White Cloud Kansas chief. [volume] (White Cloud, Kan.) 1857-1872, 1858-12-23
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
FsllOr Citizeas ofths Senate

/ and house of Representatives
When we compare the condition of the
country at the present day with what II
was one year ago, at the meeting OF Con
! gress, we have much reason for gratitude
/ to that Almighty Providence which has
never failed to interposc for our relief Al
the most critical periods OF our history
One year ago, the sectional strife between
the North and the South. on the danger
Gus subject Of slavery, had again become
so intense as to threaten the peace and
perpetuity of the confederacy. The ap'
plication for the admission Of Kansas as
a State into the Union, fostered This I'M
happy agitation, and brought the whole
subject once more before Congress. II
was the desire of every patriot that such
measures of legislation might be adopted
as would remove the excitement from the
States, and confine it to the Territory
where it legitimately belonged. Much
has been done, I sm happy to say. to-
wards the accomplishment Of this object,
during the last session of Congress.
/ The Supreme Court Of the United
States had previously decided that all
American citizens have an equal right to
take into the territories 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 con-
stitution. so long as the territorial condi-
ton shall remain.
This is now a well established position,
and the proceedings Of the last session
were alone wanting to give it practical
effect The principle has been recognized,
in some form or other. by an almost unan-
imous vote Of both Houses Of Congress,
that a territory has a right to come into
the Union either as a free or a slave State,
according to the will of a majority of its
people. The Just equality of all the
States has thus been vindicated, and a
fruitful source of dangerous diSsensiOn
among them mas been removed.
Whilst such has been the beneficial
tendency Of your legislative proceedings
outside of Kansas, their influence has
nowhere been so happy as within that
territory itself. Left to manage and con-
troll its own affairs in its own way, with
ont the pressure of external influence. the
revolutionary Topeka organization and
all resistance to the territorial government
established by Congress. have been final
~ abandoned. AS a natural consequence,
that fine territory now appears to be tran
quill and prosperous, and is attracting in
creasing thousands of immigrants to
make it their happy home.
The past unfortunate experience oil
Kansas has enforced the lesson so often
already taught, that resistance to lawful
authority, under our form of government,
cannot fail in the end to prove disastrous
to its authors. Had the people Of the
territory yielded obedience to the laws
enacted by their Legislature, it would at
the present moment have contained a
large additional population Of industrious
and enterprising citizens, who have been
deferred from entering its borders BY the
existence Of civil strife and organized re-
bellion.
! 1t was the resistance to rightful author
| ity and the persevering attempts to es-
tablish revolutionary government under
the Topeka Constitution, which caused
the people Of Kansas to commit the grave
error of refusing to vote for delegates to
the convention to frame 4 constitution,
under law not denied to be fair and Just
in its provisions. This refusal TO vote
has been the prolific source of all the evils
which have followed. In their hostility
to the territorial government, they disre-
gardsd Nhe principle, absolutely essential
to the working Of our form of govern
ment, that majority Of those who vote
NOT the majority who may remain at
home, from whatever canse-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 a consti-
tuition.
The convention, notwithstanding, pro-
ceeded to adopt constitution unexcep-
able in its general features, and providing
for the submission of the slavery question
to a vote of the people, which, in my
opinion, they were bound to do, under the
Kansas and Nebraska act. This was the
all important question which had alone
convulsed the territory and yet the OPP
ponents of the lawful government. per-
sisting in their first error, RETAINED from
exercising their right to vote, and pre-
ferred that slavery should continue, rath-
er than surrender their revolutionary To-
pska organization.
A wiser and better spirit seemed to
prevail before the first Monday of Janu-
uary last, when an election was held I'M
der the constitution. A majority of the
people then voted for a Governor and 9TH
er State officers, for a member Of Con-
gress, and members Of the State Legisla-
ture. This election was warmly contes-
ted by the two political parties in Kansas,
and greateryote was polled than at any
prsvious election. A large majority Of
the members Of the Legislature elect be-
longed to that party which had previously
refused to vote, The Anti Slavery party
were thus placed in the ascendant and
the political power Of the State was in
their own hands. Had Congress admit
ted Kansas into the Union under the Le-
compton Constitution, the Legislature
might, at its very first session. have sub-
mitted the question to a vote Of the peo-
pie. whether they would or would not
have a convention to amend, either on the