. At every step you have
been falling. Will you go on still further,
ever confident, and vet ever unsuccessful
I believe, sir, to some extent, in the iso-
thermal theory. 1 think there are regions
beginning at the North Pole. and stretching
southwark, where slavery viii die out soon
if it be planted; and 1 know, too well, that
in the tropics. and to some extent northward
of them, slavery lives long and is hard to
extirpate. But cannot find a certain bound
ary. am sure, however, that 36 deg. 80
min. is too far north. think it is move
able boundary, and that every year it ad-
vances towards more southern parallel.
But is there just now real want of new
State for the employment of slave labor p
see and feel the need of room for new
State to be assigned to free labor, of room for
such new State almost every year. think
I see how il arises. Free white men ahaund