their exemplary lives. The poisonous shafts of partisan malice will fall harmless at their feet, while their judicial decisions will stand in all future time, a proud monument to their greatness, the admiration of the good and wise, and a rebuke to the partisans of faction and lawless violence. If, unfortunately, any considerable portion of the people of the United States shall so far forget their obligations to society as to allow partisan leaders to array them in violent resistance to the final decision of the highest judicial tribunal on earth, it will become the duty of all the friends of order and constitutional government, without reference to past political differences, to organize themselves and marshal their forces under the glorious banner of the Union, in vindication of the Constitution and the supremacy of the laws over the advocates of faction and the champions of violence. To preserve the Constitution inviolate, and vindicate the supremacy of the laws, is the first and highest duty of every citizen of a free republic. The peculiar merit of our form of government over all others consists in the fact that the law, instead of the arbitrary will of a hereditary prince, prescribes, defines, and protects all our rights. In this country the law is the will of the people, embodied and expressed according to the forms of the Constitution. The courts are the tribunals prescribed by the Constitution, and created by the authority of the people, to determine, expound, and enforce the law. Hence, whoever resists the final decision of the highest judicial tribunal aims a deadly blow at our whole republican system of government-a blow which, if successful, would place all our rights and liberties at the mercy of passion, anarchy, and violence. I repeat, therefore, that if resistance to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States-in a matter, like the points decided in the Dred Scott case, clearly within their jurisdiction as defined by the Constitutionshall be forced upon the country as a political issue, it will become a distinct and naked issue between the friends and the enemies of the Constitution— the friends and the enemies of the supremacy of the laws."

CHAPTER XIII.

KANSAS AND HER GOVERNMENTS.

UNDER the operation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the governments provided for the two Territories were in due time erected. That established in Nebraska was put in operation, and has been conducted ever since with as little trouble, as little excitement, as little distraction at home or throughout the Union as would be expected from the organization of a new county in Virginia or Illinois. Not so with Kansas. From the first day of its establishment down to the present Kansas has been the theatre of fearful strife, involving bloodshed upon her plains, the formation of treasonable operations there and in other places, and to some extent, at times, the substitution of irresponsible anarchy for legal and constitutional government.

The entire history of Kansas difficulties formed a leading

question during the session of Congress commencing in December, 1855, and Mr. Douglas took an active and leading part in the eventful chapter of Congressional action upon her affairs. His reports and speeches at that session contain of themselves the best as well as the most concise written narrative not only of what took place in Congress, but of what happened in the unfortunate Territory.

The House of Representatives having been unable to elect a speaker, the President of the United States, without waiting for the usual notice of the organization of the houses, and their readiness to receive any communication from him, on the 31st of December sent in his usual message. He thus referred to affairs in Kansas:

"In the Territory of Kansas there have been acts prejudicial to good order, but as yet none have occurred under circumstances to justify the interposition of the federal executive. That could only be in case of obstruction to federal law, or of organized resistance to Territorial law, assuming the character of insurrection, which, if it should occur, it would be my duty promptly to overcome and suppress. I cherish the hope, however, that the occurrence of any such untoward event will be prevented by the sound sense of the people of the Territory, who, by its organic law, possessing the right to determine their own domestic institutions, are entitled, while deporting themselves peacefully, to the free exercise of that right, and must be protected in the enjoyment of it, without interference on the part of the citizens of any of the states."

On the 24th of January President Pierce sent a special message to Congress upon Kansas affairs. He thus expressed and defined his construction of the purposes, intents, and effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He said:

"The act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas was a manifestation of the legislative opinion of Congress on two great points of constitutional construction: one, that the designation of the boundaries of a new Territory, and provision for its political organization, and administration as a Territory, are measures which of right fall within the powers of the general government; and the other, that the inhabitants of any such Territory, considered as an inchoate state, are entitled, in the exercise of self-government, to determine for themselves what shall be their own domestic institutions, subject only to the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by Congress under it, and to the power of the existing states to decide, according to the provisions and principles of the Constitution, at what time the Territory shall be received as a state into the Union. Such are the great political rights which are solemnly declared and affirmed by that act."

The President called attention to the various difficulties that had occurred in Kansas, and also the attempt to put the Topeka state government in operation as the government of Kansas-to override and exclude the existing Territorial government. He recommended the passage of a law authorizing the

people of Kansas, whenever they might desire it, and were sufficiently numerous to constitute a state, to elect delegates to a convention for the formation of a state government, preparatory to their admission into the Union as a state. The message was referred to the Committee on Territories.

Mr. Douglas, in the mean time, was detained at Cleveland, where, and at Terre Haute, he had been suffering intensely with a bronchial affection. So protracted was his illness that he was not able to proceed to Washington until February, on the 11th of which month he appeared in the Senate.

On the 18th a large number of documents, called for by a resolution of the Senate, were received and referred to the Territorial Committee.

On the 12th of March Mr. Douglas made his elaborate and celebrated report upon Kansas matters, and upon the powers of Congress over the Territories as political communities. The report, and the speech which he delivered a few days later, are in themselves the most complete and concise history of Kansas affairs up to that time. The report was ordered to be printed, and a motion to print extra copies was referred to the Committee on Printing, it being stated and understood that the debate should take place on the bills when reported during the following week.

However, when the Committee on Printing made their report a day or two after, Mr. Trumbull availed himself of the occasion to deliver a speech in review of the report. Mr. Douglas was absent at the time, but, hearing that his colleague was making a speech, went to the Senate, and at its conclusion a sharp personal debate took place respecting this proceeding by Mr. Trumbull. Mr. Douglas likened it to the proceedings on the part of Messrs. Chase and Sumner in 1854, when a delay was asked in the consideration of the Nebraska Bill, during which those who had asked the delay issued an address misrepresenting the character of the bill and the motives of its authors.

On Monday, March 17th, Mr. Douglas reported "a bill to authorize the people of the Territory of Kansas to form a Constitution and state government preparatory to their admission into the Union when they have the requisite population."

On the 20th he addressed the Senate in support of the bill, and upon the general questions embraced in the report.

select from the report some extracts referring to very important points, particularly that portion wherein the power of Congress to establish Territorial governments is considered as a necessity arising in the exercise of the power to admit new states. The report says:

Your committee deem this an appropriate occasion to state briefly, but distinctly, the principles upon which new states may be admitted and Territories organized under the authority of the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution (section 3, article 4) provides that "new states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union."

Section 8, article 1: "Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or office thereof."

10th amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

A state of the federal Union is a sovereign power, limited only by the Constitution of the United States.

The limitations which that instrument has imposed are few, specific, and uniform-applicable alike to all the states, old and new. There is no authority for putting a restriction upon the sovereignty of a new state which the Constitution has not placed on the original states. Indeed, if such a restriction could be imposed on any state, it would instantly cease to be a state within the meaning of the federal Constitution, and, in consequence of the inequality, would assimilate to the condition of a province or dependency. Hence equality among all the states of the Union is a fundamental principle in our federative system-a principle embodied in the Constitution, as the basis upon which the American Union rests.

African slavery existed in all the colonies, under the sanction of the British government, prior to the Declaration of Independence. When the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it became the supreme law and bond of union between twelve slaveholding states and one non-slaveholding state; each state reserved the right to decide the question of slavery for itself to continue it as a domestic institution as long as it pleased, and to abolish it when it chose.

In pursuance of this reserved right, six of the original slaveholding states have since abolished and prohibited slavery within their limits respectively, without consulting Congress or their sister states, while the other six have retained and sustained it as a domestic institution, which, in their opinion, had become so firmly ingrafted on their social systems that the relation between the master and slave could not be dissolved with safety to either. In the mean time, eighteen new states have been admitted into the Union, in obedience to the federal Constitution, on an equal footing with the original states, including, of course, the right of each to decide the question of slavery for itself. In deciding this question, it has so happened that nine of these new states have abolished and prohibited slavery, while the other nine have retained and regulated it. That these new states had at the time of their admission, and still retain, an equal right, under the federal Constitution, with the original states, to decide all questions of domestic policy for themselves, including that of African slavery, ought not to be seriously questioned, and certainly can not be successfully controverted.

They are all subject to the same supreme law, which, by the consent of cach, constitutes the only limitation upon their sovereign authority.

Since we find the right to admit new states enumerated among the powers expressly delegated in the Constitution, the question arises, Whence does Congress derive authority to organize temporary governments for the Territories preparatory to their admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original states? Your committee are not prepared to adopt the reasoning which deduces the power from that other clause of the Constitution which says,

"Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States."

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The language of this clause is much more appropriate when applied to property than to persons. It would seem to have been employed for the purpose of conferring upon Congress the power of disposing of the public lands and other property belonging to the United States, and to make all needful rules and regulations for that purpose, rather than to govern the people who might purchase those lands from the United States and become residents thereon. The word “territory" was an appropriate expression to designate that large area of public lands of which the United States had become the owner by virtue of the Revolution, and the cession by the several states. The additional words, For other property belonging to the United States," clearly show that the term "territory" was used in its ordinary geographical sense to designate the public domain, and not as descriptive of the whole body of the people, constituting a distinct political community, who have no representation in Congress, and consequently no voice in making the laws upon which all their rights and liberties would depend, if it were conceded that Congress had the general and unlimited power to make all "needful rules and regulations concerning" their internal affairs and domestic concerns. It is under this clause of the Constitution, and from this alone, that Congress derives authority to provide for the surveys of the public lands, for securing pre-emption rights to actual settlers, for the establishment of land-offices in the several states and Territories, for exposing the lands to private and public sale, for issuing patents and confirming titles, and, in short, for making all needful rules and regulations for protecting and disposing of the public domain and other property belonging to the United States.

These needful rules and regulations may be embraced, and usually are found, in general laws applicable alike to states and Territories wherever the United States may be the owner of the lands or other property to be regulated or disposed of. It can make no difference, under this clause of the Constitution, whether the "territory, or other property belonging to the United States," shall be situated in Ohio or Kansas, in Alabama or Minnesota, in California or Oregon; the power of Congress to make needful rules and regulations is the same in the states and Territories, to the extent that the title is vested in the United States. Inasmuch as the right of legislation in such cases rests exclusively upon the fact of ownership, it is obvious it can extend only to the tracts of land to which the United States possess the title, and must cease in respect to each tract the instant it becomes private property by purchase from the United States. It will scarcely be contended that Congress possesses the power to legislate for the people of those states in which public lands may be located, in respect to their internal affairs and domestic concerns, merely because the United States may be so fortunate as to own a portion of the territory and other property within the limits of those states. Yet it should be borne in mind that this clause of the Constitution confers upon Congress the same power to make needful rules and regulations in the states as it does in the Territories, concerning the territory or other property belonging to the United States.

In view of these considerations, your committee are not prepared to affirm