Litchfield enquirer., 1858-12-09
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.

THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE. FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HoUsE
 OF REPRESENTATIVES,
 When we compare the condition of the country at the present day with what it was one year ago, at the meeting ef Congress, we have much reason for gratitude to that AL mighty Providence which has never failed to interpose for oar relief at the most critical DC riod of our history. One year ago the se, tional strife between the North aud the South on the dangerous subject of Slavery had agai, become SO intense as to threaten the peace and perpetuity of the Confederacy. The als plication for the admission of Kansas as d State into the Union fostered this unhappy agitation, and brought the whole subject once more before Congress. It was the desire o every patriot that such measures of Legislation, might be adopted as would remove the excite. ment from the States, and confne it to the Territory where it legitimately belonged. Much has been done, am happy to say, toward the accomplishment of this object during the last session of Congress
 The Supreme Court of the United States had previously decided that all American citi Sens had an equal right to take into tue Terri tories whatever is held as property under the laws of any of the States, and to hold such property there under the guardianship of the Federal Constitution so long as the territoria condition shall remain.
 This is now we'll established position, and the proceedings of the last Session were alone wanting to give it practical effect. Tie priri ciple has been recognized in some form or otlr CT by an almost unanimous vote of both HouS es of Congress, that Territory has right to come into the Union either as free or a slave State, according to the will of a majority oi its people. The just equality of all the States has thus been yiIdicated, aud fruitful source of dangerous dissellsion among them has been removed.
 While such has been the bene fcial teLden- cy of your legislative proceedings outside of Kansas, their influence has nowhere been so happy as within the Territory itself. Left to manage and control It's own affairs in its own way, without the pressure of external iniu- ,euce, the revolutionary Topeka organization and all resistance to the Territorial Gosern- ment established by Congress have beeh final ly abandoned. As natural consequence, shat fine Territory now appears to be tranquil and prosperous, aEd is attracting increasing thousands of immigrants to make 1t their hap py home.
 The past unfortunate experience of Kansas has enforced the lesson so often already taught, that resistance to lawful authority, under our form of government, cannot fail ln the end to prove disastrous to it's authors. Had the peO- iie of the Territory yielded obedience to the lnws enacted by their Legislature, it would at the present moment have contained large additional population of industrious and enter ,prsing citizens who have been deterred from entering it's borders by the existence of civil strife aud organized rebellion.
 It was resistance to rghtful authority and the persevering attempts to establish revo- lutionary goyernm cut under the Topeka Con- stitution, which caused the people of Kansas to commit the grave error of refusing to vote for delegates to the Convention to frame a Constitution under a law not denied to be fair and just in it's provisions. This refusal to vote has teen the prolific source of all tue evils which have followed. In their hostility to the Territorial Government, they disregard ed the principle absolutely essential to the working of our form of government, that a majority of those who yote-not the majority who may remain at home, from whatever cause-must decide the result of an election. For this reason seeking to take advantage of their own error, they denied the authority of the Convention thus elected to frame Con ,stitution.
 The Convention, notwithstanding, proceed ed to adopt a Constitution unexcept,onable in its general features, and providing for the submission of the Slavery question to vote of the people, which, in my opinion, they were bound to do under the Kansas and Nebraska act. This was the al-important question which alone had co,Wnlsed the Territory and yet the opponents of the lawful Government, persistilig in their first error, refrained from exercising their right to vote, and preferred that Slavery should continue rather than sur render their revolutionary Topeka organiza- Hion.
 A wiser and better spirit seemed to prevail before the first Monday of January last, when an election was held under the Constitution. A majority of the people then voted for 8 Governor and other State officers, for Mem ber of Congress ard members of the State Legislature. This election was warmly coll- tested by the two political parties ill Kansas, and greater vote was boiled than at any previous election. A large majority of the members of the Legislature elect belonged to that party which had previously refused to vote. The Anti-Savery party were thus pla- ced in the ascendant, and the political power of the State was in their own hands. Had Congress admitted Kansas into the Union un- der the Lecompton Constitution, the Leg:sla- ture might, at it's very first session, have sub mitted the question to "a vote of the people whether they would or would not have a convention to amend their Constitution, eithel on the Slavery or any other question, and hay. adopted al necessary means for giving speedy effect to the will of the majority. Thus tht Kansas question would have been immediately and finally settled.
 Under these circumstances, submitted tt Congress the Constitution thus framed, witl all the officers already elected necessary tt