cuse for the northern people not agreeing to the extension of that line. I do not know that they really desire to disguise the truth about that; but the whole truth should be told, if any is, because I hold that the truth half told is a lie. In California and New Mexico-which were acquired from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo-slavery had been abolished. The law existing there was the law of freedom. In a conquered country all laws, except those which cannot be enforced on account of political relationship, remain; all those laws that describe, guide, fix titles to property of any kind. The country which we acquired from Mexico, including California, New Mexico, and Utah, was all dedicated to freedom. Can it be possible that gentlemen of the South can say there was anything unreasonable in the representatives of the free States declining to vote to dedicate it to slavery, when it was already free, and would remain so unless its status was changed? I observe that the Senator from Louisiana is making a suggestion; perhaps it is a very important one. Mr. BENJAMIN. I did not mean to interrupt the Senator's remarks in the slightest degree. I was merely suggesting to his colleague that his argument might be turned the other way. If he will reflect for a moment, he will see that we got Louisiana, all slave territory, and they took half of it; and it was not a very unreasonable thing for California was admitted as a free State; and territorial governments were formed for Utah and New Mexico, declaring that, whenever the people of those Territories should be admitted into the Union as States, they should be received with or without slavery, as their constitutions might provide. These acts of 1850, with some coördinate acts passed at the same time, were insisted upon as a finality. The great point of that arrangement, its great virtue, consisted in the fact that it settled everything that had not been settled before. Though it might not be satisfactory to all the northern people, yet after all it was upon the whole reconciled to the people, because it was said it settled the matter, because it ended the controversy; because there was to be no more strife "between thy herdmen and my herdmen, for we be brethren." There we stood in 1850; there we stood in 1854all was peace, all was quiet. But, sir, in May, 1854, the Missouri compromise line was declared to be inoperative and void; not because it was unconstitutional, but because it was said to be inconsistent with the compromise measures of 1850. We are not left to imagine the reason for the declaration that the Missouri compromise line was inoperative and void, because the reason of the act was put into the belly of the act, and it was declared that it was repealed because it was inconsistent with the compromise measures of 1850, the South to ask for half of the Mexican acquisi-when the fact really was that the existence of that tions, that he says were all free. Mr. COLLAMER. I have no doubt that the gentleman's ingenuity can turn any argument against any man. The suggestion was more loud, perhaps, than wasintended; and I did not know but that the gentleman was somewhat in the condition of the lawyer who kept talking loud after the decision of the judge. The judge told him there was no use of arguing after the decision had been made. He said he was not arguing, he was only cussing the decision. [Laughter.) The gentleman, it seems, does not like my argument. Suppose two men buy a field, and divide it by an east and west line; and they afterwards buy another field: does it necessarily follow that the same line should run through the second field, without regard to its locality, or the circumstances attending the case? Not at all. But that is not the main point. The point is this: because they could not agree upon the further extension of this line, does that furnish any reason why one side should say it would take back all that it ever agreed to give? Did that afford any reason to the South to say, "we agreed to the division of the Louisiana purchase; we have had our share; we have had Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana admitted as slave States; we have used up pretty much all our share; and now we tell you of the North that if you will not divide the new acquisitions in the same way, we will keep all we have got, and break up the old settlement too?" This constitutes no reason at all; there is nothing in it. But, Mr. President, though there was controversy in relation to the territory acquired from Mexico, that was settled before we come to that point of time when the contrast of which I have spoken, as contradistinguished from the present time, is presented. In 1850, after various controversies, the disputes in reference to the territory acquired from Mexico were settled and arranged, line was one of the compromises; it was the basis of them; it was that without which there could be no finality. I thought then, and I think now, that, to say the least of it, this act was a great blunder; and Talleyrand said that in politics a blunder is worse than a crime. I have various reasons for thinking so; but the controversies which have resulted from it, the condition of the country ever since, and the condition of the country to-day, speak in a language more potent than any I could use, to show that it was a blunder. It is deeply to be regretted; but I suppose it cannot be corrected. The essential qualities which enter into the objection to that act consist in this: there was a quid pro quo for the contract called the Missouri compromise. It was of the essence of a contract. The South received their part, and have kept it; they have got their cake The North had barely entered on the wilderness which they took in the first place; they had formed a single State, Iowa, from it, and the rest yet remained a wilderness. It was the disregard of that agreement; it was saying, "we will get more, and not restore what we have had," which constituted the apparent immorality of it, and which leads the people of the North to view it as a breach of contract, a breach of faith. I know there was constitutional power to repeal it; and I have heard it argued sometimes by those in high authority, that, cause Congress had power to repeal repeal that compromise, nobody ought to complain when they did repeal it. A man who can reason in that way is a man who seems to have no moral sense, no standard of right and wrong, except that of the legal power to do anything. There is no reasoning with such a man. A moral sense so blunted as his cannot be reasoned with. be All the measures of which I have spoken were southern measures. The Missouri compromise particularly was essentially a southern measure. The way to decide whether any measure is the measure of any party, or any section, is to ascer tle the condition of your domestic institutiors as you please." That was the invitation. It was tain whether a majority of that party, or section, i to leave it to be adjusted by the progress of emi vote for it. A very large majority of the southern Representatives voted for the Missouri compromise line. It obtained a small minority from the North, enough to secure the requisite majority in Congress to pass it; but the majority of the southern Representatives supported the measure. That made it a southern measure, and it was clearly such. The compromise measures of 1850 were of a similar character; but they are now both disregarded, both broken up. What was proposed in 1854 as a substitute for this legislation? All these measures were acts of Congress on the subject of slavery in the Territories, begun and continued from year to year, and from Presidency to Presidency, at different epochs, through the whole period of our political history. All this was to be set aside; and what was to be substituted in its place? We had had a great deal of difficulty on this subject in Congress; and it was not deemed advisable to agitate it in Congress any more; but instead of that it was proposed that the subject should be turned over to the people who might settle in the Territories, and that they should be left perfectly free to regulate their institutions in their own way. That was the substitute. It is sometimes called popular sovereignty and sometimes squatter sovereignty; but, at any rate, it was the substitute for the previous course of proceeding. From the words in which that principle was couched in the Kansas-Nebraska bill at the time it was passed, how did the world understand it, and how was it intended that the world should understand it? gration. Could any man seriously suppose the an agitating topic which had disturbed Congress until they were so tired of it that they must brush it off and get rid of it, would be quietly and pease ably settled by the people of the Territory? Coud it be reasonably supposed that if that subject was to be left to those who should emigrate to the Territory, emigration would not be prompted by this very motive? It was a stimulus to emigr tion. It was saying to all the people of the Ear who were fond of the institutions of freedora and regard the institution of slavery as a greater, "it is for you now to go there; here is an fair field for you; make your exertions; prose your emigration; exercise your legal powers: make the Territory, as a reward for all your ex ertions, a free Territory and a free State legaily." At the same time it said to all those who regard the institution of slavery as a divine blessing, " ye there, and prosecute your exertions; push for ward your enterprise; stimulate your emigration; and as the reward of your exertions, lawfully pat forth there, sanctify it if you can to the holy caus of slavery." That was the invitation given for to the world, and after that invitation is given ta any man fairly find fault because the people da go in accordance with it? Can he find fault ter people associated themselves together, rendered aid and assistance to each other, material aid and comfort, in prosecuting that enterprise? It been done in every quarter of the country-the North and the South. It was to be expected; it was invited What might a man further have calculated? It seems to me it required no very great length of foresight for a man to have calculated with cer tainty what would have been the result. Weet lie the elements of emigration? Who have ducements to emigrate? What are their purpes? What is their character? What sentiments ac'y ate them? The people of the South, especi those who are owners of slaves, are people of property, men who own land. The South, wh six millions of white people, has not more one person to every eight or ten square mies They have no occasion to emigrate; they are not the elements of emigration; they have lat enough where they are, unless, indeed, their sys tem is of such a kind that they have to keepca ing over new land all the time, because they hate exhausted the old; but even for that purpose, have enough for hundreds of years. No, sir; th material of emigration lies east. It was declared that the Missouri compromise line, being inconsistent with the compromises of 1850, was inoperative and void, and that by this declaration it was not intended to legislate slavery into the Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form their institutions in their own way. How should the world understand that? How was it intended that it should be understood? Clearly, words cannot make it any plainer than those employed. It was that the people who go there to settle shall be left free as people of a Territory, to regulate their institutions in their own way. That was the version put upon it throughout all the free States, and by the Democracy. It was insisted every where that it commended itself particularly to the acceptance of a republican community, that that people should regulate their own affairs just as they pleased. It was said, "we do it here in Massachusetts, in Vermont, in Illinois, and why cannot the people of Kansas do it just as well as we?" Mr. Cass assured the people of Michigan that, as he understood it, slavery could not go into Kansas unless the people of Kansas made a law authorizing it. Not only do the words of the act imply that the question was to be left to the peowhile a Territory, to settle for themselves, but that was the version put upon it everywhere, and the community were commanded to receive it sun. The human family are prompted by with acceptance and delight, because of that prin-, which they cannot control and which they hady ple, ciple. 1 I cannot but say, at times, that if we look at he subject of African slavery on a broad and lite scale, and with reference to great periods in the progress of the world, it is after all a very sread subject, a very little affair. I think from the foolprints they have left behind, it is obvious tha: the family of man makes around this earth grea cycles of revolution. They follow the sit rea understand. Their progress is from the Ent westward. At the present moment the great odus of Europe which is throwing its avalase Then what did it amount to? It was an invitation to the world, to all men every where, "come ye into this Territory of Kansas and there act to- on this continent, joined with the emigrants from gether as a people, and arrange, discuss, and set- the northern and eastern portions of this couady : go to swell the great tide of emigration. The family of man is led out to possess its great patrimony. It is going around the earth; and the little, accidental colonization of a few Africans here, compared with this, is nothing but small eddies along the margin of the great stream. It is a small matter in the long run; but it seems to be enough to agitate our day and our time, though I can hardly consider it worthy of the great attention and deep regard of philosophic statesmen. But, sir, as I was saying, the emigration thus passing from east to west, the great current of the family of man going out in each cycle of revolution which it makes, partakes of the degree of civilization which in that period exists. The family of man now coming to this continent, and going out from our eastern and northern States, is deeply impressed with the love of individual independence, the love of freedom; the idea, too, that man, as a laboring being, having his destiny in his own hands, shall have his labor guided by the light of his own intellect; that we need no such formations of society as to require a hierarchy in the Church, or a lordship and aristocracy in the State; that labor and intellect shall be together; the laborer shall work by the light of his own intellect, guide his own destinies, participate in all the actions of his Government by his vote, and then he will appreciate the majesty of that system of which he is a member. Such people can never look upon the subject of slavery but with regret at least, and generally with displeasure. That is the kind of material that furnishes the emigration in this continent. It is of such elements that it is composed, and it is by such principles that it is actuated. Could any man, knowing this, when Kansas was open and the world invited to possess it and to mold its destinies, doubt what those destinies would be? Nothing could prevent it being free, if it was left to the ordinary course and operation of the laws that govern emigration. It could hardly have been imagined that those people living right along the border were going to possess the whole of it. great deal of truth contained in the remark of the man who was journeying through Arkansas, before we acquired Texas, with his family and eart, He was asked, "Where are you going?" "To Texas." "What for?" "To settle on land." "Well," said the Arkansas man, "there is land enough here; it is all around you; you can have as much of it as you want." That was rather a poser. Various views were started, until the man, finding himself much cornered, at last came to the point: "I am going, "said he," where I can fight for my rights." (Laughter.) There are some men who can never value rights they cannot fight for. To have them peaceably and lawfully is in no way satisfactory. Some such men, I have no doubt, have gone to Kansas; they have gone to fight for their rights. But that this sentiment pervaded any considerable portion of that community, is utterly without foundation. Again, it is suggested that some of these people went from Massachusetts and other States, to do voting on a particular occasion, and go away. Where is the evidence of that? I know it is said, in the report of the committee here, that a man who was a candidate for Delegate to Congress, when he found that he lost his election, went away. I think they are apt to do that all over the country, particularly where a man is so badly beaten that there is no chance for him at ail, he is likely to go and try his luck somewhere else. The people went there to make that a free Territory and a free State; and nothing would answer that purpose but to go there and vote, and to stay there to vote. There can be no foundation for the suggestion that they went there simply to vote, and then come away. It is utterly inconsistent with their purposes. Such, sir, was the plighted faith of this country contained in the Kansas act. The next point we have to inquire into is, how far has that been carried out; how far has that plighted faith been redeemed; how far have that people been left free to form and mold their institutions in their own way? Why, Mr. President, we come now to a That would be to suppose that it must suffer vio-point which has been made a great point of issue chase, from the sources of the Mississippi down to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the banks of the river Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, was this Government under obligations to create a territorial government in any particular part of it? We were under no obligation to make a Territory at all. What I mean by Territory now is the technical sense of Territory-a municipal corporation in lence, and violent men must take it by force, because they were nearest to it. That would have been a violation of the promised principle and of the plighted faith which the words of the act contained, that the people of the Territory should be left free to form and regulate their institutions in their own way. Mr. President, much has been said in relation to the motives and improper purposes with which some people went to Kansas. There can be no reasonable doubt that a very large portion of the emigrants who went there, among other purposes, to push their fortunes as emigrants, were invited there, many of them by this very assurance which the act of Congress contained. They went there not unlawfully, not with a view to make it a free State unlawfully, or by any force or lence; but because they understood they had right to make it free lawfully; and that is the very reason they went there. I am of course aware that, when you enter upon an enterprise of this kind, many disturbing geniuses, men who are fond of trouble and commotion, and who might naturally have anticipated there would be much of it there, may have been invited there on both sides-men of violence. There was indeed a a from the beginning to the end of the controversy since the passage of this act. The formation of a Territory by Congress, is really nothing more nor less than passing an act of incorporation for a city, or borough, or town. A territorial government is nothing more nor less than a mere municipal corporation created by Congress. Congress are sovereign, I take it, in all territory beyond the limits of any particular State. They have jurisdiction of it; they are sovereign in it. I do not agree to a suggestion made in the report of the Committee on Territories two years ago, that Congress have a sovereignty over the Territories in abeyance. A sovereignty in abeyance is a paradox; it is no sovereignty at all; it is a sovereignty with no power. Even in the Dred Scott case the Supreme Court came to this conclusion: they say nothing about the country which fell within the old ordinance of 1787; but in the newly acquired territory they say Congress have plenary power for its government and are entirely sovereign over it within the limitations of the Constitution; they cannot, of course, violate any of the prohibitions of the Constitution; they cannot establish trial without jury, and so on. When we held the whole of the Louisiana pur and the Territory never was organized according to the provisions of the act of Congress. Now, sir, what sort of excuses have been mad for this? How is it attempted to be got rid of The actual residents of the Territory have, over and over again, insisted on having this wrong redressed or corrected in some form; but what have been the answers? President Pierce, in his mes corporated by law for the purpose of internal gov-sage to Congress, said he could not correct because the Executive had no power to corred the laws made by the Legislature under the forma of law. I do not say that he could. Some have said that the courts could correct it. Sir, whatever is law for the Executive to carry into effect, is law for a court to administer. They cannot go behind the regular authentication. But when the President seemed to concede that there had been violence there, and said he had no power to correct it, why on earth did he not tell Congress to inquire into it and correct it? There can be but one answer-because he was gratified to take the possession and keeping of the stolen goods. Th House of Representatives, however, did invest ernment. Congress had a perfect right to legislate for that whole country, keep it altogether as a body, make such laws as were necessary for it without calling in the instrumentalities of second means, and delegating power to them for this purpose. How, then, can people talk so much about the right of the people of a Territory to make a State? You might as well say that the people of a county in Virginia can make themselves into a State. They are organized for certain municipal purposes. This territorial incorporation is only for internal government and municipal purposes. Being a Territory is not an incipient stage to being a State; it vests no such power in them. It is only for present convenience, and for the administra- i gate it, and their committee examined under oath tion of justice, and the preservation of peace in the easiest way. When this act of incorporation for Kansas was passed, and the terms and conditions were stated in it, and especially on this topic of which I have spoken, how was it organized? How did it go into effect? Laws, good laws, no matter how good they are, furnish no security to men, nor to the rights of men. It is only in the execution of the laws that that security can rightly be found. the very persons who carried on this invasion. The results of that examination are before the world, matters of history and certainty. What did the Senate do? Did it pass the bill which the other House passed for a reorganiza tion of the Territory? Nothing of the kind. It was said here that the invasion only extended to the few districts where the people entered protesta to the Governor. The people had been driven off, scattered, and intimidated by force and arms; and, How did they organize that corporation? Sup-sparse as the population was in the largest part of sup pose an act of incorporation for a bank, a rail- That was the case here in the very first meeting of the people to make an election of a Legislature for the Territory of Kansas. Asauthorized the Territory, they gave it up; that is to say, they did not know how to take proceedings to corree. it. In some portions they did, and in three or fout districts they filed protests with Governor Reeder against these violent proceedings; but did they get redress? Not at all. Governor Reeder, to be sure, set them aside and ordered new elections; but th moment the Legislature which had been elected by means of this invasion came together, they set aside all the proceedings of his, and ratified the original invasion. Now it is said, that, inasmuch as all of them did not protest, and the Legislature passed upon that point, every defect is cured, and we are estopped from making complaint. Here I cannot avoid noticing another thing, When the present President talks of anything of that kind, he says that the territorial government, which we say was never legally inducted there, has been recognized by the different departmen's of this Government, and it cannot be corrected ot in the act, the Governor issued his proclamation || looked into. The same point is now insisted upon to the people. He shaped out their districts; took a census of them; he called on them to make their election; and he appointed judges to preside over them and make returns to him-all according to the act. What then? We allege, and have always alleged, and have proved, that on that very occasion, with the then comparatively thin people, with only about two thousand voters, between four and five thousand people of Missouri went on the day before, encamping out on the previous night, and spread themselves, armed, over all that Territory, took possession of every voting precinet in it but one, drove the people from the polls, and made the organization. It was an utter, absolute, entire usurpation and military conquest, by the majority report in this case. That, tomy mind, is a very extraordinary answer. What do you mean? "We cannot correct it and will not correct it." Why? "Because we never would. || We will not now, because we told you we would not before." That is the very ground of com plaint. It is nothing but one continued, protracted outrage, never examined into, never corrected by this body. TUESDAY, March 2. Mr. President, when I yielded the floor yester day, I was speaking of the first attempted organ ization of the territorial government of Kansas under the organic act. I endeavored to show that t was made by force of an invasion from Misouri, spreading itself all over the Territory, and verawing and over-voting, in an unlawful manher, the people who inhabited the Territory. There have been attempted some excuses for this ict. They have been mainly found in what has Deen alleged leged to be the conduct of the Emigrant Aid Society in sending out to Kansas persons from Massachusetts, though nothing is said at the same ime about the Blue Lodge associations which lad been formed in the vicinity for the purpose of taking possession of the Territory at the first Dound. But, sir, I do not wish to be led off, as I hink the community has been attempted to be led Off, from examining into the true character of that nvasion, by directing their attention and exciting heir prejudices against some other people. I can merely say that the act of the Emigrant Aid Society, in aiding persons who wished to go to Kan they endeavored to correct that wrong? As I said before, we are told that if there was any objection to those persons who were elected members of the Legislature, the people could go to that Legislature and have it corrected. What a mockery is this! You may go to the usurpers in order to pass on the legality and correctness of their own usurpations! I fancy that gentlemen here, and especially those who are lawyers, understand the distinction between a challenge to the array of a jury, and a challenge for favor of particular members. When the challenge is to the array, how idle it would be to undertake to call upon those very jurors thus collected, to pass on the question whether they were legally brought together. I know that in challenges to favor, the good old practice of the common law was this: if an individual is challenged, triers are appointed, and they pass upon his case; and when they have passed upon three sas for the purpose of settling, and, if you please, ❘ of them, they become so many members of the making it a free State also, had nothing unlawful in it; it was laudable and desirable. There was no single feature of illegality in it, and the purpose which they entertained, though it may call for anathemas and vituperation, really, after all, is not censurable. But, sir, there has been an infinite deal of unnecessary labor expended about that point, for if you examine truly into what the aid society did, you find that it amounted to very little. In the month of February, 1855, before this invasion from Missouri, and the first election, which was in March, 1855, a census was taken of the people of the Territory; the name of each person was put down, and the State from which he came. That census has been returned by the Governor and is in the archives of the State Department here. It was made for the purpose of partitioning out the Territory, and apportioning the representatives to the Legislature amongst the different districts, which was done. On a careful examination of that census, and of the places from which the people came, I have made a little table which is before me. No persons were ever aided by that Emigrant Aid Society except from New England, and, I say, but a very small portion of those. In the month of February, 1855, there were in that Territory only one hundred and eighty-three men from all the New England States. I say not one half of || them had had any connection with the society in any way, or knew anything about it; but it is the fact that only one hundred and eighty-three men in all were in that Territory from New England; and this is undertaken to be made the foundation of an excuse for the military invasion from Missouri of between four and five thousand men going in armed, with banners flying, drums beating, and marching with all the array of war. If it were true that those people had gone there, even, if you please, with the horrid notion of abolitionizing Kansas-an awful idea! can it be made the foundation for any sort of justification for this invasion, conquest, and subjugation of that country? Did that act of invasion, that mode of attempting to organize the government, leave the people of Kansas "free?" Certainly not. Has the Senate of the United States-has the Government of the United States done anything on earth to redeem the pledge of "perfect freedom?" Have they endeavored to redress these people? Have jury; the triers are dismissed; the jury go on passing upon the challenges to individuals, until you fill up the jury box; but you see they are expurgated, and persons are called that are not obnoxious to the objection. But how could that Legislature thus usurped, thus put into power by an invasion from abroad, aiding and assisting a very small minority of that people, pass upon the challenge of the array? And yet we are told that we are estopped from going into that matter, because the Legislature passed upon it! No, sir, there was no mode of correcting this wrong but by an act of legislation, and that has been denied. Now, sir, in order to trace how it is that the constitution which we have now before us is the child, the result, the ultimate fruit and consequence of that usurpation, it is necessary to see how it was that those who were thus inducted into power perpetuated that power, how their action operated to produce this constitution in its present form. That can be done briefly. When that Legislature assembled they proceeded to pass laws, as they called them. Among those laws was one which required that every person who might be permitted to vote at all, should, if challenged, take an oath to support the fugitive slave law. In the next place they passed an act which declared men subject to penalties and imprisonment if they should publish or declare anything which questioned the right of a man to hold slaves in the Territory of Kansas. That is a topic that they were not permitted to discuss at all; that was put under the ban. Then provision was made that men might vote on paying taxes, but no time of residence was required-of course intending that all those who lived near there could come in, settle for a day, pay a tax of fifty cents or a dollar, and vote, so that they might be saved the trouble of military expeditions afterwards. The purpose, the object, of those laws is perfectly obvious. No man in the exercise of ordinary discernment can possibly avoid seeing what it was. It was to drive the free-State people out of that Territory; it was to disfranchise them. Is it possible that any State or Territory, when Congress have passed a law and fixed the penalties for breaches of that law, can go on and absolutely disfranchise men if they will not swear to support it? Did the Congress of the United States, in passing the fugitive slave law, ever declare or intimate that they supposed people |