sions of the illegal legislature he stigmatized as revolutionary; and the reason why they did not participate in the election he declared to be a "refusal to submit to lawful authority." "Kansas at this time," he said, "is as much a slave State as Georgia and South Carolina," and the rejection of the constitution would be "keenly felt by the Southern States, where slavery is recognized," as if that were a paramount consideration that must be heeded at all hazards.

Mr. Wilson moved to instruct the Committee on Territories to investigate the whole circumstances connected with the calling of the convention; to inquire into the number of votes cast at the several elections; to ascertain whether the same was in compliance with law; and to find out what portion, if any, of said votes was fraudulent and illegal. The purpose of this amendment was to secure, if possible, a full investigation of all the matters pertaining to Kansas. After a debate of several days, the amendment was rejected by a majority of six; Douglas, Broderick, and Stuart, anti-Lecompton Democrats, and Crittenden and Bell, conservative Southern men, voting with the Republicans.

In support of the proposed investigation, Mr. Fessenden made a speech of remarkable vigor and force of expression. He condemned the message and its tone as unworthy of the man called to fill "one of the few eminent places in the world." "He exults," said Mr. Fessenden; "his tone is that of exultation when he speaks of the fact that the Territory of Kansas is now as much a slave State as Georgia or South Carolina. His tone is that of feeling, of gratification, that, instead of being a free State, like his own," it was "bound to the car of slavery." He arraigned the Supreme Court for its Dred Scott decision, and referred to the significant fact, that, after hearing the argument, the court had adjourned over till after the election before making the decision; and he expressed the opinion that, if the Democratic party had not triumphed, "we should never have heard of a doctrine so utterly at variance with all truth; so utterly destitute of all legal logic; so founded on error and unsupported by anything like argument, as is the opinion of the Supreme Court."

Referring to the opposition of Mr. Douglas and his friends to the Lecompton policy, he said, they should have known, when they repealed the Missouri compromise, what the result was to be; that it was the design to force slavery into Kansas. He was now interposing his strong arm "to stay the tide of slavery which is setting over Kansas, contrary to the expressed will of her people. Does the honorable Senator think that he can take the prey from the tiger and not himself be torn? When was slavery ever known to stay its hand in its march over a country, unless forced to do so? And when it had seized it, when was it ever known to let go its hold? It is a part of the system to pay nothing at all for involuntary servitude; and if the service is voluntary, experience has shown that it must be unlimited, unquestioning, and eternal. To hesitate is to lose all; to stop is to die."

In the House, Mr. Stephens moved a reference of the message to the Committee on Territories, of which he was chairman. Mr. Harris of Illinois, the leader of the anti-Lecompton Democrats, moved its reference to a committee of fifteen. This motion, after an excited and angry debate lasting through the night, prevailed by a majority of four. The committee appointed by the Speaker contained a majority in favor of the Lecompton policy, so that nothing came of the inquiry.

On the 1st of February, 1858, the second legislature of Kansas presented to Congress a preamble and resolutions, in which it speaks of the Lecompton constitution as the work of " a small minority of the people, living in nineteen of the thirty-eight counties of the Territory." This "minority," it said, availing themselves of a law which enabled them to obstruct and defeat a fair expression of the popular will, did, by the odious and oppressive application of the provisions and partisan machinery of said law, procure the return of the whole number of delegates to the constitutional convention recently assembled at Lecompton. We, therefore, “the representatives of said people, do hereby, in their name and on their behalf, solemnly protest against such admission."

Having thus exposed and condemned the Lecompton consti

tution, as designed to "fix upon them an institution revolting to a large majority of the bona fide citizens of the Territory," the same body, in another paper, presented and gave the history of the Topeka constitution. The people of the Territory, it averred, did proceed "to call a convention to frame a constitution; the delegates thereto were regularly and fairly elected, and, on the twenty-third day of October, 1855, did assemble in convention at Topeka." It therefore declared that said constitution" embodies the wishes of the people of this Territory upon the subject of a State government, and ought to be received by the Congress of the United States as the constitution of the State of Kansas."

Stripped, then, of all side issues, the precise and pregnant question was: "Shall Congress impose upon the people of Kansas a constitution really the work of a foreign body, in which they had no voice, and to which they were inflexibly opposed?" Such a proposition to a people making any pretensions to a free form of government was, in the highest degree, impertinent and insulting; and yet this was the precise issue which then absorbed the attention of the American Congress and people. The debate took a wide range, and brought into review the general subjects of slavery and freedom, their antagonisms, and their relations to society and the state. The President and his supporters vindicated the proposed policy; Mr. Douglas, those he represented and led, and the Republicans, opposed it. It was indeed marvellous that men of intelligence and candor could so stultify themselves as to defend, in the name of Democratic institutions, a policy so essentially and offensively despotic. Slavery has left on record, damaging and damning as that record is, no blacker page than that which describes its ruffianly and ruthless policy toward Kansas. And yet to this policy the administration was fully and fiercely committed, and to its execution its power and patronage were given in no stinted measure.

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CHAPTER XLI.

THE LECOMPTON STRUGGLE.

General argument in favor of the Lecompton policy. - Defence of slavery. – Speech of Mr. Hammond. "Cotton is king."- Arraignment of Northern society. Replies. - Speeches of Hamlin, Broderick, and Wilson. - Defences of the North and its institutions. Full discussion welcomed. - Speeches in the House. Extreme opinions of Miles and Keitt. - Able defences of freedom and free institutions. Lovejoy, Giddings, Bliss. - Ignominious attitude of the administration and the Democratic party.

THE supporters of the Lecompton policy dwelt much upon the necessity of concession and compromise; upon the encroaching North and long-enduring South; State rights; and the maintenance of an equilibrium of the opposing sections. Not all, however, pursued that specious and subtle course. Some, believing in the philosophy as well as the practice of slavery, defending it on principle as well as from policy, not as an evil but a good, stepped forth the champions of the system they cherished as well as of the section they represented. Prominent among these was James H. Hammond of South Carolina. Avowing his purpose to consider slavery " as a practical thing, as a thing that is and is to be, and to discuss its effect upon our political institutions, and ascertain how long these institutions will hold together with slavery ineradicable," he proposed "to bring the North and South face to face, and see what resources each might have in the contingency of separate organizations." If the South never acquired another foot of territory, he said, she had eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles, was as large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Spain. "Is not that territory enough," he asked, "to make an empire that shall rule the world?" "It can send," he asserted, "a larger army than any power on earth can send against her, of men brought up on horseback, with guns in

their hands." Entering into the statistics of Southern production and export, he said the South would need no army or navy, but, removing all commercial restrictions, the whole world would go to it to trade, "to bring and carry for us." Asserting that the South would find strength and protection in its cotton, he said: "You dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares make war on it. Cotton is king." Expressing the belief that it would be well for the South not to plant any cotton for three years, he inquired, with amusing pretension: "What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South." Asserting the superiority of slaveholding society over that of the free States, he said: "The greatest strength of the South arises from the harmony of her political and social institutions. This harmony gives her a frame of society the best in the world, and an extent of political freedom, combined with entire security, such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth. This bold vaunt he proceeded to define as well as to defend. In his explanatory definition, he referred to the fact that, in all social systems, there must be menials to perform the "drudgery of life," and that such a class is necessary to the existence of "that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement." "This," he said, "constitutes the very mudsill of society and of political government, and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air as to build either the one or the other, except on this mudsill." Saying that their slaves were their "mudsills," he contended that "the manual laborers and operatives" of the North sustained the same relation to Northern society, and were "essentially slaves," the difference between them being "our slaves are hired for life and are well compensated, yours are hired by the day and not cared for."

Leaving the social for the political aspect of the question, he compared the Southern slaves-"happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations," without votes or political