Randolph County journal. [volume] (Winchester, Randolph County, Ind.) 1855-1862, 1858-03-25
SPEECH OF KR. SEWARD,
On THE kANZAS BILL.
~ THE UNITED STATES SENATE,
March 3, 1898.
coScLUDED.

able judicial battery at the Capitol,
was now ready to begin his active de-
monstrations of Intervention In the
Territory. Here occurred not new
want, but an old one revived---a Gov
ernor for Kanzas. Robert j. Walker,
born and reared in Pennsylvania, a
Free State, but long citizen and res
ident of Mississippi, a Slave State,
eminent for talent and industry, dcvo-
ted to the President and his party,
plausible and perscvering, untiring and
efficient, seemed just the man to con-
duct the fraudulent inchoate proceed
ings of the projected Lecompton Con-
vention to a conclusion, by dividing
the friends of free labor in the Terri
tory, or by casting npon them the re-
sponsibility Of defeating their own fa-
vorite policy by impracticability and
contumacy. He wanted for this pur-
pose only an army and full command
of the Executive exchequer of prom
ises Of favor and Of threats of pun
ishment. Frederick Il. Stanton, of
Tennessee, honorable and capable, Of
persuasive address, but honest ambi-
tion, was appointed his Secretary
The new agents soon found they had
assumed task that would tax all
their energies and require all their
adroitness. On the one side, the Slave
Labor Party were determined to cir
cumvent the people, and secure, thro'
the Lecompton Convention, a Slave
State. On the other, the people were
watchful and determined not to be cir
cumvented. and in no case to submit.
Ele .tions for delegates to that body
were at hand. The Legislature had
required a census and registry of voters
to be made by authorities designated
by itself, and this duty had been only
partially performed in fifteen of the
thirty-four Counties, and altogether
omitted in the other nineteen. The
party of Slave Labor insisted on pay
ment of taxes as condition of suf-
frage. The Free Labor Party deemed
the whole proceedings void, by reason
of the usurpation practiced, and of the
defective arrangements for the election.
They discovered design to surprise in
the refusal of any guaranty that the
Constitution, when framed, should be
submitted to the people, for their ac
centance or rejection, preparatory to
an application under it for the admis
sion of Kansas into the Union. The
Governor, drawing from the ample
treasury Of the Executive at his COM
mand, made due exhibitions of the
army, and threatened the people with
an acceptance of the Lccompton Con
stitution, however obnoxious to them,
if they should refuse to vote. With
these menaces, he judiciously mingled
promises of fabulous quantities of land
for the endowment of roads and cduca-
ton He dispensed with the test oaths
and taxes, lamented the defects of cen
sus and registry, and promised the re-
lection of the Constitution, by himself,
By the President, and by Congress, il
full, fair and complete submission of
the Constitution should not be made
by the Convention: and he obtained
and published pledges of such submis-
sion by the party Conventions which
nominated the candidates for delegates,
and even by an imposing number of
those candidates themselves. The peo-
pie stood aloof, and refused to vote
The army protected the polls. The
Slave Labor Party alone voted, and
voted without legal restraint, and so
achieved an easy formal success by
casting some two thousand ballots.
TIE LECoMPToN CoNsTITUTIoN-THE
POPULAR voTE-THE PRESIDENTS : IN
rERyENTIoS.
Just at this conjuncturc, however,
the term of three years service, which
the usurping Legislature had fixed for
its own members, expired, and eiec-
tions authorized by itself were to be
held for the choice, not only of new
members, but of delegate to Con-
gress. While the Lecompton Con
vention was assembling, the FrceLa-
Dor party determined to attend these
Territorial elections, and contest
through them for Self-Government
within the Territory. They put candi-
dates in nomination, on the express
ground of population of the whole
Lecompton proceeding. The Lecomp-
ton Convention prudently adjourned
to a day tcyond the election. The
parties contended at the ballot boxes,
and the result was complete and con-
elusive triumph of the Free-Labor
party. For moment this victory, so
was jeopardcd 10y the
fraudulent presentation of spurious
and fabricated returns of elections in
almost uninhabitcd districts, sufficient
to transfer the triumph to the Slave
Labor party. and the Free State party
was proceeding to vindicate it by force.
The Governor and Secretary detected,
proved and exposed this atrocious
fraud. The Lecompton Convention
denounced them, and complaints
against them poured in upon the Presi-
dent from the Slavehold;ng States
They were doomed from that time.-
The President was silent.
The Lecompton Convention pro-
ccedcd and framed a Constitution
which declares Slavery perpetual and
irreversible, and postpone any altera-
tion of its own provisions until after
1864. by which time they hoped that
Slavery might have gained too deep
hold in the soil of kanzas To be in
danger of being uprooted. All this
was easy; hut now came the question
whether the Constitution should be
submitted to the people. Ii was con-
fessed that it was obnoxious to them,