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martial law now, and under martial law it must remain. Whereas, if you admit the state now under the Topeka constitution, or otherwise abolish the usurpation existing there, it must happen either that the army may be withdrawn, or that, while it shall maintain peace and order, oppression will cease.

The bill declares that laws of a certain character shall not be enforced within the territory, and the honorable senator from Kentucky regards this provision as abrogating some of the tyrannical laws enacted by the usurping legislature. Certainly it does not abolish all those laws. It is doubtful how many, or which of them, it does abolish, and whether it will abolish any of them effectually. If I did not misunderstand the honorable senator from Georgia, the author of the bill, he gave it as his opinion, that while the bill reässerts and reenacts the bill of rights contained in the constitution of the United States, these obnoxious laws of Kansas do not in fact conflict with that bill of rights. Here, then, will be ample room for misapprehension, misunderstanding, and conflict. The free state party will assume that these obnoxious laws of the usurping legislature are annulled. The slave state men, on the other hand, will maintain that they all remain in force. The conflict between them will go to the courts of the territory, for their decision. From those courts there is no appeal in criminal cases to the supreme court of the United States. How those courts will decide on questions to which they are virtually a party, we already know too well, because we know they have already adjudicated that a tavern, in which free state men are entertained, is a nuisance, and that free state presses are nuisances, and that even a bridge, over which free state men travel, is also a nuisance; and that all these nuisances may be abated, on the presentment of a packed grand jury, without a trial, and by an armed posse comitatus, consisting of enlisted pro-slavery bands; and we know, also, that treason to the United States is adjudged by the same courts to consist not merely in levying war against the United States, or giving aid and countenance to their enemies, but in assembling peacefully as citizens, to petition congress for a redress of grievances.

The process which this bill proposes for taking the census, districting the territory, and ascertaining the qualifications of electors and conducting the elections, is to be confided to a commission appointed by the president of the United States, by and with the

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advice and consent of the senate. I have already seen who was first appointed governor of the territory by the president and senate, and how, and upon what grounds, he was removed by the president; and who was appointed his successor by the president and senate, and how, and upon what grounds, he is retained by the president. I have also seen who were appointed judges and marshals for the territory by the president and senate, and how, and upon what grounds, they are still retained in office by the president. I have seen how the governor, judges and marshals have plunged the territory into all the horrors of anarchy and civil war, in an effort to compel the people to relinquish the right of self-government, or to flee from the territory for their lives. I want no more civil agents within the territory appointed by the present president of the United States. I said, when I addressed the senate in April last, that Kansas was brought to a state of revolution by the oppressions of the president of the United States, and had assumed an attitude of revolution, which was tolerated, indeed, by the constitution, but was, nevertheless, an attitude of revolution; and that, in this, as in all revolutions, the evil could only be corrected by separating the oppressed altogether from their political relations to the oppressor. I say the same thing now.

I will not dwell minutely on other objections which have been justly raised by my associates here. I am content to say, in general terms, that the president of the United States has perpetrated a coup d'état, by which the territorial constitution, given to the people of Kansas by the congress of the United States, has been absolutely subverted; that the president holds despotic power over that people, in the name and the form, indeed, of spurious, legislative, ministerial, and judicial authorities; that slavery is practically established there already by force; that a portion of the people are slain, while a larger portion have been expelled from the territory by force; that the freedom of speech and of the press, and the personal inviolability of the electors, as well as the purity of the ballot-box, are subverted, while the leaders of the party of freedom are either dispersed beyond the territory, or imprisoned within it, on charges of pretended crimes. The elector can only reach the polls and deposit his vote under the protection of the army of the United States. The circumstances are parallel, almost to the line of coincidence, with those which attended the election by which the republicans of

France invested Louis Napoleon with the powers of an absolute despotism. Fix a day upon which the people of Kansas shall decide between slavery and freedom, and, from that day what remains of free population will be spirited away. A new and factitious immigration of pro-slavery electors will rush into the territory from adjacent slave states. Order and silence will indeed prevail. The elector will receive his ballot at the hands of the soldiers who have restored the territory to this condition of quiet and peace; and the counting of the ballots will tell the simple story that the Missouri territorial usurpation is adopted and converted into a state sovereignty, by the voice of the enslaved people of Kansas.

Here is a premonition of the manner in which a slave state convention would be obtained under this bill. It is an extract from the testimony of Colonel John Scott, of St. Joseph, Missouri, given before the committee of investigation, and will be found in their report:

“It is my intention, and the intention of a great many other Missourians now resident in Missouri, whenever the slavery issue is to be determined upon by the people of this territory in the adoption of the state constitution, to remove to this territory in time to acquire the right to become legal voters upon that question. The leading purpose of our intended removal to the territory is to determine the domestic institutions of this territory, when it comes to be a state; and we would not come but for that purpose, and would never think of coming here but for that purpose. I believe there are a great many in Missouri who are so situated."

We are assured, indeed, that the bill shall be so modified as to allow the electors, who have fled the territory, to return. Who can vouch for the ability of those poor emigrants, scattered over the free states, to return to their homes in the territory, even if they should be so disposed? None can be safe in the territory without arms, or being alone. None can return to the territory in numbers, and with arms, because such parties are disarmed, and sent back by the army of the United States.

The honorable senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN], asks me whether I will do nothing-whether nothing shall be done to compose the fatal strife in Kansas, which, he says, no one has depicted in deeper colors than myself. I answer, Yes. I will vote for the admission of Kansas into the Union, under the Topeka constitution. That measure, and that measure only, will restore peace and har mony, while it will rescue freedom from peril. Take that measure.

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If such a thing is possible, as turning a free state into a slave state, you will yet have the opportunity to do so, if the welfare of Kansas, and of our common country, should seem to you to require it. If you will not adopt that measure, it will then remain for you to propose another remedy; but it must be more just and more tolerant of freedom than either of those which you have already submitted to the senate, and it must surrender all the vantage ground in the territory, which slavery has acquired by fraud or force. If this bill, now before the senate, is your ultimatum, then the people of Kansas must trust to that change of public sentiment and of public opinion now going on throughout the United States, which, although it yet has to acquire the strength of habit and the power of complete organization, nevertheless, I think, is sure enough to break all the fetters which have been already fastened upon them, and all that remain within the forge of executive despotism. To the people of Kansas, and to every advocate of their cause, in this the crowning trial of their fidelity, I say, in the language of the rule I have adopted for the government of my own conduct,

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THIS is a bill appropriating about twelve millions of dollars, to defray the expenses of the military establishment of the United States, for the ensuing fiscal year. Its form and effect are those which distinguish a general appropriation bill for the support of the army, such as is annually passed by congress. Only one exception to it, as it came to the senate from the house of representatives, has been taken here. It contains what is practically an inhibition of the employment of the army of the United States, by the president, to

1 Speech on the Army Bill in the United States senate, August 7, 1856.

enforce the so-called laws of the alleged legislature of the territory of Kansas. The senate regards that inhibition as an obnoxious feature, and has, by what is called an amendment, proposed to strike it from the bill, overruling therein my vote; and the senate now proposes to pass the bill thus altered here, and to remit it to the house of representatives, for concurrence in the alteration. In the hope that that house will insist on the prohibition which has been disapproved here, and that the senate will, in case of conflict, ultimately recede, I shall vote against the passage of the bill in its present shape.

In submitting my reasons for this course, I have little need to tread in the several courses of argument which have been opened by distinguished senators who have gone before me in this debate. Certainly, however, I shall attempt to emulate the examples of the honorable senators from Virginia and South Carolina [Mr. HUNTER and Mr. BUTLER], by avoiding remarks in any degree personal, because, on an occasion of such grave importance, although I may not be able to act with wisdom, I am sure I can so far practice self-control as to debate with decency, and deport myself with dignity. I shall neither defend nor arraign any political party, because I should vote on this occasion just as I am now going to vote, if not merely one of the parties, but all of the parties in the country stood arrayed against me.

I shall not reply to any of the criticisms which have been bestowed upon the inhibition proposed by the house of representatives, nor shall I attempt to reconcile that inhibition with other bills, which have been passed by the house of representatives and sent to this house for concurrence. I shall not even stop to vindicate my own consistency of action in regard to the territory of Kansas; because, first, I am not to assume that what now seems an opening disagreement between the senate and the house of representatives, will ripen into a case of decided conflict; and because, secondly, if it shall so ripen, then there will be time for argument at every stage of the disagreement; while its entire progress and consummation will necessarily be searchingly reviewed throughout the length and breadth of the country, and the conflict itself will thereafter stand a landmark for all time in the history of the republic. I shall endeavor to confine myself closely to the questions which are immediately involved, at this hour, in a debate which, in the event

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