slavery in any territory of the United States, by positive legislation, prohibiting its existence or extension therein. That we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, of any individual or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States, while the present constitution shall be maintained.

Resolved, That the constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism-polygamy and slavery.

Resolved, That while the constitution of the United States was ordained and established, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, and contains ample provisions for the protection of the life, liberty, and property of every citizen, the dearest constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently taken from them; their territory has been invaded by an armed force; spurious and pretended legislative, judicial, and executive officers have been set over them, by whose usurped authority, sustained by the military power of the government, tyrannical and unconstitutional laws have been enacted and enforced; the rights of the people to keep and bear arms have been infringed; test oaths of an extraordinary and entangling nature have been imposed, as a condition of exercising the right of suffrage and holding office; the right of an accused person to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury has been denied; the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, has been violated; they have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law; that the freedom of speech and of the press has been abridged; the right to choose their representatives has been made of no effect; murders, robberies, and arsons have been instigated or encouraged, and the offenders have been allowed to go unpunished; that all these things have been done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the present national administration; and that for this high crime against the constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign the administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists, and accessories, either before or after the facts, before the country and before the world; and that it is our fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of these atrocious outrages, and their accomplices, to a sure and condign punishment hereafter.

Resolved, That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a state of the Union with her present free constitution, as at once the most effectual way of securing to her citizens the enjoyment of the rights and privileges to

which they are entitled, and of ending the civil strife now raging in her territory.

Resolved, That the highwayman's plea that "might makes right," embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any government or people that gave it their sanction.

Resolved, That a railroad to the Pacific ocean, by the most central and practicable route, is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country, and that the federal government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction, and, as an auxiliary thereto, the immediate construction of an emigrant route on the line of the railroad.

Resolved, That appropriations of Congress for the improvement of rivers and harbors of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of our existing commerce, are authorized by the constitution, and justified by the obligation of government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

Resolved, That we invite the affiliation and co-operation of the men of all parties, however differing from us in other respects, in support of the principles herein declared; and believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all proscriptive legislation affecting their security

1856.-WHIG PLATFORM,

Baltimore, September 13.

Resolved, That the whigs of the United States, now here assembled, hereby declare their reverence for the constitution of the United States, their unalterable attachment to the national Union, and a fixed determination to do all in their power to preserve them for themselves and their posterity. They have no new principles to announce; no new platform to establish; but are content to broadly rest-where their fathers rested— upon the constitution of the United States, wishing no safer guide, no higher law.

Resolved, That we regard with the deepest interest and anxiety the present disordered condition of our national affairs-a portion of the country ravaged by civil war, large sections of our population embittered by mutual recriminations; and we distinctly trace these calamities to the culpable neglect of duty by the present national administration.

Resolved, That the government of the United States was formed by the conjunction in political unity of widespread geographical sections, materially differing, not only in climate and products, but in social and domes

tic institutions; and that any cause that shall permanently array the different sections of the Union in political hostility and organize parties founded only on geographical distinctions, must inevitably prove fatal to a continuance of the national Union.

Resolved, That the whigs of the United States declare, as a fundamental article of political faith, an absolute necessity for avoiding geographical parties. The danger, so clearly discerned by the father of his country, has now become fearfully apparent in the agitation now convulsing the nation, and must be arrested at once if we would preserve our constitution and our Union from dismemberment, and the name of America from being blotted out from the family of civilized nations.

Resolved, That all who revere the constitution and the Union, must look with alarm at the parties in the field in the present presidential campaign, one claiming only to represent sixteen northern states, and the other appealing mainly to the passions and prejudices of the southern states; that the success of either faction must add fuel to the flame which now threatens to wrap our dearest interests in a common ruin.

Resolved, That the only remedy for an evil so appalling is to support a candidate pledged to neither of the geographical sections nor arrayed in political antagonism, but holding both in a just and equal regard. We congratulate the friends of the Union that such a candidate exists in Millard Fillmore.

Resolved, That, without adopting or referring to the peculiar doctrines of the party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a candidate, we look to him as a well tried and faithful friend of the constitution and the Union, eminent alike for his wisdom and firmness-for his justice and moderation in our foreign relations-for his calm and pacific temperament, so well becoming the head of a great nation-for his devotion to the constitution in its true spirit—his inflexibility in executing the laws; but, beyond all these attributes, in possessing the one transcendent merit of being a representative of neither of the two sectional parties now struggling for political supremacy.

Resolved, That, in the present exigency of political affairs, we are not called upon to discuss the subordinate questions of administration in the exercising of the constitutional powers of the government. It is enough to know that civil war is raging, and that the Union is in peril; and we proclaim the conviction that the restoration of Mr. Fillmore to the presidency will furnish the best if not the only means of restoring peace.

CHAPTER XVII.

BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION.

1857-1861.

BUCHANAN'S POLICY.

In his inaugural address President Buchanan said, “that Congress was neither to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States." This was the doctrine of "popular sovereignty," which became applicable to all the territories after the repeal of the Missouri compromise.

DRED SCOTT CASE.

The Dred Scott case was originally one of assault and battery, but it finally became one of the most important cases ever decided in the United States. A slave named Dred Scott was owned by a military officer living in Missouri. He was taken by his master to a military post in Illinois, where the latter had been ordered in 1834. In this state, from which slavery was excluded by statute, Scott was allowed to marry the female slave of another officer, each master giving his consent. In 1838 Scott was taken to Minnesota, a territory in which slavery was prohibited by the act of Congress, 1820, known as the Missouri compromise. Thence the owner took him, his two children, and the mother, back to Missouri, and sold them all there as slaves. Scott was whipped for some offense, and sued for his freedom on the plea of his residence, for several years, in the free-labor territory of Illinois and Min

nesota. "The owner's demurrer denied that the plaintiff was a citizen, or could sue, since he was descended from slave ancestors, and had never been set free." This was in the circuit court of St. Louis, and the decision was in Scott's favor. This was reversed by the Supreme Court of the state, and the case was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney presiding. The Chief Justice, and a majority of the justices, being friends of the slave system, the decision was against Scott. Though the case was decided in 1856, it was deemed best to reserve judgment until after the excitement of the presidential election should subside. Two days after the inauguration of Buchanan, Chief Justice Taney declared that any person "whose ancestors were imported into this country and held as slaves" had no right to sue in a court in the United States. This denied the right of citizenship to a slave, or the descendant of a slave. The Chief Justice further declared that the framers of the Declaration of Independence did not include the negro race in America in the declaration that "all men are created equal;" that the patriots of the revolution regarded the negro race as so far inferior that he had "no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant him;" that they were spoken of only as property; and that the framers of the constitution held the same views. The Chief Justice further declared that the Missouri compromise, and all other acts restricting slavery, were unconstitutional, and that there was no authority in Congress or the local legislatures for restricting the spread of slavery over the whole Union. It was decided that Dred Scott, the plaintiff in error, was no citizen of Missouri, but a thing; that his residence in Minnesota could avail him nothing, because the act of Congress, forbidding slaves north of 36° 30', was unconstitutional and could not debar a slave-owner from living in any territory with all his property; that Scott, being a