am pledged to it by my oath to support the Constitution of the United States, which empowers me by my vote to admit States into the Union-never to coerce them in.

You will see, therefore, Mr. President, that whatever consequences may result from entertaining these views, I could not if I would, and I am bound to say I would not if I could, give my vote to consummate what I believe to be the most enormous fraud that was ever undertaken to be practiced upon any people under the forms of law. And I submit that the only oppressions under our institutions that can be practiced upon a people, must be pra practiced under the forms of law. If you undertake, in violation of law, to strip the people of their liberties, in violation of law, they can resist you. Then the law of power prevails, and if they be the strongest they can put you down. But when you undertake oppression, within the forms of law, you can grind them to the dust, and they can never resist without being rebels according to law.

If you desire peace, as I know we all do, take the path of wisdom and jus tice; regard the Constitution of the United States like a great indestructible rock, taking nothing by accretion, losing nothing by disintegration; within the bounds of its provisions act upon and abide by the will of the majority, fully, freely, and fairly expressed. Although you may see in communities, as you have seen at every heated partisan election, the people excited to the highest pitch of human animosity, even blood shed like rivers in the streets, yet, when the will of the majority is announced, all is peace. Pursue the paths of wisdom, of justice, and you will find the ways are all "ways of pleasantness, and all the paths are peace." I submit to the consideration of Senators that it is a duty we owe to the people of every Territory to see that they are protected in the enjoyment of this right. As Mr. Buchanan in his inaugural address says:

"It is the imperative and indispensable duty of the Government of the United States to secure to every resident inhabitant the free and independent expression of his opinion by his vote. This sacred right of each individual must be preserved."

There never was a greater truth uttered; there never was one more funda mental in our institutions; there never was one that could be violated with more danger, and none which could be followed with more security.

Mr. President, there is only one point further that I wish to notice, and I would not do that if it were not for the enormity of one proposition presented by this convention. I refer to it as showing their intention. I am not going to discuss, in opposition to the honorable Senator from Missouri, the effect of the ordinance contained in the constitution. I shall not discuss whether if we admit them under this constitution, we accept their terms and give them all the lands in Kansas or not. It is not material to decide that. They assert that they have an unquestioned right to tax all your lands in Kansas, as soon as they become a State? Are you prepared to admit it? Is the Congress of the United States at this day prepared to admit that when we organize a new State out of a Territory, that State has a right to tax and legislate over the lands of the United States within its borders equally with the lands of individual citizens! If so, you must make a contract with them, in order to get them to release that right. Inasmuch as it takes two to make a bargain, you must get their agree ment to the contract, or they will retain and exercise the right. What sort of demand have they made to begin with? They demand one-ninth of all the land in Kansas, for school purposes; they demand seventy-two sections for a uni versity; they demand all the salt springs, and all the mineral lands, and all the lands adjoining, necessary to use them; and also alternate sections for twenty-four miles wide through Kansas, east and west, and north and south. This is their demand for relinquishing the right to tax the Government land within the borders of Kansas. Before I make this bargain, I desire time for consideration. Before I vote to give Kansas four times as much school land as Michigan has had, I shall want to know the reason. Before I give them twice as much land in width, for railroad purposes, as I have voted to any other State, I shall want to know why. Before I shall vote to give them all the mineral lands, and all the salt spring lands, and all the adjoining lands necessary to their use, I shall want to ascertain the boundaries, and see whether anything will be left to the United States. I have had prepared a table showing the number of acres which an agreement to the terms of the convention will require us to give.

Estimated area of the Territory of Kansas, and number of acres of land for Railroads, Schools,

I have not mentioned this matter to discuss the effect of admitting Kansas under this constitution, but to show the enormity of the proposition-the intention that seems to have been in the heads of these Lecompton conventionlats. My opionion is that they have undertaken a larger work than they can ccomplish. In the first place, they not only undertake to violate the rights of the people of Kansas, and put them under their feet; but, in the next place, they undertake to coerce Congress into a bargain that is monstrous in its charsoter. If it is the duty, as I have endeavored to show, of Congress to protect the people of Kansas in the enjoyment of their rights, it is no less the duty of Congress to protect the rights of the United States. Congress will be liberal,

it always has been liberal with the new States, in grants of land for educational and internal improvement purposes; but it will not admit, it never can admit, that lands which belong to the United States, which it has been so often said were acquired by the common blood and common treasure of all the States, are transferred, with the right and title, to a new State, on its being admitted into the Union.

Mr. President, I have thus, briefly as I could, though not so connectedly as I could wish, presented the reasons which are operating on my mind against the admission of Kansas upon the Lecompton constitution. I have sought to show, and I hope I have shown, that it cannot thus be admitted without violating the rights of the people of Kansas, without conceding rights that belong to the Congress and people of the United States, without violating the Constitution of the United States itself. I agree that the power to admit new States, like any other power under the Constitution, is liable to abuse; but like every other power under the Constitution and within the Constitution, it must be exercised according to the best discretion of Congress. I agree that a refusal to admit a State upon insufficient grounds would be a palpable violation of our duty. We have the power to do it, but that would be an abuse of the power; just as having the power to raise and support armies, if we were to raise and support an army of twenty thousand when only one thousand was necessary, it would be an abuse of the authority. That we have the power to admit or to refuse to admit a State according to our sound discretion, cannot be denied. Having that power, if there be a doubt as to whether you are proposing to admit & State into the Union or to coerce it into the Union, nothing can be lost by tak ing time to ask the people in a plain, safe, unmistakable manner whether they desire it or not. The people of a Territory which is about to be formed into a State, have a right-and so far as my examination has gone, Congress has never violated this right to say, in the first place, whether they desire to form a State constitution now, or not. They have a right to say whether they will take upon themselves the burdens and expenses of a State government. Where Congress has passed enabling acts, as in the cases of Ohio, Indiana, and other States, and in the celebrated Toombs bill, which has been so much talked of, an express provision was incorporated, that when the convention was assembled, it should vote, in the first instance, whether it is expedient and proper to proceed to form a State constitution at this time. The people of Kansas have never had a chance to say this, and although they might say "we are willing to live under this Leeompton constitution when we get ready to be a State; we are not ready to become a State now." That is a right, a sacred and inviolable right, which belongs to the people of a Territory when they are invited to become a State.

There are other considerations which occur to me, but it is not necessary that I should detain the Senate now by stating them. I have shown, or sought to show, conclusive reasons, founded upon constitutional authority and political propriety, why I cannot vote for this Lecompton movement. I leave cheerfully, freely, and fully, every one of my associates on this floor, and in Congress, to exercise his judgment on the same state of facts. It is a right they have; it is a right I have; more, it is duty-a paramount duty; it is the highest exercise of our power, perhaps, that is conferred on us by the Constitution of the United States; and no principle should be allowed to govern us in regard to it, except the principle of eternal truth and justice.

a

I conclude with the statement which I made when the President's message was read; that, so far as in me lies, the people of Kansas, like the people of every other State coming into this Union, shall, in the language of the Kansas act, be left "perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." I will hear them; I will do as Congress has done heretoforo I will pass over forms, ceremonies, organizations, down deep to the will of the people; but, in the history of this country, there never yet has been a time, and I cannot believe there ever will be a time, when Congress will admit a State on forms and ceremonies contrary to the will of the people. The example of Mr. Buchanan, in regard to my own State, has been cited, and properly cited, in this debate. He passed over forms and ceremonies to get at the will of the people. He contended that the organization was irregular; but the people ask for admission, and the people were to be admitted upon their demand. Conform your action, in such cases, to the will of the people, and you will always be right. Thanking the Senate for the attention they have paid to me and I find it necessary to apologize for the incomplete manner in which my views have been presented-I leave the subject, contented to perform my duty when this constitution shall be presented here, according to the principles which I have laid down to-day. In the language of the honorable Senator from Illinois, I intend to follow the principles of the Kansas act, and all its logical and legal corisequences, take me where they may; for I believe, with the President, that that act has simply put into shape and legislative enactment a principle as ancient as free government itself, and without whose exercise there can be no free government.

:

Citizenship: State Citizens, General Citizens.

Mip

HON. PHILEMON BLISS, OF OHIO.

Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 7, 1858.

The House being in Committee of the Whole upon the President's Message

Mr. BLISS spoke as follows:

Since the last Congress, the country has been startled by a political opinion of our Supreme Court, known as the Dred Scott decision, that makes it doubtful whether we have not already relapsed into despotism. The President en dorses it, and I am informed that the Departments base their official action upon it, and it is for this I now and here arraign it. The irregularity of that opinion; the absurdity of turning a man out of court for want of jurisdiction, and then giving judgment against him on the merits; the anomalous character of its reasoning; its disregard of the rights of the States, the rights of man, and the truth of history; its reckless partisanship and eager malice form the saddest chapter in modern jurisprudence. I ordinarily feel bound to treat judicial opinions with respect, though they disagree with mine. But, while I remember that the mean. est tyrants the world has known have been the sworn expounders of the law, I can have no reverence for men merely as judges; and if they descend from their high calling as protectors of liberty and law, to become their betrayers, their position shall not screen their double treachery from just scrutiny.

pages of gross and illegal dicta upon the law of Slavery. This decision and this dicta have been triumphantly answered by the minority of the court, and by distinguished citizens of the States; yet I feel impelled, as the Representative of a people burning with a sense of outraged justice, to enter their and my indignant protest.

With the reproduction of the novelties of the propagandists, to digest which, for the future shibboleth of the slave Democracy, was this dicta uttered, I shall not now meddle. I have before considered these novelties; I may do so again; but my object now is to examine, as fully as your oppressive rules will permit, what I understand to be the decision of the court. I feel especially impelled to this course now, because some gentlemen seem fearful of being suspected of concern for the rights of blacks; and the attention of others seems diverted from this insidious and most dangerous attack, by the enemy's fresh attempts to enslave our own territories, and rob, to enslave those of our neighbors.

And in view of some disclaimers, here and elsewhere, upon one matter I wish to be distinctly understood. Whatever my philosophy in regard to races, it has no business here. However I may deprecate the unwise efforts of some friends of Freedom, I reserve my censures for them, and in their own presence. But here, under the shadow of a despotic interest, a corporation, compared to which, a union of all the banks in America, under a single directory, condensed from a thousand Biddles, would be but a gentle monster, where it so often frightens cowards and scourges slaves, I scorn to say or do aught that may imply a doubt of my living sympathy with the crushed subjects of its power, or with any who manfully withstand it. And I pray not to be suspected of that spurious philanthropy, atheistic Christianity, or false Democracy, that is indifferent to lieve that God is our common Father; that

This court is itself a Democratic anomaly& solecism, as Jefferson called it. Its conduct has vindicated the Democratic principle, so strangely departed from in its organization; and I hope for the co-operation of the Democracy here in support of the bill which I hope to introduce for the curtailment of its overgrown powers. Without a show of reason, in face of all law, all authority, a sectional, irresponsible body-a body blind with prejudice, if no worse, representing nothing but a despotic interest, and gathered together, by long and careful labor and sifting, for the express purpose of serving that interest, trusting to their irresponsibility, and callous to the opinion of mankind the wrongs of any class. As a Christian, I be

this body, to the extent of its power, has overthrown the law of citizenship, and published

"he has made of one blood all nations of men

to dwell on all the face of the earth;" that diate descendants: Aristotle, the apostle of Christ is the elder brother as well of the Ethio- conservative democracy, defines a citizen to be pian and Saxon as his own race, and that as we one born of citizen parents, who has a right to treat the least of these his brethren, we treat participate in the judicial and executive part him. As a Democrat, I believe in the equality of government. He condemns their engaging of all men before the law, and that human in servile employments; "For," says he, "it is rights pertain to human nature. As a legisla

impossible for one who lives the life of a me tor, or dispenser of justice, so far from discrimchanic, or hired servant, to practice a life of

virtue." (Aris. on Gov., b. 3.) The citizens of the Grecian Republics were but a minority of the people of even the ruling city; and though Rome greatly extended citizenship beyond the narrow bounds of Grecian policy, still, until long after the term ceased to have any practi

inating against the helpless and weak, if I found one man or class of men more helpless or more subject to popular prejudice, for his or their benefit alone would I favor class legisla. tion or judicial leaning. The strong can protect themselves; the weak need the prop, and the defenceless the shield. And when men cal significance, it was confined to a very limit tell me here, or through their co-workers in ed class of the Roman people, scarcely extendyonder vault, of the dependence of the Africo- ing beyond the walls of the city. True, within American, or of the rapidly-increasing class of the city, in the days of her earlier glory, Rome Africo-European blood, I would not hence for

was liberal, conferring citizenship upon the ⚫bid him letters, forbid him property, forbid him emancipated slave as well as his master, yet the

all opportunity and manly motive, but would 6 more sedulously guard his rights, more patiently develop his manhood. Let the tyrant slander his victim, and excuse his tyranny by its own effects, but let no Christian or Democrat thus defile the inner sanctum of his faith.

civis of the Republic, as with the Greek polites, possessed rather the double signification of burgher in reference to the town, and elector in reference to the State, and is only rendered citizen from our want of a corresponding word. But we use not the word in its legal sense, as

.. This court has undertaken to outlaw a large one of aristocratic or municipal distinction, to class of free American citizens. By its wicked designate the descendants of the original settlers edict they are, for the first time, turned out of of Boston or Jamestown, or any other original the Federal courts; banished the public domain city, nor such other inhabitants of the provinces by denying pre-emptions; robbed of their prop- as have acquired the "freedom of the city." *erty in inventions by refusing patents; cut off It no longer means electors, or those enrolled from foreign travel, except as permanent wan- in the national or city guards, but is a sim derers, without nationality; and deprived of ple transfer of, or substitute for, the word every constitutional guarantee of personal subject. By the Declaration of Independence, rights. It has hardly been surpassed in atroci- the subjects of King George became citizens of : ty since that celebrated revocation, consigning the several States; so by the inauguration of the Protestants of France to dungeons or exile, the French Republic, les sujets of Louis became or those black enactments outlawing the Catho- les citoyens of France. Though in common lics of Ireland; and I thank God for putting it and loose language we all speak of electors into the heads of the weak men who issued it, merely as citizens, yet in the most liberal States to attempt to justify their act, to lay bare their all citizens as women and children are not nakedness, that the shock given our moral sense by the edict itself may be avenged by our contempt for its patent malice, and the weak and far-fetched reasons which sustain it.

electors, and sometimes aliens are made elect
ors. The terms are not at all synonymous or
convertible, though closely connected.
I speak not now of those native inhabitants

We are told in substance, in this opinion, subjected to servitude, and upon whose persons that the descendants of African slaves cannot may be committed with impunity all the crimes be citizens of the United States; that though of the decalogue. Upon them, whether of Ba they may be citizens of each State, yet, by some ropean, Indian, or African descent, society I unwritten understanding, they were intended to wages eternal war. They are constant prisonbe excluded from the operation of the Consti- ers, grinding in the prison-house of bondage, tution of the United States; were not in that and it matters little, while thus subjected, instrument referred to as either people or citi- whether we call them citizens or not. zens; and no State can make them general But, with this exception, if it be an excep

+ citizens.

tion, citizenship is opposed simply to alienage.

Passing for a time the falsehood of the as- As in monarchies, all persons are either sub sumed fact, I will first inquire into the nature jects or aliens, so in our Republic all are either of citizenship, and especially that of the United citizens or aliens. This idea of citizenship is

-States, and the power of the States over it. the only one tangible, the only one that wi Confusion in the meaning of the term citizen stand a moment the test of criticism; and I is often created by referring to its use in the defy gentlemen to give me a definition of the old Republics. The words translated citizen term that shall not embrace all the native and were originally used to designate the privileged naturalized members of the community. li inhabitants of the chief city and their imme- was the only idea known in our better days.