irregularity of this Convention was increased by the circumstance that two of the oldest counties of the State, comprising a population of some twenty-five thousand souls, refused to take any part in it, even to the extent of not opening the polls for the election of delegates, claiming that it was held without warrant of law, and in defiance of the legal Convention. This popular Convention, though wanting a popular support coëxtensive with the State, yet proceeded, by formal act, to give the assent of the people of Michigan to the fundamental condition proposed by Congress.

The proceedings of the two Conventions were transmitted to President Jackson, who, by message, dated 27th December, 1836, laid them both before Congress, indicating very clearly his desire to ascertain the will of the people, without regard to form. The origin of the popular Convention he thus describes :

"This Convention was not held or elected by virtue of any act of the Territorial or State Legislature. It originated from the People themselves, and was chosen by them in pursuance of resolutions adopted in primary assemblies held in the respective counties."-(Sen. Doc., 2d sess. 24th Cong., Vol. 1, No. 36.)

And he then declares that, had these proceedings come to him during the recess of Congress, he should have felt it his duty, on being satisfied that they emanated from a Convention of delegates elected in point of fact by the people of the State, to issue his proclamation for the admission of the State.

The Committee on the Judiciary in the Senate, of which FELIX GRUNDY was Chairman, after inquiry, recognized the competency of the popular Convention, as "elected by the people of the State of Michigan," and reported a Bill, responsive to their assent of the proposed condition, for the admission of the State without further condition. (Statutes at Large, Vol. 5, p. 144, Act of 26th Jan., 1837.) Then, sir, appeared the very objections which are now directed against Kansas. It was complained that the movement for immediate admission was

the work of "a Linority," and that "a great majority of the State feel otherwise."- (Sen. Doc., 2d Sess. 24th Cong., Vol. 1. No. 37.) And a leading senator, of great ability and integrity, Mr. EWING, of Ohio, broke forth in a catechism which would do for the present hour. He exclaimed:

“What evidence had the Senate of the organization of the Convention? of the organization of the popular assemblies who appointed their delegates to that Convention? None on earth. Who they were that met and voted, we had no information. Who gave the notice? And for what did the people receive the notice? To meet and elect? What evidence was there that the Convention acted according to law? Were the delegates sworn? And if so, they were extra-judical oaths, and not binding upon them. Were the votes counted? In fact, it was not a proceeding under the forms of law, for they were totally disregarded."-(Cong. Globe, Vol. 4, p. 60, 2d sess. 24th Cong.)

And the same able senator, on another occasion, after exposing the imperfect evidence with regard to the action of the Convention, existing only in letters, and in an article from a Detroit newspaper, again exclaimed:

“This, sir, is the evidence to support an organic law of a new State about to enter into the Union! Yes, of an organic law, the very highest act a community of men can perform. Letters referring to other letters, and a scrap of a newspaper." Cong. Debates, Vol. 13, Part I.,

p. 233.

It was Mr. Calhoun, however, who pressed the opposition. with the most persevering intensity. In his sight, the admission of Michigan, under the circumstances, "would be the most monstrous proceeding under our constitution that can be conceived, the most repugnant to its principles, and dangerous in its consequences." - (Cong. Debates, Vol. 13, p. 210.) "There is not," he exclaimed, "one particle of official evidence before us. We have nothing but the private letters of individuals, who do not know even the numbers that voted on either occasion. They know nothing of the qualifications of voters, nor how their votes were received, nor by whom count

ed.” --(Ibid.) And he proceeded to characterize the popular Convention as "not only a party caucus, for party purpose, but a criminal meeting, a meeting to subvert the authority of the State, and to assume its sovereignty;" adding "that the actors in that meeting might be indicted, tried, and punished;" and he expressed astonishment that "a self-created meeting, convened for a criminal object, had dared to present to this Government an act of theirs, and to expect that we are to receive this irregular and criminal act as a fulfilment of the condition which we had presented for the admission of the State!" (Ibid., p. 299.) No stronger words have been employed against Kansas.

But the single question on which all the proceedings then hinged, and which is as pertinent in the case of Kansas as in the case of Michigan, was thus put by Mr. MORRIS, of Ohio (Ibid., p. 215): "Will Congress recognize as valid, constitutional, and obligatory, without the color of a law of Michigan to sustain it, an act done by the People of that State in their primary assemblies, and acknowledge that act as obligatory on the constituted authorities and Legislature of the State?" This question, thus distinctly presented, was answered in debate by able Senators, among whom were Mr. BENTON and Mr. KING. But there was one person, who has since enjoyed much public confidence, and has left many memorials of an industrious career in the Senate and in diplomatic life, JAMES BUCHANAN, who rendered himself conspicuous by the ability and ardor with which, against all assaults, he upheld the cause of the popular Convention, which was so strongly denounced, and the entire conformity of its proceedings with the genius of American Institutions. His speeches on that occasion contain an unanswerable argument, at all points, mutato nomine, for the immediate admission of Kansas under her present constitution; nor is there anything by which he is now distinguished that will redound so truly to his fame, if he only continues true to them. But the question was emphat

ical y answered in the Senate by the final vote on the passage of the Bill, where we find twenty-five yeas to only ten nays. In the House of Representatives, after debate, the question was answered in the same way, by a vote of one hundred and fortyeight yeas to fifty-eight nays; and among the yeas is again the name of FRANKLIN PIERCE, a Representative from New Hampshire.

Thus, in that day, by such triumphant votes, did the cause of Kansas prevail in the name of Michigan. A popular Convention, called absolutely without authority, and containing delegates from a portion only of her population, - called, too, in opposition to constituted authorities, and in derogation of another Convention assembled under the forms of law, stigmatized as a caucus and a criminal meeting, whose authors were liable to indictment, trial, and punishment, -was, after ample debate, recognized by Congress as valid; and Michigan now holds her place in the Union, and her senators sit on this floor, by virtue of that act. Sir, if Michigan is legitimate, Kansas cannot be illegitimate. You bastardize Michigan when you refuse to recognize Kansas.

Again, I say, do you require a precedent? I give it to you. But I will not stake this cause on any precedent. I plant it firmly on the fundamental principle of American Institutions, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, by which Government is recognized as deriving its just powers only from the consent of the governed, who may alter or abolish it when it becomes destructive of their rights. In the debate on the Nebraska Bill, at the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, the Declaration of Independence was denounced as a "selfevident lie." It is only by a similar audacity that the fundamental principle which sustains the proceedings in Kansas can be assailed. Nay, more: you must disown the Declaration of Independence, and adopt the Circular of the Holy Alliance, which declares that "useful and necessary changes in legislation and in the administration of States ought only to emanate

from the free will and the intelligent and well-weighed conviction of those whom God has rendered responsible for power." Face to face, I put the principle of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of the Holy Alliance, and bid them grapple! "The one places the remedy in the hands which feel the disorder; the other places the remedy in the hands which cause the disorder;" and when I thus truthfully characterize them, I but adopt a sententious phrase from the Debates in the Virginia Convention on the adoption of the Federal Constitution.-(3 Elliot's Debates, 107: Mr. Corbin.) And now these two principles, embodied in the rival propositions of the senator from New York and the senator from Illinois, must grapple on this floor.

Statesmen and judges, publicists and authors, with names of authority in American history, espouse and vindicate the American principle. Hand in hand, they now stand around Kansas, and feel this new State lean on them for support. Of these I content myself with adducing two only, both from slaveholding Virginia, in days when Human Rights were not without support in that State. Listen to the language of St. George Tucker, the distinguished commentator upon Blackstone, uttered from the bench in a judicial opinion :

"The power of convening the legal Assemblies, or the ordinary constitutional Legislature, resided solely in the Executive. They could neither be chosen without writs issued by its authority, nor assemble, when chosen, but under the same authority. The Conventions, on the contrary, were chosen and assembled, either in pursuance of recommendations from Congress, or from their own bodies, or by the discretion and common consent of the people. They were held even whilst a legal Assembly existed. Witness the Convention held at Richmond in March, 1775, after which period the legal constitutional Assembly was convened in Williamsburg, by the Governor, Lord Dunmore. *** Yet a constitutional dependence on the British Government was never denied until the succeeding May. * * The Convention, then, was not the ordinary Legislature of Virginia. It was the body of the people, impelled to assemble from a sense of common danger, consulting for the common good, and