ultimately given up by the House, save one | adoption of the Free-State constitution as afore appropriating $20,000 for the pay and expenses of the next Territorial Legislature, which the Senate gave up, on finding itself in serious disagreement with the House, and thus secured the passage of the Civil Appropriation bill. Finally, the two Houses were at odds, on a proviso forbidding the employment of the Army to enforce the acts of the Shawnee Mission assemblage, claiming to be a Territorial Legislature of Kansas, when at noon on the 18th of August the speaker's hammer fell, anouncing the termination of the session, leaving the Army bill unpassed. But President Pierce immediately issued a proclamation convening an extra session on the 21st (Thursday), when the two Houses reconvened accordingly, and a full quorum of each was found to be present. The House promptly repassed the army bill, again affixing a proviso forbiding the use of the army to enforce the disputed Territorial laws, which proviso the Senate as promptly struck out, and the House as promptly reinserted. The Senate insisted on its disagreement, but asked no conference, and the House (Aug. 22d) by a close vote decided to adhere to its proviso: Yeas, 97; Nays, 93; but one of the yeas (Bocock of Va.) was so given in order to be able to move a reconsideration; so that the true division was 96 to 94, which was the actual division on a motion by Mr. Cobb of Ga. that the House recede from its position. Finally, a motion to reconsider was made and laid on the table; Yeas, 97; Nays, 96; and the House thereupon adjourned. Aug. 23d.-The Senate also voted to here: Yeas, 35; Nays, 9. Mr. Clayton proposed a committee of ence, to which Mr. Seward objected. tion. In the House, Mr. Campbell, of Ohio, a similiar Committee of Conference. said, had been previously beaten, after prevailing in the House-the Senate striking them out and the House (by union of nearly all the supporters of Fillmore with nearly or quite all those supporting Buchanan) finally acquiescing. The 34th Congress reassembled on the 1st of December. Since the adjournment from the last session the presidential election had taken place, resulting in the election of James Buchanan as President. The popular vote gave neither of the three candidates a majority. In the Free States the election was hotly contested and a very large vote polled. In the Southern States the vote was small, as no issue was presented to the people, it being claimed by their respective partisans, that both the candidates (Buchanan and Fillmore) voted for in that section were equally Pro-Slavery. But the pro-slavery leaders had declared in favor of Buchanan, and he consequently received large majorities in nearly every Slave State. On the first day of the session, Kansas affairs came up in the House on an objection to admit J. W. Whitfield to a seat as a delegate, the objection being that the border ruffian laws under which he had been elected were "null and void." Mr. Grow spoke against admitting Whitfield, and quoted from a speech of Mr. Clayton (a short time before his decease) in the Senate. Mr. Clayton, in speaking of these laws, said: Now, sir, let me allude to that subject which is the great cause of all this discord between the two Houses. The unjust, iniquitous, oppressive and infamous laws ad-enacted by the Kansas Legislature, as it is called, ought to be repealed before we adjourn." ConferNo acproposed Objected Mr. Cobb, of Ga., moved that the House recede from its Kansas proviso. Defeated: Yeas, 97; Nays, 100. Adjourned. to. The struggle for the passage of the bill with or without the proviso continued until Saturday, August 30th, when, several members, hostile to the proviso, and hitherto absent, unpaired, having returned, the House again passed the Army bill with the proviso modified as follows: Provided, however, that no part of the military force of the United States, for the support of which appropriations are made by this act, shall be employed in aid of the enforcement of any enactments heretofore made by the body claiming to be the Territorial Legislature of Kansas. The bill passed as reported (under the Previous Question): Yeas, 99; Nays, 79; and was sent to the Senate, where the above proviso was stricken out: Yeas, 26; Nays, 7; and the bill thus returned to the House, when the Senate's amendment was concurred in: Yeas, 101; Nays, 97. So the proviso was beaten at last, and the bill passed, with no restriction on the President's discretion in the use of the Army in Kansas; just as all attempts of the House to direct the President to have a nolle prosequi entered in the case of the Free-State prisoners in Kansas charged with aiding the formation and What are these laws? One of them sends a man to hard labor for not less than two years for daring to discuss the question whether Slavery exists, or does not exist, in Kansas: not less than two years-it may be fifty; and if a man could live as old as Methuselah, it might be over nine hundred years. That act prohibits all freedom ferred to the exclusive decision of the people in that of discussion in Kansas on the great subject directly reTerritory; strikes down the liberty of the press too; and is an act egregiously tyrannical as ever was attempted by any of the Stuarts, Tudors or Plantagenets of En gland, and this Senate persists in declaring that we are not to repeal that! Sir, let us tender to the House of Representatives the day. There are others as bad as these to which I have On Dec. 2nd, President Pierce sent his annual message to the two Houses of Congress. In re ferring to the late election, the President says: which, by their recent political action, the people of the It is impossible to misapprehend the great principles United States have sanctioned and announced. They have asserted the Constitutional equality of each and all of the States of the Union as States; they have affirmed the constitutional equality of each and all of the citizens of the United States as citizens, whatever their religion, wherever their birth, or their residence; | problems of social institutions, political economy, and they have maintained the inviolability of the constitu- statesmanship, they treat with unreasonable intempetional rights of the different sections of the Union; and rance of thought and language. Extremes beget exthey have proclaimed their devoted and unalterable at-tremes. Violent attack from the North finds its inevitable tachment to the Union and the Constitution, as objects consequence in the growth of a spirit of angry defiance at of interest superior to all subjects of local or sectional the South. Thus, in the progress of events, we had controversy, as the safeguard of the rights of all as the reached the consummation which the voice of the people spirit and true essence of the liberty, peace, and great has now so pointedly rebuked, of the attempt of a portion ness of the Republic. of the States, by a sectional organization and movement, to usurp the control of the Government of the United States. In doing this, they have, at the same time, emphatically condemned the idea of organizing in these United States mere geographical parties; of marshalling in hostile array towards each other the different parts of the country, North or South, East or West. Schemes of this nature, fraught with incalculable mischief, and which the considerate sense of the people has rejected, could have had countenance in no part of the country, had they not been disguised by suggestions plausible in appearance, acting upon an excited state of the public mind, induced by causes temporary in their character, and it is to be hoped transient in their influ ence. Perfect liberty of association for political objects and the widest scope of discussion are the received and ordinary conditions of government in our country. Our institutions, framed in the spirit of confidence in the intelligence and integrity of the people, do not forbid citizens, either individually or associated together, to attack by writing, speech, or any other methods short of physical force, the Constitution and the very existence of the Union. Under the shelter of this great liberty, and protected by the laws and usages of the government they assail, associations have been formed in some of the States, of individuals who, pretending to seek only to prevent the spread of the institution of Slavery into the present or future inchoate States of the Union, are really inflamed with desire to change the domestic institutions of existing States. To accomplish their objects, they dedicate themselves to the odious task of depreciating the Government organization which stands in their way; and of calumniating, with indiscriminating invective, not only the citizens of particular States, with whose laws they find fault, but all others of their fellow-citizens throughout the country, who do not participate with them in their assaults upon the Constitution, framed and adopted by our fathers, and claiming for the privileges It has secured, and the blessings it has conferred, the steady support and grateful reverence of their children. They seek an object which they well know to be a revolutionary one. They are perfectly aware that the change in the relative condition of the white and black races in the slaveholding States, which they would promote, is beyond their lawful authority; that to them it is a foreign object; that it cannot be effected by any peaceful instrumentality of theirs; that for them, and the States of which they are citizens, the only path to its accomplishment is through burning cities, and ravaged fields, and slaughtered populations, and all there is most terrible in foreign, complicated with civil and servile war; and that the first step in the attempt is the forcible disruption of a country embracing in its broad bosom a degree of liberty, and an amount of individual and public prosperity to which there is no parallel in history, and substituting in its place hostile governments, driven at once and inevitably into mutual devastation and fratricidal carnage, transforming the now peaceful and felicitous brotherhood into a vast permanent camp of armed men, like the rival monarchies of Europe and Asia. Well knowing that such, and such only, are the means and the consequences of their plans and purposes, they endeavor to prepare the people of the United States for civil war by doing everything in their power to deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority, and to undermine the fabric of the Union by appeals to passion and sectional prejudice, by indoctrinating its people with reciprocal hatred, and by educating them to stand face to face as enemies, rather than shoulder to shoulder as friends. It is by the agency of such unwarrantable interference, foreign and domestic, that the minds of many, otherwise good citizens, have been so inflamed into the passionate condemnation of the domestic institutions of the Southern States, as at length to pass insensibly to almost equally passionate hostility toward their fellow-citizens of those States, and thus, finally, to fall into the temporary fellowship with the avowed and active enemies of the Constitution. Ardently attached to liberty in the abstract, they do not stop to consider practically how the objects they would attain can be accomplished, nor to reflect that, even if the evil were as great as they deem it, they I have no remedy to apply, and that it can be only aggravated by their violence and unconstitutional action. A question which is one of the most difficult of all the I confidently believe that the great body of those who inconsiderately took this fatal step are sincerely attached to the Constitution and the Union. They would, upon deliberation, shrink with unaffected horror from any conscious act of disunion or civil war. entered into a path which leads nowhere, unless it be to But they have civil war and disunion, and which has no other possible outlet. They have proceeded thus far in that direction in consequence of the successive stages of their progress having consisted of a series of secondary issues, each of which professed to be confined within constitutional and peaceful limits, but which attempted indirectly what few men were willing to do directly; that is, to act aggressively against the constitutional rights of nearly one-half of the thirty-one States. In the long series of acts of indirect aggression, the first was the strenuous agitation, by citizens of the Northern States, in Congress and out of it, of the question of negro emancipation in the Southern States. In reference to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the legislative power of Congress over the Territories, the President says: graphical line, was acquiesced in, rather than approved, The enactment which established the restrictive geoby the States of the Union. It stood on the statute-book, however, for a number of years; and the people of the respective States acquiesced in the reënactment of the principle as applied to the State of Texas; and it was proposed to acquiesce in its further application to the territory acquired by the United States from Mexico. But this proposition was successfully resisted by the representatives from the Northern States, who, regardless of the statute line, insisted upon applying restriction to the new territory generally, whether lying north or south of it, thereby repealing it as a legislative compromise, and, on the part of the North, persistently violating the compact, if compact there was. in any sense, whether as respects the North or the South; Thereupon, this enactment ceased to have binding virtue and so in effect it was treated on the occasion of the admission of the State of California, and the organization of the Territories of New Mexico, Utah and Washington. arrived for the organization of the Territories of Kansas Constitution, coequal in domestic legislative power. Con- already a dead letter in law, was in terms repealed by compact of perpetual moral obligation, its repeal conIt was alleged that the original enactment being a stituted an odious breach of faith. On the motion to print the Message and accompanying documents, Mr. Hale, of N. H., said: I look on the message of the President as a most un fortunate one. I have no desire to say anything which shall be construed into a want of courtesy, kindness, or respect for him. I mean all due courtesy, kindness and respect. His situation is certainly such as to appeal to the magnanimity rather than provoke the hostility of his opponents. If he had been content to submit to it, and go out, as it seemed to be the wish of his friends and foes that he should, without attempting to make such a charge as this against his political opponents, I should certainly have been content. But, sir, this message of the President is an arraignment of a vast majority of the people of eleven States of this Union of want of fidelity to their constitutional obligations, and of hostility to the Union and Constitution of these States. I deny it totally. More than that; the President of the United States, by virtue of the privileges conferred on him by the Constitution, charges upon the majority of the people of these States, in the exercise of their constitutional prerogative of voting for whom they please, the high offense of endeavoring to "usurp "-this is his very language-" the control of the Government of the United States." "Usurp," if lexicographers understand the meaning of the word, is "to seize by force without right." I have observed in the history of the past few months no attempt in any section of the country, last and least in that section which the President arraigns, to seize upon power in this Government except by the regular constitutional discharge of the people's obligations and duties as citizens going to the polls in the exercise of their elective franchise. Again, sir, I have not heard from a single citizen of those States an intimation, that if they should fail in the canvass upon which they had entered and in which they were striving to secure a majority in the councils of this Government, they were to do anything else but submit quietly and peaceably to the constitutionally expressed will of a majority. Mr. Seward, of N. Y., said: The President, I think, has departed from a customary course which was well established by his predecessors; that was to confine the annual message of the Executive to legitimate matters of legislation which must necessarily occupy the attention of Congress, and leave partisan disputes, occurring among the people, to the consideration and reflection of the people themselves. This President of the United States was the first one, I think, to depart from that course in his Inaugural Address; and, if I remember aright, he continued this departure in his first message and second message. He has been uncorrected, or rather unreformed in his erroneous course; he goes through to the end in the same course. I am willing, for my own part, that he, like all the rest of us, shall have his speech-shall assign his reasons and his vindication for his policy. I do not question his right; I do not dispute it. Whatever I have thought necessary to submit to any portion of my countrymen in regard to the canvass which is past, has been submitted in the right time, in the right place, and I trust, in the right spirit. I am willing to allow the President of the United States the same opportunity which you and I and all others have enjoyed. Mr. Mason, of Va., said: Mr. President: the constant and obstinate agitation of questions connected with the institution of Slavery, has brought, I am satisfied, the public mind in those States where the institution prevails, to the conviction that the preservation of that institution rests with themselves and with themselves only. Therefore, at this day, when it is the pleasure of Senators again to bring that institution under review upon this floor, in any connection whatever, as one of the Representatives of the South, I take no further interest in the discussion, or in the opinion which is entertained at the North in relation to it, than as it may confirm the hope that there is a public sentiment at the North yet remaining, which unites with the South in the desire to perpetuate the Union, and that, by the aid of that public sentiment at the North, the Union will be preserved. But further than that, as a statesman, and as one representing a Southern State, where that Institution prevails more largely than in any other, the public sentiment of the North is a matter indifferent to me, because I say again, we have attained the conviction that the safety of that institution will rest, must rest, and should rest, with the people of the States only where it prevails, Mr. Wilson, of Mass., said: The party to which reference has been made in this message for I take it this assault of the President of the United States is upon the Republican party, and the people who supported that organization in the last election-stands before the country with its opinions clearly expressed and openly avowed. It has a right to claim from the President of the United States-it has a right to claim from honorable Senators here-it has a right to claim before the country that it shall stand upon its broad and open declarations of principle. How does it stand? It accepts the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States as its fundamental creed of doctrine. It claims that Congress has a right to legislate for the Territories of the United States, and to exclude Slavery from them. It avows its deter mination to exercise that power. It has a right to ask of the President, and the country, that it shall be judged by its open and avowed declarations, and shall not be misrepresented, as it has been misrepresented in this document by the President of the United States. The declaration is broadly made here, not only that these men are sectionalists-not only that they have gotten up a sectional warfare, but that they are maintaining doctrines hostile to the perpetuity of the Union. Now, sir, let me say here to-day, that I do not know a man in the Free States who supported John C. Fremont in the last presidential election, not one of the one million three hundred thousand intelligent freemen who supported that nomination, that ever avowed his intention to go for a dissolution of this Union; but at all times, on all occasions, in public and in private, they have avowed their devotion to the Union, and their intention to maintain and defend it. Let me say further, that the men in this country, who avow themselves to be disunionists, that squad, which, during the last thirty years, on all fit and unfit occasions, in moments of excitement and moments of calm, have avowed themselves disunionists, have, as a body, en masse, supported the Democratic party. The whole southern heavens have been darkened during the last four months by the black banners of disunion that have floated in the breeze. Mr. Pugh, of Ohio, defended the President against the construction put on certain parts of the message by other Senators. He said: My colleague (Mr. Wade) asserts that the President has employed libellous terms in speaking of a large number of our common constituents, who voted for Col. Fremont at the last election. If the charges were true in any sense, I should unite with my colleague in the condemnation which he has pronounced; for although I would have deplored the election of Col. Fremont as the greatest calamity that could befall the American people, I feel bound to render my tribute of respect to those honest, patriotic, but as I think, misguided, citizens of Ohio, who voted for him. The paragraph upon which my colleague based this accusation, is the one which I now send to the secretary's desk. (Here the secretary read the part of the message quoted above, beginning, "Our institutions framed" and down to "rather than shoulder to shoulder as friends.") It is (continued Mr. Pugh) impossible that this paragraph should apply to the members of the Republican party, if, as now asserted, they do not aim at the abolition by Congress of Slavery within the States. It is directed against those who hold that doctrine. It refers to the men whom the Senator from Mass. (Mr. Wilson) and the Senator from Maine (Mr. Fessenden) themselves have denounced on the floor. THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. chanan transmitted to Congress his first annual On the 8th December, 1857, President Bumessage. He devotes considerable space to the subject of Slavery, giving a history of the formation of the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, and announcing the doctrine that the Constitution of its own force carries Slavery into all the Territories. Speaking of this subject, he says: "In emerging from the condition of Territorial dependence into that of a sovereign State, it was their duty, in my opinion, to make known their will by the votes of the majority, on the direct question, whether this important domestic institution should or should not continue to exist:" and that the slaves now in Kansas" were brought into the Territory under the Constitution of the United States." The following is the part of the message referring to Kansas affairs : It is unnecessary to state in detail the alarming condition of the Territory of Kansas at the time of my inauguration. The opposing parties then stood in hostile array against each other, and any accident might have relighted the flames of civil war. Besides, at this critical moment, Kansas was left without a governor by the resignation of Governor Geary. to a direct vote. How wise, then, was it for Congress to pass over all subordinate and intermediate agencies, and proceed directly to the source of all legitimate power under our institutions! How vain would any other principle prove in praetice! This may be illustrated by the case of Kansas. Should she be admitted into the Union with a constitu On the 19th of February previous, the Territorial legis-tion either maintaining or abolishing Slavery, against the lature had passed a law providing for the election of delegates on the third Monday of June, to a convention to meet on the first Monday in September, for the purpose of framing a constitution preparatory to admission into the Union. This law was in the main fair and just; and it is to be regretted that all the qualified electors had not registered themselves and voted under its provisions. At the time of the election for delegates, an extensive organization existed in the Territory, whose avowed object it was, if need be, to put down the lawful government by force, and to establish a government of their own under the so-called Topeka Constitution. The persons attached to this revolutionary organization abstained from taking any part in the election. sentiment of the people, this could have no other effect than to continue and to exasperate the existing agitation during the brief period required to make the constitution conform to the irresistible will of the majority. The friends and supporters of the Nebraska and Kan sas act, when struggling on a recent occasion to sustain its wise provisions before the great tribunal of the American people, never differed about its true meaning on this subject. Everywhere throughout the Union they publicly pledged their faith and their honor that they would cheerfully submit the question of Slavery to the decision of the bona fide people of Kansas, without any restriction or qualification whatever. All were cordially united up great doctrine of popular sovereignty, which is the real principle of our free institutions. Had it, then, been insinuated from any quarter that it would be a sufficient compliance with the requisitions of the organic law for the members of a convention, thereafter to be elected, to withhold the question of Slavery from the people, and to substitute their own will for that of a legally-ascertained majority of all their constituents, this would have been instantly rejected. Everywhere they remained true to the resolution adopted on a celebrated occasion recognizing "the right of the people of all the Territories-including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majortheir inhabitants justified it-to form a constitution with or without Slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other States." The Convention to frame a constitution for Kansas met on the first Monday of September.last. They were called together by virtue of an act of the Territorial legislature, whose lawful existence had been recognized by Congress in different forms and by different enactments. A large proportion of the citizens of Kansas did Did Congress mean by this language that the delegates not think proper to register their names and to vote at elected to frame a constitution, should have authority the election for delegates; but an opportunity to do this finally to decide the question of Slavery, or did they in- having been fairly afforded, their refusal to avail themtend, by leaving it to the people, that the people of Kan-selves of their right could in no manner affect the legalsas themselves should decide this question by a direct ity of the convention. vote? On this subject I confess I had never entertained a serious doubt, and, therefore, in my instructions to Governor Walker of the 28th March last, I merely said that when "a constitution shall be submitted to the people of the Territory, they must be protected in the exercise of their right of voting for or against that instrument, and the fair expression of the popular will must not be interrupted by fraud or violence." The act of the Territorial legislature had omitted to provide for submitting to the people the constitution which might be framed by the Convention; and in the excited state of public feeling throughout Kansas, an apprehension extensively prevailed that a design existed to force upon them a constitution, in relation to Slavery, against their will. In this emergency it became my duty, as it was my unquestionable right, having in view the union of all good citizens in support of the Territorial laws, to express an opinion on the true construction of the provisions concerning Slavery contained in the organic act of Congress of the 80th May, 1854. Con-ity of actual residents, and whenever the number of gress declared it to be "the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way.' Under it Kansas, "when admited as a State," was to "be received into the Union with or without Slavery as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission." In expressing this opinion it was far from my intention to interfere with the decision of the people of Kansas, either for or against Slavery. From this I have always carefully abstained. Intrusted with the duty of" taking care that the laws be faithfully executed," my only desire was that the people of Kansas should furnish to Congress the evidence required by the organic act, whether for or against Slavery; and in this manner smooth their passage into the Union. In emerging from the condition of Territorial dependence into that of a sovereign State, it was their duty, in my opinion, to make known their will by the votes of the majority, on the direct question, whether this important domestic institution should or should not continue to exist. Indeed this was the only possible mode in which their will could be authentically ascertained. This Convention proceeded to frame a constitution for Kansas, and finally adjourned on the 7th day of November. But little difficulty occurred in the Convention, except on the subject of Slavery. The truth is, that the general provisions of our recent State constitutions are so similar, and, I may add, so excellent, that the difference between them is not essential. Under the earlier practice of the Government. no constitution framed by the convention of a Territory preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State had been submitted to the people I trust, however, the example set by the last Congress, requiring that the constitution of Minnesota "should be subject to the approval and ratification of the people of the proposed State," may be followed on future occasions. I took it for granted that the Convention of Kansas would act in accordance with this example, founded as it is, on correct principles; and hence my instructions to Governor Walker, in favor of submitting the constitution to the people, were expressed in general and unqualified terms. In the Kansas-Nebraska act, however, this requirement, as applicable to the whole constitution. had not been inserted, and the Convention were not bound by its terms to submit any other portion of the instrument The election of delegates to a convention must neces- to an election, except that which relates to the "domessarily take place in separate districts. From this cause tic institution" of Slavery. This will be rendered clear it may readily happen, as has often been the case, that by a simple reference to its language. It was "not to a majority of the people of a State or Territory are on legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to one side of a question, whilst a majority of the represen- exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof pertatives from the several districts into which it is divided fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu may be upon the other side. This arises from the fact tions in their own way." According to the plain conthat in some districts delegates may be elected by small struction of the sentence, the words "domestic institumajorities, whilst in others those of different sentiments tions" have a direct as they have an appropriate refer may receive majorities sufficiently great not only to ence to Slavery. "Domestic institutions" are limited to overcome the votes given for the former, but to leave the family. The relation between master and slave and a large majority of the whole people in direct oppo- a few others are "domestic institutions," and are ensition to a majority of the delegates. Besides, our his-tirely distinct from institutions of a political character. tory proves that influences may be brought to bear on Besides, there was no question then before Congress, nor the representative sufficiently powerful to induce him to indeed has there since been any serious question before disregard the will of his constituents. The truth is, that the people of Kansas or the country, except that which no other authentic and satisfactory mode exists of relates to the "domestic institution of Slavery. ascertaining the will of a majority of the people of any State or Territory on an important and exciting question like that of Slavery in Kansas, except by leaving it The Convention, after an angry and excited debate, finally determined, by a majority of only two, to submit the question of Slavery to the people, though at the last forty-three of the fifty delegates present affixed their signatures to the constitution. to show that the President did not mean A large majority of the Convention were in favor of establishing Slavery in Kansas. They accordingly inserted an article in the constitution for this purpose referred that document to the Congress of the Unisimilar in form to those which had been adopted by ted States as the Constitution of the United States other Territorial conventions. In the schedule, how-refers it-for us to decide upon it under our own responever, providing for the transition from a Territorial to a sibility. "It is proper," said Mr. D., "that he should State government, the question has been fairly and ex- have thus referred it to us as a matter for congressional plicitly referred to the people, whether they will have a action, and not as an administrative or executive measuro, constitution" with or without Slavery." It declares that, for the reason that the Constitution of the United States before the constitution adopted by the Convention says, Congress may admit new States into the Union.' "shall be sent to Congress for admission into the Union Hence we find the Kansas question before us now, not as a State," an election shall be held to decide this ques- as an Administrative measure, not as an Executive meation, at which all the white male inhabitants of the Ter- sure, but as a measure coming before us for our free ritory above the age of 21 are entitled to vote. They action, without any recommendation or interference, are to vote by ballot; and "the ballots cast at said directly or indirectly, by the Administration now in poselection shall be indorsed 'constitution with Slavery,' session of the Federal Government." and constitution with no Slavery.'' If there be a majority in favor of the the "constitution with Slavery," then it is to be transmitted to Congress by the president of the Convention in its original form. If, on the contrary, there shall be a majority in favor of the "constitution with no Slavery," "then the article providing for Slavery shall be stricken from the constitution by the president of this Convention ;" and it is expressly declared that "no Slavery shall exist in the State of Kansas, except that the right of property in slaves now in the Territory shall in no manner be interfered with;" and in that event it is made his duty to have the constitution thus ratified, transmitted to the Congress of the United States, for the admission of the State into the Union. At this election, every citizen will have an opportunity of expressing his opinion by his vote "whether Kansas shall be received into the Union with or without Slavery," and thus this exciting question may be peace fully settled in the very mode required by the organic law. The election will be held under legitimate authority, and if any portion of the inhabitants shall refuse to vote, a fair opportunity to do so having been presented, this will be their own voluntary act, and they alone will be responsible for the consequences. Whether Kansas shall be a free or a slave State, must eventually, under some authority, be decided by an election; and the question can never be more clearly or distinctly presented to the people than it is at the present moment. Should this opportunity be rejected, she may be involved for years in domestic discord, and possibly in civil war, before she can again make up the issue now so fortunately tendered, and again reach the point she has already attained. Kansas has for some years occupied too much of the public attention. It is high time this should be directed to far more important objects. When once admitted into the Union, whether with or without Slavery, the excitement beyond her own limits will speedily pass away, and she will then, for the first time, be left, as she ought to have been long since, to manage her own affairs in her own way. If her constitution on the subject of Slavery, or on any other subject, be displeasing to a majority of the people, no human power can prevent them from changing it within a brief period. Under these circumstances, it may well be questioned whether the peace and quiet of the whole country are not of greater importance than the mere temporary triumph of either of the political parties in Kansas. Mr. President, I am not going to stop and inquire how far the Nebraska bill, which said the people should be left perfectly free to form their constitution for themselves, authorized the President, or the Cabinet, or Gov. ernor Walker, or any other Territorial officer, to interfere and tell the Convention of Kansas whether they should or should not submit the question to the people. I am not going to stop to inquire how far they were authorized to do that, it being my opinion that the spirit of the Nebraska bill required it to be done. It is sufficient for my purpose that the Administration of the Federal Government unanimously-that the administration of the Territorial government, in all its parts, unanimouslyunderstood the Territorial law under which the Convention was assembled to mean that the constitution to be formed by that Convention should be submitted to the people for ratification or rejection, and, if not confirmed by a majority of the people, should be null and void, without coming to Congress for approval. Not only did the National Government and the Territorial government so understand the law at the time, but, as I have already stated, the people of the Territory so understood it. As a further evidence on that point, a large number, if not a majority, of the delegates were instructed in the nominating conventions to submit the constitution to the people for ratification. I know that the delegates from Douglas County, eight in number, Mr. Calhoun, President of the Convention, being among them, were not only instructed thus to submit the question, but they signed and published, while candidates, a written pledge that they would submit it to the people for ratification. I know that men high in authority, and in the confidence of the Territorial and National Government, canvassed every part of Kansas during the election of delegates, and each one of them pledged himself to the people that no snap judgment was to be taken; that the constitution was to be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection: that it would be void unless that was done; that the Administration would spurn and scorn it as a violation of the principles on which it came into power, and that a Democratic Congress would hurl it from their presence as an insult to the Democrats who stood pledged to see the people left free to form their domestic institutions for themselves. Not only that, sir, but up to the time when the Convention assembled, on the 1st of September, so far as I can learn, it was understood everywhere that the constitution was to be submitted for ratification or rejection. They met, however, on the 1st of September, and adjourned until after the October election. I think that it was wise and prudent that they should thus have adjourned. They did not wish to bring any question into that election which would divide the Democratic party, and weaken our chances of success in the election. I was rejoiced when I saw that they did adjourn, so as not to show their hand on any question that would divide and distract the party until after the election. During that recess, while the Convention was adjourned, Governor Ransom, the Democratic candidate for Congress, running against the present Delegate from that Territory, was canvassing every part of Kansas, in favor of the doctrine of submitting the constitution to the people, declaring that the Democratic party were in favor of such submission, and that it was a slander of the Black Republicans to intimate the charge that the Democratic party did not intend to carry out that pledge in good faith. Thus, up to the time of the Conabol-vention, in October last, the pretense was kept up, the Should the constitution without Slavery be adopted by the votes of the majority, the rights of property in slaves now in the Territory are reserved. The number of these is very small; but if it were greater the provision would be equally just and reasonable. The slaves were brought into the Territory under the Constitution of the United States, and are now the property of their mas ters. This point has at length been finally decided by the highest judicial tribunal of the country-and this upon the plain principle that when a confederacy of Sovereign States acquire a new territory at their joint expense, both equality and justice demand that the citizens of one and all of them thall have the right to take into it whatsoever is recognized as property by the common Constitution. To have summarily confiscated the property in slaves already in the Territory would have been an act of gross injustice, and contrary to the practice of the older States of the Union which have ished Slavery. MR. DOUGLAS ON LECOMPTON. Mr. Douglas, who very early joined in the debate on the President's Message, at first said he dissented from the views of the President in Begard to Kansas, but afterward endeavored to profession was openly made, and believed by me, and I thought believed by them, that the Convention intended to submit a constitution to the people, and not to attempt to put a government in operation without such submission. The election being over, the Democratic party being defeated by an overwhelming vote, the Opposition having triumphed, and got possession of both branches of the legislature, and having elected their Territorial |