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and extra-judicial, produced a profound impression throughout the land, and, of course, excited much comment and many expressions of condemnation and indignant remonstrance. Emboldened by the conflicting utterances of the court, and sanctioned by the dissenting opinions of Justices McLean and Curtis, the press and many of the public men of the country joined in this popular verdict against what was deemed hostile to the legitimate principles of established jurisprudence, and to the demands of that higher law that sits enthroned above all human enactments. Perhaps there were no assaults more severe and noteworthy than those of Mr. Benton. As familiar as any public man with the political and Constitutional history of the government, himself a citizen of a slave State and not averse to the system in obedience to whose behests the decision was given, his judgment and condemnation could not be set aside on the score of ignorance and fanaticism. In a volume, prepared soon after it was pronounced, designed to expose the fallacy of its reasonings, especially in regard to the alleged unconstitutionality of the Missouri compromise, he speaks with great plainness of its principles, and of the purposes for which it was made. Referring to its history and to its revolutionary designs, he said: "I will not inquire into the course of measures which have produced the present disturbance in the Union," nor of "the attempt to compose which by a judicial decision, in which the court overrules the action of two generations, virtually inserts a new clause in the Constitution, changes its character, and makes a new departure in the working of the Federal government." He characterizes, with great force of expression, the decisiveness and completeness of this departure from the uniformity of the action of the government, comprehending "all the departments of all the governments, State and Federal, in all their branches, legislative, executive, and judicial."

While the propagandists were elated and arrogant, the friends of freedom and humanity were cast down and alarmed. It was felt to be at once a blow upon the country and the rights of man, as fatal to the integrity of the nation as to the security and safety of the slave. It was regarded as a

great and grievous calamity, because of its intrinsic wrong-* fulness and harm; because it was felt to be one of a series of slaveholding encroachments, the culmination of past and the precursor of those yet in store; because it was regarded as a foul stain upon the sacred ermine of the court, a staggering blow upon the popular confidence in the integrity of the judiciary. Thus radical and revolutionary, it not only sought to reverse "the whole line of adjudication," as affirmed by Justice McLean, to make "a new departure in the working of the Federal government," as charged by Mr. Benton, but it sought to change the current of judicial as well as popular thought upon the great question of human rights. Instead of being a matter of "a municipal regulation" of the States, as decided in the Prigg case, it made slavery a creation of the organic law of the land, no longer the exception with freedom the rule, but itself the rule and freedom the exception, the Constitution, no longer the sacred shrine of liberty, but the frowning Bastile of a most intolerable despotism.

CHAPTER XL.

THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.

Duplicity of the leaders. — Dred Scott decision and the Lecompton constitution, parts of a conspiracy. - Mr. Fessenden's arraignment.

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Convention called. — Shannon and Geary. Governor Geary's veto and resignation. — Walker appointed governor. — Fraudulent census and registry. — Overtures of free State Walker's address. — Election. - Mr. Wilson's visit and advice. — The latter opposed but taken. - Help from the East. - Success. Free State legislature chosen. Attempted frauds. Action of the governor. He loses favor with the administration. Constitution formed. - Unfair mode of submission.Free State men refuse to vote. - XXXVth Congress. - President's message. Sharply criticised by Hale and Trumbull. - Mr. Douglas's oppo sition and speech. — A slave State the objective point. — Popular sovereignty ignored. — Governor Walker's resignation. — His letter and testimony concerning the frauds and violence committed. Stanton, acting governor, calls an early meeting of legislature. - Deposed. - Denver appointed. President sends Lecompton constitution. - Complete subserviency of the message to the slaveholding cause. - Issue taken by Mr. Fessenden. - Mr. Wilson's motion of inquiry. Message in the House referred to a committee of fifteen. — Speech of Mr. Fessenden. — Memorials of the Kansas legislature. — Naked issue. — Humiliating position of the government.

WHEN the prohibition of slavery embodied in the Missouri compromise was repealed, it was declared to be the intent to leave the people of Kansas and Nebraska "perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." But this was a pretext, a device, a trick. The slave-masters who believed that the Constitution carried slavery into the Territories used this artifice as a temporary expedient to secure the overthrow of the principle of its prohibition, and to open a vast Territory to its polluting touch. Their Northern allies joined in the deception. It was afterward stated, by Judah P. Benjamin, that, at a caucus of Senators, "both wings of the Democracy agreed that each should maintain its particular theory before the public,- one side sustaining squatter sov

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ereignty, and the other protection to slavery in the Territories, -but pledging themselves to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, whatever it might be." Mr. Douglas said in May, 1860: "We agreed to refer it to the judiciary, and we agreed to abide by their decision." This conspiracy against liberty was successful, the Democratic national convention indorsed it, Buchanan and Breckinridge accepted it, and the people, misled by the conspirators, gave it their sanction. This was the "squatter sovereignty" that triumphed in the Presidential election of 1856. The Dred Scott decision and the Lecompton constitution, which were made about the same time and generally regarded as parts of the same general policy, revealed the real character of the "sovereignty" involved, or, rather, it made apparent the utter insincerity of all pretensions of regard for the popular will, and the shameless duplicity that characterized the course of those who conceived and engineered that astounding fraud. So apparent was this, that Mr. Fessenden, who was ever specially careful and precise in his statements, succinctly declared the "original scheme to have been to assist popular sovereignty, in the first place, with a view of rendering the repeal of the Missouri compromise in some way palatable; then to deny it and avow the establishment of slavery; then to legalize this by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and claim that it had become established. I sincerely believe that decision of the Supreme Court was a part of the programme. It was to be had, if having it would avail; but if not, it never would have been had."

In pursuance of this "scheme," the Territorial legislature enacted that at the election to be held in 1856 the sense of the people should be taken upon the expediency of calling a convention to form a State constitution. The slave State men, having everything their own way, decided in favor of a convention. On the resignation of Shannon, John W. Geary of Pennsylvania, afterward a major-general in the war of the Rebellion and a Republican governor of his State, had been appointed governor of Kansas. Though associated with the Democratic party, and a supporter of Pierce's administration,

he went to the Territory resolved to deal justly with the people. Before going, he sought out Mr. Wilson, avowed his purpose to do what he could to protect the actual settlers, and placed in his hands a bill he had drawn for that purpose.

The legislature in February, 1857, passed an act for the election of delegates. As the bill for this election of delegates did not provide for the submission of the constitution to the people, Governor Geary vetoed it; but it was passed over his veto. The history of this transaction betrays the animating spirit and ulterior purposes of those who were engaged in this movement. Governor Geary states in a published letter, that, in a conference of the committees of the two houses, he proposed to sign the bill if they would authorize a submission of the proposed constitution to the people.. "But," he says, 66 they distinctly informed me that the bill met the approbation of their friends in the South; that it was not their intention that the constitution should ever be submitted to the people."

After months of labor, trial, and disappointment, Governor Geary left the Territory. Robert J. Walker was appointed governor, and Frederick P. Stanton, formerly a member of Congress from Tennessee, was appointed secretary by Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Stanton went to the Territory in advance of Mr. Walker, and was for some weeks acting governor. The law provided that there should be a census taken, and a registry made of all qualified to vote. A pretended census was taken in March, and a registry made. But in nineteen of the thirty-eight counties no census was actually taken, and in fifteen counties there was no registration. Thousands were not registered who had a right to be, and thousands were registered who had not that right. This registration was admitted by both Secretary Stanton and Governor Walker to have been incomplete and fraudulent.

The free State men, under the lead of Governor Robinson, stated to the acting governor that they would go into the election of delegates if they could be fairly registered and the ballot-box could be protected. To this Stanton replied that he had no power to correct the list of voters, and that he

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