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In the Senate, 13th March, 1856, Mr.Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, presented and read a very long Report on affairs in Kansas. Mr.Collamer also presented and read a Minority Report. As soon as the reading was completed, Mr.Sumner took the floor, and made the following remarks:

Mr. Sumner. In those two reports, the whole subject is presented characteristically on both sides. In the report of the majority, the true issue is smothered in that of the minority, the true issue stands forth as a pillar of fire toguide the country. The first report proceeds from four senators; but againstit I put, fearlessly, the report signed by a single seuator [Mr.Collamer], towhom I offer my thanks for this service. Let the two go abroad together.Error is harmless, while reason is left free to combat it.

I have no desire to precipitate the debate on this important question, underwhich the country already shakes from side to side, and which threatens toscatter from its folds civil war. Nor, indeed, am I disposed to enter upon ituntil I have had the opportunity of seeing, in print, the elaborate documentswhich have been read to us to-day. But I cannot allow the subject to passaway, even for this hour, without repelling, at once, distinctly and unequivocally, the assault which has been made upon the Emigrant Aid Company ofMassachusetts. That company has done nothing for which it can be condemned under the laws and constitution of the land. These it has not offendedin letter or spirit; not in the slightest letter, or in the remotest spirit. It istrue, it has sent men to Kansas; and had it not a right to send them? It istrue, I trust, that its agents love Freedom, and hate Slavery; and have theynot a right to do so? Their offence has this extent, and nothing more. Sir,to the whole arraignment of that Company, in the report of the Committee on Territories, I now for them plead "Not Guilty!" and confidently appeal tothe country for that honorable acquittal which is due to their patriot services.

The outrages in Kansas are vindicated, or extenuated, by the alleged misconduct of the Emigrant Aid Company. Very well, sir, a bad cause is naturally staked on untenable ground. You cannot show the misconduct. Anysuch allegation will fail. And you now begin your game with loaded dice.

Afterwards, 19th March, Mr.Douglas introduced "A Bill to authorize the people of the Territory of Kansas to form a Constitution and State Government, and to provide for their admission into the Union, when they have the requisite population." Subsequently, Mr.Seward moved, by way of substitute, another Bill, providing for immediate action, and entitled "A Bill for the admission of the State of Kansas into the Union." Debate ensued, and was continued, by adjournment, from time to time. In the course of this debate, on the 19th and 20th of May, Mr.Sumner made the following speech.

Mr. President

You are now called to redress a great transgression. Seldomin the history of nations has such a question been presented.Tariffs, army bills, navy bills, land bills, are important, andjustly occupy your care; but these all belong to the course ofordinary legislation. As means and instruments only, they arenecessarily subordinate to the conservation of government itself.Grant them or deny them, in greater or less degree, and youwill inflict no shock. The machinery of government will continue to move. The State will not cease to exist. Far otherwise is it with the eminent question now before you, involving,as it does, liberty in a broad Territory, and also involving thepeace of the whole country, with our good name in history forevermore.

Take down your map, sir, and you will find that the Territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middlespot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic onthe east, and the Pacific on the west; from the frozen waters ofHudson's Bay on the north, and the tepid Gulf Stream on thesouth, constituting the precise territorial centre of the whole vastcontinent. To such advantages of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with ahealth-giving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and gene​rous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions.A few short months only have passed since this spacious mediterranean country was opened only to the savage, who ran wildin its woods and prairies; and now it has already drawn to itsbosom a population of freemen larger than Athens crowded.within her historic gates, when her sons, under Miltiades, wonliberty for mankind on the field of Marathon; more than Spartacontained, when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, quickened by a mother's benediction, to return with theirshields or on them; more than Rome gathered on her sevenhills, when, under her kings, she commenced that sovereignsway, which afterwards embraced the whole earth; more thanLondon held, when, on the fields of Crecy and Agincourt, theEnglish banner was carried victoriously over the chivalrous hostsof France.

Against this territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a Crime has been committed which is without example inthe records of the past. Not in plundered provinces, or in thecruelties of selfish governors, willyou find its parallel; and yetthere is an ancient instance, which may show, at least, the pathof justice. In the terrible impeachment by which the greatRoman orator has blasted, through all time, the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the "enormitywhich most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, andwhich still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arrestingthe sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, is,that, away in Sicily, he had scourged a citizen of Rome—thatthe cry "I am a Roman citizen" had been interposed in vainagainst the lash of the tyrant governor. Other charges were,that he had carried away productions of art, and that he hadviolated the sacred shrines. It was in the presence of theRoman Senate that this arraignment proceeded; in a temple ofthe Forum; amidst crowds, such as no orator had ever beforedrawn together, thronging the porticos and colonnades, evenclinging to the house-tops and neighboring slopes, and under ​the anxious gaze of witnesses summoned from the scene of crime.But an audience grander far, of higher dignity, of morevarious people and of wider intelligence,—the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in every land where eloquencehas been studied, or where the Roman name has been recognized,—has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with condemnation of the criminal. Sir, speaking in an age of light and in aland of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of electionsare justly placed among the highest triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly assert that the wrongs of much-abused Sicily, thusmemorable in history, were small by the side of the wrongs ofKansas, where the very shrines of popular institutions, moresacred than any heathen altar, have been desecrated; wherethe ballot-box, more precious than any work in ivory or marble,from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered; and wherethe cry "I am an American citizen" has been interposed invain against outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Areyou against sacrilege?—I present it for your execration. Areyou against robbery?—I hold it up for your scorn. Are youfor the protection of American citizens?—I showI show you how their dearest rights have been cloven down, while a tyrannical usurpation has sought to install itself on their very necks!

But the wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in anycommon lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have itsorigin. It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it tothe hateful embrace of Slavery; and it may be clearly tracedto a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of Slavery in the National Government. Yes, sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, and to make it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic,force—ay, sir, FORCE—has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and all for thesake of political power. There is the simple fact, which you ​will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents anessential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem likepublic virtues.

But this enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells to dimensions of wickedness which the imagination toils in vain to grasp,when it is understood that for this purpose are hazarded thehorrors of intestine feud, not only in this distant Territory, buteverywhere throughout the country. Already the muster hasbegun. The strife is no longer local, but national. Even now,while I speak, portents hang on all the arches of the horizon,threatening to darken the broad land, which already yawns withthe mutterings of civil war. The fury of the propagandists ofSlavery, and the calm determination of their opponents, arenow diffused from the distant Territory over wide-spread communities, and the whole country, in all its extent—marshalling hostile divisions, and foreshadowing a strife, which, unlesshappily averted by the triumph of Freedom, will become war—fratricidal, parricidal war—with an accumulated wickednessbeyond the wickedness of any war in human annals; justlyprovoking the avenging judgment of Providence and the avenging pen of history, and constituting a strife, in the language ofthe ancient writer, more thanforeign, more thansocial, morethancivil; but something compounded of all these strifes, andin itself more than war—sed potius commune quoddam ex omnibus, et plusquam bellum.

Such is the Crime which you are to judge. But the criminal also must be dragged into day, that you may see and measure the power by which all this wrong is sustained. From no common source could it proceed. In its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting ambition which would hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose which was insensible to thejudgment of mankind; a madness for Slavery, which shoulddisregard the constitution, the laws, and all the great examplesof our history; also a consciousness of power such as comesfrom the habit of power; a combination of energies found only ​in a hundred arms directed by a hundred eyes; a control ofPublic Opinion, through venal pens and a prostituted press; anability to subsidize crowds in every vocation of life—the politician with his local importance, the lawyer with his subtle tongue, and even the authority of the judge on the bench; anda familiar use of men in places high and low, so that none, fromthe President to the lowest border postmaster, should decline tobe its tool;—all these things and more were needed; and theywere found in the Slave Power of our Republic. There, sir,stands the criminal—all unmasked before you—heartless,grasping, and tyrannical—with an audacity beyond that ofVerres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyondthat of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings. Justiceto Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this influence; for this is the Power behind—greater than any President—which succors and sustains the Crime. Nay, the proceedings I now arraign derive their fearful consequence only from this connection.

In now opening this great matter, I am not insensible to theaustere demands of the occasion; but the dependence of thecrime against Kansas upon the Slave Power is so peculiar andimportant, that I trust to be pardoned while I impress it by anillustration, which to some may seem trivial. It is related inNorthern mythology, that the god of Force, visiting an enchanted region, was challenged by his royal entertainer to whatseemed a humble feat of strength—merely, sir, to lift a catfrom the ground. The god smiled at the challenge, and, calmlyplacing his hand under the belly of the animal, with superbuman strength, strove, while the back of the feline monsterarched far upwards, even beyond reach, and one paw actuallyforsook the earth, until at last the discomfited divinity desisted;but he was little surprised at his defeat, when he learned thatthis creature, which seemed to be a cat, and nothing more, wasnot merely a cat, but that it belonged to and was a part of thegreat Terrestrial Serpent, which, in its innumerable folds, ​encircled the whole globe. Even so the creature, whosepawsare now fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be,constitutes in reality a part of the Slave Power, which, withloathsome folds, is now coiled about the whole land. Thus do Iexpose the extent of the present contest, where we encounter notmerely local resistance, but also the unconquered sustainingarm behind. But out of the vastness of the Crime attempted,with all its woe and shame, I derive a well-founded assuranceof a commensurate vastness of effort against it, by the arousedmasses of the country, determined not only to vindicate Right.against Wrong, but to redeem the Republic from the thraldomof that Oligarchy, which prompts, directs, and concentrates, thedistant wrong.

Such is the Crime, and such the criminal, which it is myduty in this debate to expose; and, by the blessing of God, thisduty shall be done completely to the end. But this will not beenough. The Apologies, which, with strange hardihood, havebeen offered for the Crime, must be torn away, so that itshall stand forth, without a single rag, or fig-leaf, to cover itsvileness. And, finally, the True Remedy must be shown. Thesubject is complex in its relations, as it is transcendent in importance; and yet, if I am honored by your attention, I hope toexhibit it clearly in all its parts, while I conduct you to theinevitable conclusion that Kansas must be admitted at once,with her present constitution, as a State of this Union, andgive a new star to the blue field of our national flag. Andhere I derive satisfaction from the thought, that the cause isso strong in itself as to bear even the infirmities of its advocates;nor can it require anything beyond that simplicity of treatmentand moderation of manner which I desire to cultivate. Its truecharacter is such, that, like Hercules, it will conquer just sosoon as it is recognized.

My task will be divided under three different heads:first,the Crime against Kansas, in its origin and extent;secondly, ​the Apologies for the Crime; and,thirdly,the True Remedy.

But, before entering upon the argument, I must say some-thing of a general character, particularly in response to whathas fallen from senators who have raised themselves to eminenceon this floor in championship of human wrongs; I mean thesenator from South Carolina [Mr.Butler], and the senatorfrom Illinois [Mr.Douglas], who, though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth togetherin the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder senatorfrom his seat; but the cause against which he has run a tiltwith such activity of animosity demands that the opportunityof exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause thatI speak. The senator from South Carolina has read manybooks of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight,with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen.a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though uglyto others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sightof the world, is chaste in his sight;—I mean the harlotSlavery. For her his tongue is always profuse with words.Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made toshut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and noextravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then toogreat for this senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalfof his wench Dulcinea del Toboso is all surpassed. The assertedrights of Slavery, which shock equality of all kinds, are cloakedby a fantastic claim of equality. If the slave States cannotenjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic,he misnames equality under the constitution,—in other words,the full power in the National Territories to compel fellow-mento unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell littlechildren at the auction-block,—then, sir, the chivalric senatorwill conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union!​Heroic knight! Exalted senator! A second Moses come fora second exodus!

But, not content with this poor menace, which we have beentwice told was "measured," the senator, in the unrestrained.chivalry of his nature, has undertaken to apply opprobriouswords to those who differ from him on this floor. He calls them"sectional and fanatical;" and opposition to the usurpation inKansas he denounces as "uncalculating fanaticism." To besure, these charges lack all grace of originality, and all sentiment of truth; but the adventurous senator does not hesitate.He is the uncompromising, unblushing representative on thisfloor of a flagrantsectionalism, which now domineers over theRepublic; and yet, with a ludicrous ignorance of his own position,—unable to see himself as others see him,—or with aneffrontery which even his white head ought not to protect fromrebuke, he applies to those here who resist hissectionalism thevery epithet which designates himself. The men who strive tobring back the government to its original policy, when Freedomand not Slavery was national, while Slavery and not Freedomwas sectional, he arraigns as sectional. This will not do. Itinvolves too great a perversion of terms. I tell that senatorthat it is to himself, and to the "organization" of which he isthe "committed advocate," that this epithet belongs.fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little for names; but,since the question has been raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of the Union is in no just sense sectional, but, morethan any other party,national; and that it now goes forth todislodge from the high places of the government the tyrannicalsectionalism of which the senator from South Carolina is oneof the maddest zealots.

Te the charge of fanaticism I also reply. Sir, fanaticism isfound in an enthusiasm or exaggeration of opinions, particularlyon religious subjects; but there may be a fanaticism for evil aswell as for good. Now, I will not deny that there are personsamong us loving Liberty too well for their personal good, in a ​selfish generation. Such there may be, and, for the sake oftheir example, would that there were more! In calling them"fanatics," you cast contumely upon the noble army of martyrs, from the carliest day down to this hour; upon the greattribunes of human rights, by whom life, liberty, and happinesson earth, have been secured; upon the long line of devotedpatriots, who, throughout history, have truly loved their country; and upon all, who, in noble aspirations for the generalgood, and in forgetfulness of self, have stood out before theirage, and gathered into their generous bosoms the shafts oftyranny and wrong, in order to make a pathway for truth.You discredit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to thedoor of the church at Wittenberg, and then, to the imperialdemand that he should retract, firmly replied, "Here I stand;I cannot do otherwise, so help me God!" You discredit Hampden, when alone he refused to pay the few shillings of ship-money, and shook the throne of Charles I.; you discredit Milton, when, amidst the corruptions of a heartless court, he lived on, the lofty friend of Liberty, above question or suspicion; youdiscredit Russell and Sidney, when, for the sake of their country, they calmly turned from family and friends, to tread thenarrow steps of the scaffold; you discredit those early foundersof American institutions, who preferred the hardships of awilderness, surrounded by a savage foe, to injustice on beds ofease; you discredit our later fathers, who, few in numbers, andweak in resources, yet strong in their cause, did not hesitate tobrave the mighty power of England, already encircling theglobe with her morning drum-beats. Yes, sir, of such are thefanatics of history, according to the senator. But I tell thatsenator that there are characters badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there can be no question. Such were the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped divinities in brutish forms; the Druids,who darkened the forests of oak in which they lived by sacrifices of blood; the Mexicans, who surrendered countless victimsto the propitiation of their obscene idols; the Spaniards, who, ​under Alva, sought to force the Inquisition upon Holland, by atyranny kindred to that now employed to force Slavery uponKansas; and such were the Algerines, when, in solemn conclave, after listening to a speech not unlike that of the senatorfrom South Carolina, they resolved to continue the slavery ofwhite Christians, and to extend it to the countrymen of Washington Ay, sir, extend it! And in this same dreary catalogue faithful history must record all who now, in an enlightened age, and in a land of boasted freedom; stand up, inperversion of the constitution, and in denial of immortal truth, tofasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If the senatorwishes to see fanatics, let him look round among his own associates; let him look at himself.

But I have not done with the senator. There is anothermatter, regarded by him of such consequence, that he interpolated it into the speech of the senator from New Hampshire[Mr.Hale], and also announced that he had prepared himselfwith it, to take in his pocket all the way to Boston, when heexpected to address the people of that community. On thisaccount, and for the sake of truth, I stop for one moment, andtread it to the earth. The North, according to the senator,was engaged in the slave-trade, and helped to introduce slaves.into the Southern States; and this undeniable fact he proposedto establish by statistics, in stating which, his errors surpassedhis sentences in number. But I let theseBut I let these pass for the present,that I may deal with his argument. Pray, sir, is the acknowledged turpitude of a departed generation to become an examplefor us? And yet the suggestion of the senator, if entitled toany consideration in this discussion, must have this extent.join my friend from New Hampshire in thanking the senatorfrom South Carolina for adducing this instance; for it gives mean opportunity to say that the northern merchants, with homesin Boston, Bristol, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia, whocatered for Slavery during the years of the slave-trade, arethe lineal progenitors of the northern men, with homes in these ​places, who lend themselves to Slavery in our day; and especially that all, whether north or south, who take part, directlyor indirectly, in the conspiracy against Kansas, do but continuethe work of the slave-traders, which you condemn. It is true—too true, alas!—that our fathers were engaged in this traffic;but that is no apology for it. And, in repelling the authorityof this example, I repel also the trite argument founded on theearlier example of England. It is true that our mothercountry, at the peace of Utrecht, extorted from Spain the Assiento Contract, securing the monopoly of the slave-trade withthe Spanish Colonies, as the whole price of all the blood ofgreat victories; that she higgled at Aix-la-Chapelle for anotherlease of this exclusive traffic; and again, at the treaty of Mad-rid, clung to the wretched piracy. It is true that in this spiritthe power of the mother country was prostituted to the samebase ends in her American Colonies, against indignant protests.from our fathers. All these things now rise up in judgmentagainst her. Let us not follow the senator from South Carolina to do the very evil to-day which in another generation wecondemn.

As the senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, thesenator from Illinois [Mr.Douglas] is the squire of Slavery,its very Sancho Panza, ready to do all its humiliating offices.This senator, in his labored address, vindicating his laboredreport—piling one mass of elaborate error upon another mass—constrained himself, as you will remember, to unfamiliardecencies of speech. Of that address I have nothing to say atthis moment, though before I sit down I shall show somethingof its fallacies. But I go back now to an earlier occasion, when,true to his native impulses, he threw into this discussion, "fora charm of powerful trouble," personalities most discreditableto this body. I will not stop to repel the imputations which hecast upon myself; but I mention them to remind you of the"sweltered venom, sleeping got," which, with other poisonedingredients, be cast into the cauldron of this debate. Of other ​things I speak.Standing on this floor, the senator issued hisrescript, requiring submission to the usurped power of Kansas;and this was accompanied by a manner—all his own—suchas befits the tyrannical threat. Very well. Let the senatortry. I tell him now that he cannot enforce any such submission. The senator, with the slave power at his back, is strong,but he is not strong enough for this purpose. He is bold. Heshrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry, "l'audace! l'audace! toujours l'audace!" but even his audacity cannotcompass this work. The senator copies the British officer, who,with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt of his sword hewould cram the "stamps " down the throats of the Americanpeople; and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulsethis country with civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he mayset fire to this temple of Constitutional Liberty, grander thanEphesian dome; but he cannot enforce obedience to that tyrannical usurpation.

The senator dreams that he can subdue the North. He disclaims the open threat, but his conduct still implies it. Howlittle that senator knows himself, or the strength of the causewhich he persecutes! He is but a mortal man; against himis an immortal principle. With finite power he wrestles withthe infinite, and he must fall. Against him are stronger battalions than any marshalled by mortal arm—the inborn, ineradicable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; againsthim is nature in all her subtle forces; against him is God. Lethim try to subdue these.

But I pass from these things, which, though belonging to thevery heart of the discussion, are yet preliminary in character,and press at once to the main question.

I. It belongs to me now, in the first place, to expose theCrime against Kansas, in its origin and extent. Logically,this is the beginning of the argument. I say Crime, and de​liberately adopt this strongest term, as better than any otherdenoting the consummate transgression. I would go further,if language could further go. It is theCrime of Crimes—surpassing far the oldcrimen majestatis, pursued with vengeance by the laws of Rome, and containing all other crimes,as the greater contains the less. I do not go too far, when Icall it theCrime against Nature, from which the soul recoils,and which language refuses to describe. To lay bare this enormity, I now proceed. The whole subject has already become atwice-told tale, and its renewed recital will be a renewal of itssorrow and shame; but I shall not hesitate to enter upon it.The occasion requires it from the beginning.

It has been well remarked by a distinguished historian of ourcountry, that at the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion,the slave interest, hitherto hardly recognized as a distinct element in our system, started up portentous and dilated, withthreats and assumptions, which are the origin of our existingnational politics. This was in 1820. The discussion endedwith the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding State, and theprohibition of Slavery in all the remaining territory west of theMississippi, and north of 36° 30', leaving the condition of other territory, south of this line, or subsequently acquired, untouched by the arrangement. Here was a solemn act of legislation, called at the time a compromise, a covenant, a compact,first brought forward in this body by a slaveholder, vindicatedby slaveholders in debate, finally sanctioned by slaveholdingvotes, also upheld at the time by the essential approbation ofa slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his Cabinet, ofwhom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhounhimself and this compromise was made the condition of theadmission of Missouri, without which that State could not havebeen received into the Union. The bargain was simple, andwas applicable, of course, only to the territory named. Leaving all other territory to await the judgment of another generation, the South said to the North, Conquer your prejudices so ​far as to admit Missouri as a slave State, and, in consideration.of this much-coveted boon, Slavery shall be prohibited foreverin all the remaining Louisiana Territory above 36° 30'; andthe North yielded.

In total disregard of history, the President, in his annualmessage, has told us that this compromise "wasreluctantlyacquiesced in by the Southern States." Just the contrary istrue. It was the work of slaveholders, and was crowded bytheir concurring votes upon a reluctant North. At the time itwas hailed by slaveholders as a victory. Charles Pinckney, ofSouth Carolina, in an oft-quoted letter, written at three o'clockon the night of its passage, says, "It is considered here by theslaveholding States as a great triumph." At the North it wasaccepted as a defeat, and the friends of Freedom everywherethroughout the country bowed their heads with mortification.But little did they know the completeness of their disaster.Little did they dream that the prohibition of Slavery in theTerritory, which was stipulated as the price of their fatalcapitulation, would also at the very moment of its maturity bewrested from them.

Time passed, and it became necessary to provide for this Territory an organized government. Suddenly, without notice inthe public press, or the prayer of a single petition, or oneword of open recommendation from the President,—after anacquiescence of thirty-three years, and the irreclaimable possession by the South of its special share under this compromise,—in violation of every obligation of honor, compact, and goodneighborhood,—and in contemptuous disregard of the out-gushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored prohibition, in itself a Landmark of Freedom, was overturned, and the vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery. It was natural that a measure thus repugnant in character should be pressed by arguments mutually repugnant. It was urged on two principal reasons, so opposite andinconsistent as to slap each other in the face: one being that, ​by the repeal of the prohibition, the Territory would be left.open to the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, without hindrance; and the other being that the people would be left absolutely free to determine the question for themselves, and to prohibit the entry of slaveholders with their slaves, if they shouldthink best. With some, the apology was the alleged rights ofslaveholders; with others, it was the alleged rights of thepeople. With some, it was openly the extension of Slavery;and with others, it was openly the establishment of Freedom,under the guise of Popular Sovereignty. Of course, the measure,thus upheld in defiance of reason, was carried through Congressin defiance of all the securities of legislation; and I mentionthese things that you may see in what foulness the presentCrime was engendered.

It was carried,first, bywhipping in to its support, throughExecutive influence and patronage, men who acted against theirown declared judgment, and the known will of their constituents.Secondly, byfoisting out of place, both in the Senate andHouse of Representatives, important business, long pending, andusurping its room.Thirdly, bytrampling under foot therules of the House of Representatives, always before the safeguard of the minority. Andfourthly, bydriving it to a close during the very session in which it originated, so that itmight not be arrested by the indignant voice of the people.Such are some of the means by which this snap judgment wasobtained. If the clear will of the people had not been disregarded, it could not have passed. If the Government had notnefariously interposed its influence, it could not have passed.If it had been left to its natural place in the order of business,it could not have passed. If the rules of the House and therights of the minority had not been violated, it could not havepassed. If it had been allowed to go over to another Congress, when the people might be heard, it would have beenended; and then the Crime we now deplore would have beenwithout its first seminal life.

​Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely within the limitsof parliamentary propriety. I make no personal imputations;but only with frankness, such as belongs to the occasion andmy own character, describe a great historical act, which is nowenrolled in the Capitol. Sir, the Nebraska Bill was in everyrespect a swindle. It was a swindle by the South of theNorth. It was, on the part of those who had already completely enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, a swindle of those whose share was yet absolutely untouched; and theplea of unconstitutionality set up—like the plea of usury afterthe borrowed money has been enjoyed—did not make it less.a swindle. Urged as a Bill of Peace, it was a swindle of thewhole country. Urged as opening the doors to slave-masterswith their slaves, it was a swindle of the asserted doctrine ofPopular Sovereignty. Urged as sanctioning Popular Sovereignty, it was a swindle of the asserted rights of slave-masters.It was a swindle of a broad territory, thus cheated of protection against Slavery. It was a swindle of a great cause, earlyespoused by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, surroundedby the best fathers of the Republic. Sir, it was a swindle ofGod-given inalienable rights. Turn it over, look at it on allsides, and it is everywhere a swindle; and, if the word I nowemploy has not the authority of classical usage, it has, on thisoccasion, the indubitable authority of fitness. No other wordwill adequately express the mingled meanness and wickednessof the cheat.

Its character was still further apparent in the general structure of the bill. Amidst overflowing professions of regard forthe sovereignty of the people in the Territory, they were despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty. They werenot allowed to choose their Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice,Associate Justices, Attorney, or Marshal—all of whom aresent from Washington; nor were they allowed to regulate thesalaries of any of these functionaries, or the daily allowance ofthe legislative body, or even the pay of the clerks and door​keepers; but they were left free to adopt Slavery. And thiswas called Popular Sovereignty! Time does not allow, nordoes the occasion require, that I should stop to dwell on thistransparent device to cover a transcendent wrong. Suffice it tosay, that Slavery is in itself an arrogant denial of HumanRights, and by no human reason can the power to establishsuch a wrong be placed among the attributes of any just sovereignty. In refusing it such a place, I do not deny popularrights, but uphold them; I do not restrain popular rights, butextend them. And, sir, to this conclusion you must yet come,unless deaf, not only to the admonitions of political justice, butalso to the genius of our own constitution, under which, whenproperly interpreted, no valid claim for Slavery can be set upanywhere in the national territory. The senator from Michigan [Mr.Cass] may say, in response to the senator from Mississippi [Mr.Brown], that Slavery cannot go into the Territory under the constitution, without legislative introduction;and perimit me to add, in response to both, that Slavery cannotgo there at all.Nothing can come out of nothing; and thereis absolutely nothing in the constitution out of which Slaverycan be derived, while there are provisions, which, when properlyinterpreted, make its existence anywhere within the exclusivenational jurisdiction impossible.

The offensive provision in the bill was in its form a legislativeanomaly, utterly wanting the natural directness and simplicityof an honest transaction. It did not undertake openly to repeal the old Prohibition of Slavery, but seemed to mince thematter, as if conscious of the swindle. It is said that this Prohibition, "being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States and Territories as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void." Thus, with insidious ostentation, was it pretended that an act, violating the greatest compromise of our legislative history, and setting loose the foundations of all compromise, was ​derived out of a compromise. Then followed in the Bill thefurther declaration, which is entirely without precedent, andwhich has been aptly called "a stump speech in its belly,"namely, it being the true intent and meaning of this act,not to legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectlyfree to form and regulate their domestic institutions in theirown way, subject only to the constitution of the UnitedStates." Here were smooth words, such as belong to a cunning tongue, enlisted in a bad cause. But, whatever may havebeen their various hidden meanings, this at least was evident,that, by their effect, the Congressional Prohibition of Slavery,which had always been regarded as a seven-fold shield, coveringthe whole Louisiana Territory north of 36° 30', was now removed, while a principle was declared, which would render thesupplementary Prohibition of Slavery in Minnesota, Oregon,and Washington, "inoperative and void," and thus open toSlavery all these vast regions, now the rude cradles of mightyStates. Here you see the magnitude of the mischief contemplated. But my purpose now is with the Crime against Kansas, and I shall not stop to expose the conspiracy beyond.

Mr. President, men are wisely presumed to intend the natural consequences of their conduct, and to seek what their actsseem to promote. Now, the Nebraska Bill, on its very face,openly cleared the way for Slavery, and it is not wrong to presume that its originators intended the natural consequences ofsuch an act, and sought in this way to extend Slavery. Ofcourse, they did. And this is the first stage in the Crimeagainst Kansas.

But this was speedily followed by other developments. Thebare-faced scheme was soon whispered, that Kansas must be aslave State. In conformity with this idea was the Governmentof this unhappy Territory organized in all its departments; andthus did the President, by whose complicity the Prohibition ofSlavery had been overthrown, lend himself to a new complicity ​—giving to the conspirators a lease of connivance, amountingeven to copartnership. The Governor, Secretary, Chief Justice,Associate Justices, Attorney, and Marshal, with a wholecaucus of other stipendiaries, nominated by the President andconfirmed by the Senate, were all commended as friendly toSlavery. No man, with the sentiments of Washington, or Jef-ferson, or Franklin, found any favor; nor is it too much to say,that, had these great patriots once more come among us, notone of them, with his recorded unretracted opinions on Slavery,could have been nominated by the President or confirmed bythe Senate for any post in that Territory. With such auspices the conspiracy proceeded. Even in advance of the Nebraska Bill, secret societies were organized in Missouri, ostensibly to protect her institutions, and afterwards, under the name of "Self-Defensive Associations," and of "Blue Lodges,"these were multiplied throughout the western counties of thatState,before any counter-movement from the North. It was confidently anticipated, that, by the activity of these societies, and the interest of slaveholders everywhere, with the advantage derived from the neighborhood of Missouri, and theinfluence of the Territorial Government, Slavery might beintroduced into Kansas, quietly but surely, without arousing aconflict; that the crocodile egg might be stealthily dropped inthe sunburnt soil, there to be hatched unobserved until it sentforth its reptile monster.

But the conspiracy was unexpectedly balked. The debate,which convulsed Congress, had stirred the whole country. Attention from all sides was directed upon Kansas, which at once became the favorite goal of emigration. The Bill had loudlydeclared that its object was to leave the people perfectly freeto form and regulate their domestic institutions in their ownway" and its supporters everywhere challenged the determination of the question between Freedom and Slavery by a competition of emigration. Thus, while opening the Territory to Slavery, the Bill also opened it to emigrants from every quar​ter, who might by their votes redress the wrong. The populousNorth, stung by a sharp sense of outrage, and inspired by anoble cause, poured into the debatable land, and promised soonto establish a supremacy of numbers there, involving, of course,a just supremacy of Freedom.

Then was conceived the consummation of the Crime againstKansas. What could not be accomplished peaceably, was to beaccomplished forcibly. The reptile monster, that could not bequietly and securely hatched there, was to be pushed full-growninto the Territory. All efforts were now given to the dismalwork of forcing Slavery on Free Soil. In flagrant derogationof the very Popular Sovereignty whose name helped to imposethis Bill upon the country, the atrocious object was now distinctly avowed. And the avowal has been followed by the act.Slavery has been forcibly introduced into Kansas, and placedunder the formal safeguards of pretended law. How this wasdone, belongs to the argument.

In depicting this consummation, the simplest outline, without one word of color, will be best. Whether regarded in itsmass or its details, in its origin or its result, it is all blackness,illumined by nothing from itself, but only by the heroism ofthe undaunted men and women whom it environed. A plainstatement of facts will be a picture of fearful truth, which faithful history will preserve in its darkest gallery. In the foreground all will recognize a familiar character, in himself a connecting link between the President and the border ruffian,—lessconspicuous for ability than for the exalted place he has occupied,—who once sat in the seat where you now sit, sir; whereonce sat John Adams and Thomas Jefferson; also, where oncesat Aaron Burr. I need not add the name of David R. Atchison.You have not forgotten that, at the session of Congressimmediately succeeding the Nebraska Bill, he came tardily tohis duty here, and then, after a short time, disappeared. Thesecret has been long since disclosed. Like Catiline, he stalkedinto this Chamber, reeking with conspiracy—immo in Sena​tum venil—and then like Catiline he skulked away—abáit, excessit, evasit, crupit—to join and provoke the conspirators,who at a distance awaited their congenial chief. Under theinfluence of his malign presence the Crime ripened to its fatalfruits, while the similitude with Catiline was again renewed inthe sympathy, not even concealed, which he found in the verySenate itself, where, beyond even the Roman example, a senator has not hesitated to appear as his open compurgator.

And now, as I proceed to show the way in which this Territory was overrun and finally subjugated to Slavery, I desire toremove in advance all question with regard to the authority onwhich I rely. The evidence is secondary; but it is the bestwhich, in the nature of the case, can be had, and it is not lessclear, direct, and peremptory, than any by which we are assuredof the campaigns in the Crimea or the fall of Sevastopol. Inits manifold mass, I confidently assert that it is such a body ofevidence as the human mind is not able to resist. It is foundin the concurring reports of the public press; in the letters ofcorrespondents; in the testimony of travellers; and in the unaffected story to which I have listened from leading citizens, who,during this winter, have "come flocking" here from that distant Territory. It breaks forth in the irrepressible outcry,reaching us from Kansas, in truthful tones, which leave noground of mistake. It addresses us in formal complaints,instinct with the indignation of a people determined to be free,and unimpeachable as the declarations of a murdered man onhis dying bed against his murderer. And let me add, that allthis testimony finds an echo in the very statute-book of the conspirators, and also in language dropped from the President ofthe United States.

I begin with an admission from the President himself, inwhose sight the people of Kansas have little favor. And yet,after arraigning the innocent emigrants from the North, he wasconstrained to declare that their conduct was "far from justifying the illegal and reprehensible counter-movement which en​sued." Then, by the reluctant admission of the Chief Magistrate, there was a counter-movement, at onceillegal andreprehensible. I thank thee, President, for teaching me thesewords; and I now put them in the front of this exposition, asin themselves a confession. Sir, this "illegal and reprehensible counter-movement" is none other than the dreadful Crime—under an apologeticalias—by which, through successiveinvasions, Slavery has been forcibly planted in this Territory.

Next to this Presidential admission must be placed the detailsof the invasions, which I now present as not only "illegal andreprehensible," but also unquestionable evidence of the resulting Crime.

The violence, for some time threatened, broke forth on the29th November, 1854, at the first election of a Delegate toCongress, when companies from Missouri, amounting to upwards of one thousand, crossed into Kansas, and, with force andarms, proceeded to vote for Mr. Whitfield, the candidate ofSlavery. An eye-witness, General Pomeroy, of superior intelligence and perfect integrity, thus describes this scene:

"The first ballot-box that was opened upon our virgin soil was closed to us by overpowering numbers and impending force. So bold andreckless were our invaders, that they cared not to conceal their attack.They came upon us, not in the guise of voters, to steal away our franchise, but boldly and openly, to snatch it with a strong hand. Theycame directly from their own homes, and in compact and organizedbands, with arms in hand, and provisions for the expedition, marchedto our polls, and, when their work was done, returned whence they came.”

Here was an outrage at which the coolest blood of patriotismboils. Though, for various reasons unnecessary to develop, thebusy settlers allowed the election to pass uncontested, still themeans employed were none the less illegal and reprehensible."

This infliction was a significant prelude to the grand invasionof the 30th March, 1855, at the election of the first Territorial ​Legislature under the organic law, when an armed multitudefrom Missouri entered the Territory, in larger numbers thanGeneral Taylor commanded at Buena Vista, or than GeneralJackson had within his lines at New Orleans—larger far thanour fathers rallied on Bunker Hill. On they came as an "armywith banners," organized in companies, with officers, munitions,tents, and provisions, as though marching upon a foreign foe,an breathing loud-mouthed threats that they would carry theirpurpose, if need be, by the bowie-knife and revolver. Amongthem, according to his own confession, was David R. Atchison,belted with the. vulgar arms of his vulgar comrades. Arrivedat their several destinations on the night before the election,the invaders pitched their tents, placed their sentries, andwaited for the coming day. The same trustworthy eye-wit-ness whom I have already quoted says, of one locality:

"Baggage-wagons were there, with arms and ammunition enough for a protracted fight, and among them two brass field-picces, readycharged. They came with drums beating and flags flying, and theirleaders were of the most prominent and conspicuous men of their State."

Of another locality he says:

"The invaders came together in one armed and organized body, with trains of fifty wagons, besides horsemen, and, the night before election,pitched their camp in the vicinity of the polls; and, having appointedtheir own judges in place of those who, from intimidation or otherwise,failed to attend, they voted without any proof of residence."

With force they were able, on the succeeding day, in someplaces, to intimidate the judges of elections; in others, to substitute judges of their own appointment; in others, to wrest theballot-boxes from their rightful possessors, and everywhere toexercise a complete control of the election, and thus, by a preternatural audacity of usurpation, impose a Legislature upon thefree people of Kansas. Thus was conquered the Sevastopol ofthat Territory!

But it was not enough to secure the Legislature. The elec​tion of a Member of Congress recurred on the 2d October, 1855and the same foreigners, who had learned their strength, againmanifested it. Another invasion, in controlling numbers, camefrom Missouri, and once more forcibly excrcised the electoralfranchise in Kansas.

At last, in the latter days of November, 1855, a storm, longbrewing, burst upon the heads of the devoted people. The ballot-boxes had been violated, and a Legislature installed, whichhad proceeded to carry out the conspiracy of the invaders; butthe good people of the Territory, born to Freedom, and educated as American citizens, showed no signs of submission.Slavery, though recognized by pretended law, was in manyplaces practically an outlaw. To the lawless borderers, thiswas hard to bear; and, like the Heathen of old, they raged,particularly against the town of Lawrence, already known, bythe firmness of its principles and the character of its citizens,as the citadel of the good cause. On this account they threatened, in their peculiar language, to wipe it out." Soon thehostile power was gathered for this purpose. The wickednessof this invasion was enhanced by the way in which it began. Acitizen of Kansas, by the name of Dow, was murdered by oneof the partisans of Slavery, under the name of "law and order."Such an outrage naturally aroused indignation, and provokedthreats. The professors of "law and order" allowed the murderer to escape; and, still further to illustrate the irony of thename they assumed, seized the friend of the murdered man,whose few neighbors soon rallied for his rescue. This transaction, though totally disregarded in its chief front of wickedness,became the excuse for unprecedented excitement. The weakGovernor, with no faculty higher than servility to Slavery,—whom the President, in his official delinquency, had appointedto a trust worthy only of a well-balanced character, was frightened from his propriety. By proclamation he invoked the Territory. By telegraph he invoked the President. The Territory would not respond to his senseless appeal. The President was ​dumb; but the proclamation was circulated throughout the border counties of Missouri; and Platte, Clay, Carlisle, Sabine,Howard, and Jefferson, each of them contributed a volunteercompany, recruited from the roadsides, and armed with weaponswhich chance afforded,—known as the "shot-gun militia,"—with a Missouri officer as commissary-general, dispensing rations, and another Missouri officer as general-in-chief; with two wagon-loads of rifles, belonging to Missouri, drawn by sixmules, from its arsenal at Jefferson City; with seven pieces ofcannon, belonging to the United States, from its arsenal at Liberty; and this formidable force, amounting to at least eighteenhundred men, terrible with threats, with oaths, and with whiskey,crossed the borders, and encamped in larger part at Wacherusa,over against the doomed town of Lawrence, which was now threatened with destruction. With these invaders was the Governor,who by this act levied war upon the people he was sent to protest. In camp with him was the original Catiline of the conspiracy, while by his side was the docile Chief Justice and thedocile Judges. But this is not the first instance in which anunjust Governor has found tools where he ought to have found.justice. In the great impeachment of Warren Hastings, theBritish orator by whom it was conducted exclaims, in wordsstrictly applicable to the misdeed I now arraign, "Had he notthe Chief Justice, the tamed and domesticated Chief Justice,who waited on him like a familiar spirit?" Thus was thisinvasion countenanced by those who should have stood in thebreach against it. For more than a week it continued, whiledeadly conflict seemed imminent. I do not dwell on the heroism by which it was encountered, or the mean retreat to whichit was compelled; for that is not necessary to exhibit the Crimewhich you are to judge. But I cannot forbear to add otheradditional features, furnished in the letter of a clergyman, written at the time, who saw and was a part of what he describes:

"Our citizens have been shot at,and, in two instances, murdered, our houses invaded, hay-ricks burnt, corn and other provisions plundered, ​cattle driven off, all communication cut off between us and the States, wagons on the way to us with provisions stopped and plundered, andthe drivers taken prisoners, and we in hourly expectation of an attack.Nearly every man has been in arms in the village. Fortifications havebeen thrown up, by incessant labor, night and day. The sound of thedrum, and the tramp of armed men, resounded through our streets;families fleeing, with their household goods, for safety. Day before yesterday, the report of cannon was heard at our house from the direction.of Lecompton. Last Thursday, one of our neighbors, one of the mostpeaceable and excellent of men, from Ohio, on his way home, was setupon by a gang of twelve men on horseback, and shot down. Overeight hundred men are gathered, under arms, at Lawrence. As yet, noact of violence has been perpetrated by those on our side.No blood of retaliation stains our hands. We stand and are ready to act purely in the defence of our homes and lives."

But the catalogue is not yet complete. On the 15th ofDecember, when the people assembled to vote on the constitution then submitted for adoption,—only a few days after the Treaty of Peace between the Governor on the one side and the town of Lawrence on the other,—another and fifth irruption was made. But I leave all this untold. Enough of these details has been given.

Five several times, and more, have these invaders enteredKansas in armed array; and thus five several times, and more,have they trampled upon the organic law of the Territory.But these extraordinary expeditions are simply the extraordinarywitnesses to successive uninterrupted violence. They stand outconspicuous, but not alone. The spirit of evil, in which theyhad their origin, was wakeful and incessant. From the beginning, it hung upon the skirts of this interesting Territory,harrowing its peace, disturbing its prosperity, and keeping itsinhabitants under the painful alarms of war. Thus was allsecurity of person, of property, and of labor, overthrown; andwhen I urge this incontrovertible fact, I set forth a wrong whichis small only by the side of the giant wrong, for the consummation of which all this was done. Sir, what is man, what is government, without security; in the absence of which, nor ​man nor government can proceed in development, or enjoy thefruits of existence? Without security, civilization is crampedand dwarfed. Without security, there can be no true Freedom.Nor shall I say too much, when I declare that security, guarded,of course, by its offspring Freedom, is the true end and aim ofgovernment. Of this indispensable boon the people of Kansashave thus far been despoiled—absolutely, totally. All this isaggravated by the nature of their pursuits, rendering thempeculiarly sensitive to interruption, and, at the same time,attesting their innocence. They are for the most part engagedin the cultivation of the soil, which from time immemorial hasbeen the sweet employment of undisturbed industry. Contentedin the returns of bounteous nature and the shade of his owntrees, the husbandman is not aggressive; accustomed to produce,and not to destroy, he is essentially peaceful, unless his home isinvaded, when his arm derives vigor from the soil he treads,and his soul inspiration from the heavens beneath whose canopyhe daily toils. And such are the people of Kansas, whose security has been overthrown. Scenes from which civilizationaverts her countenance have been a part of their daily life. Theborder incursions, which, in barbarous ages or barbarous lands,have fretted and "harried" an exposed people, have been hererenewed, with this peculiarity, that our border robbers do notsimply levy black mail and drive off a few cattle, like thosewho acted under the inspiration of the Douglas of other days;that they do not seize a few persons, and sweep them away intocaptivity, like the African slave-traders whom we brand aspirates; but that they commit a succession of acts, in which allborder sorrows and all African wrongs are revived together onAmerican soil, and which for the time being annuls all protection of all kinds, and enslaves the whole Territory.

Private griefs mingle their poignancy with public wrongs.I do not dwell on the anxieties which families have undergone,exposed to sudden assault, and obliged to lie down to rest withthe alarms of war ringing in their ears, not knowing that ​another day might be spared to them. Throughout this bitterwinter, with the thermometer at thirty degrees below zero, thecitizens of Lawrence have been constrained to sleep under arms,with sentinels treading their constant watch against surprise.But our souls are wrung by individual instances. In vain dowe condemn the cruelties of another age—the refinementsof torture to which men have been doomed, the rack andthumb-screw of the Inquisition, the last agonies of the regicide Ravaillac, "Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,"—for kindred outrages have disgraced these borders.Murder has stalked, assassination has skulked in the tall grassof the prairie, and the vindictiveness of man has assumed unwonted forms. A preacher of the Gospel of the Saviour hasbeen ridden on a rail, and then thrown into the Missouri,fastened to a log, and left to drift down its muddy, tortuouscurrent. And lately we have had the tidings of that enormity without precedent a deed without a name where acandidate for the Legislature was most brutally gashed withknives and hatchets, and then, after weltering in blood on thesnow-clad earth, was trundled along with gaping wounds, tofall dead in the face of his wife. It is common to drop a tearof sympathy over the trembling solicitudes of our earlyfathers, exposed to the stealthy assault of the savage foe; andan eminent American artist has pictured this scene in a marble group of rare beauty, on the front of the National Capitol,where the uplifted tomahawk is arrested by the strong armand generous countenance of the pioneer, while his wife andchildren find shelter at his feet; but now the tear must bedropped over the trembling solicitudes of fellow-citizens, seeking to build a new State in Kansas, and exposed to theperpetual assault of murderous robbers from Missouri.Hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of anuneasy civilization—in the form of men—

leashed together by secret signs and lodges, have renewed theincredible atrocities of the Assassins and of the Thugs; showing the blind submission of the Assassins to the Old Manof the Mountain, in robbing Christians on the road to Jerusalem, and showing the heartlessness of the Thugs, who, avowingthat murder was their religion, waylaid travellers on the greatroad from Agra to Delhi; with the more deadly bowie-knife forthe dagger of the Assassin, and the more deadly revolver forthe noose of the Thug.

In these invasions, attended by the entire subversion of allsecurity in this Territory, with the plunder of the ballot-box,and the pollution of the electoral franchise, I show simply theprocess in unprecedented Crime. If that be the best government where an injury to a single citizen is resented as aninjury to the whole State, then must our Government forfeit allclaim to any such eminence, while it leaves its citizens thusexposed. In the outrage upon the ballot-box, even withoutthe illicit fruits which I shall soon exhibit, there is a peculiarcrime of the deepest dye, though subordinate to the finalCrime, which should be promptly avenged. In countrieswhere royalty is upheld, it is a special offence to rob the crownjewels, which are the emblems of that sovereignty beforewhich the loyal subject bows, and it is treason to be found inadultery with the Queen, for in this way may a false heir beimposed upon the State; but in our Republic the ballot-boxis the single priceless jewel of that sovereignty which werespect, and the electoral franchise, out of which are born therulers of a free people, is the Queen whom we are to guard.against pollution. In this plain presentment, whether asregards security, or as regards elections, there is enough.surely, without proceeding further, to justify the interventionof Congress, most promptly and completely, to throw over this ​oppressed people the impenetrable shield of the constitutionand laws. But the half is not yet told.

As every point in a wide-spread horizon radiates from a com-mon centre, so everything said or done in this vast circle ofCrime radiates from theOne Idea, that Kansas, at all hazards, must be made a slave State. In all the manifoldwickednesses that have occurred, and in every successive invasion, thisOne Idea has been over present, as the Satanictempter—the motive power—thecausing cause..To accomplish this result, three things were attempted.first, by outrages of all kinds to drive the friends of Freedomalready there out of the Territory;secondly, to deter othersfrom coming; and,thirdly, to obtain the complete control ofthe Government. The process of driving out, and also ofdeterring, has failed. On the contrary, the friends of Freedom there became more fixed in their resolves to stay andfight the battle, which they had never sought, but from whichthey disdained to retreat; while the friends of Freedom elsewhere were more aroused to the duty of timely succors, by menand munitions of just self-defence.

But, while defeated in the first two processes proposed, theconspirators succeeded in the last. By the violence alreadyportrayed at the election of the 30th March, when the pollswere occupied by the armed hordes from Missouri, they imposed a Legislature upon the Territory, and thus, under theiron mask of law, established a usurpation not less completethan any in history. That this was done, I proceed to prove.Here is the evidence:

1. Only in this way can this extraordinary expedition beadequately explained. In the words of Molière, once employedby John Quincy Adams, in the other House,Que diable allaient-ils faire dans cette galere? What did they go intothe Territory for? If their purposes were peaceful, as has beensuggested, why cannons, arms, flags, numbers, and all thisviolence? As simple citizens, proceeding to the honest exer​cise of the electoral franchise, they might have gone with nothingmore than a pilgrim's staff. Philosophy always seeks asufficient cause, and only in theOne Idea, already presented, can acause be found in any degree commensurate with this Crime;and this becomes so only when we consider the mad fanaticismof Slavery.

2. Public notoriety steps forward to confirm the suggestionof reason. In every place where truth can freely travel ithas been asserted and understood that the Legislature was imposed upon Kansas by foreigners from Missouri; and this universal voice is now received as undeniable verity.

3. It is also attested by the harangues of the conspirators.Here is what Stringfellow saidbefore the invasion:

"To those who have qualms of conscience as to violating laws, State or National, the time has come when such impositions must be disregarded, as your rights and property are in danger;and I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in Kansas, in defiance of Reeder and his vile myrmidons, and vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver. Neither give nor take quarter, as our case demands it. It is enough that the slaveholding interest wills it, from which there is no appeal. What right has Governor Reeder to rule Missourians in Kanzas? His proclamation and prescribed oath must be repudiated. Itis your interest to do so. Mind that Slavery is established where it is not prohibited."

Here is what Atchison saidafter the invasion:

Well, what next? Why, an election for members of the Legislatureto organize the Territory must be held. What did I advise you to dothen? Why, meet them on their own ground, and beat them at theirown game, again; and, cold and inclement as the weather was, I wantover with a company of men. My object in going was not to vote. I had no right to vote, unless I had disfranchised myself in Missouri. I was not within two miles of a voting place. My object in going was not to vote, but to settle a difficulty between two of our candidates; and the Abolitionists of the North said,and published it abroad, that Atchison was there with bowie-knife and revolver; and, by God! 't was true. I never did go into that Territory—I never intend to go into that Territory ​—without being prepared for all such kind of cattle. Well, we beat then,and Governor Reeder gave certificates to a majority of all the members.of both Houses; and then, after they were organized, as everybody willadmit, they were the only competent persons to say who were, and whowere not, members of the same."

4. It is confirmed by the contemporaneous admission of theSquatter Sovereign, a paper published at Atchison, and atonce the organ of the President and of these borderers, which,under date of 1st of April, thus recounts the victory:

"Several hundred emigrants from Kansas have just entered our city. They were preceded by the Westport and Independence Brass Bands.They came in at the west side of the public square, and proceededentirely around it, the bands cheering us with fine music, and the emigrants with good news. Immediately following the bands were abouttwo hundred horsemen in regular order; following these were one hundred and fifty wagons, carriages, &c. They gave repeated cheers forKansas and Missouri. They report that not an Anti-Slavery man willbe in the Legislature of Kansas.We have made a clean sweep."

5. It is also confirmed by the contemporaneous testimony ofanother paper, always faithful to slavery, the New YorkHerald, in the letter of a correspondent from Brunswick, inMissouri, under date of 20th April, 1855:

"From five to seven thousand men started from Missouri to attendthe election, some to remove, but the most to return to their families,with an intention, if they liked the Territory, to make it their permanent abode at the earliest moment practicable. But they intended tovote. The Missourians were, many of them, Douglas men. There wereone hundred and fifty voters from this county, one hundred and seventy-five from Howard, one hundred from Cooper. Indeed, every countyfurnished its quota; and when they set out, it looked like an army."*** They were armed." **** And, as there were no houses in the Territory, they carried tents. Their mission was a peaceable one,—to vote, and to drive down stakes for their future homes. After the election, some one thousand five hundred of the voters sent a committee. to Mr. Reeder, to ascertain if it was his purpose to ratify the election ​He answered that it was, and said the majority at an election must carrythe day. But it is not to be denied that the one thousand five hundred,apprehending that the Governor might attempt to play the tyrant,—since his conduct had already been insidious and unjust,—wore on theirhats bunches of hemp. They were resolved, if a tyrant attempted totrample upon the rights of the sovereign people, to hang him."

6. It is again confirmed by the testimony of a lady who for five years has lived in Western Missouri, and thus writes in a letter published in theNew Haven Register:

"You ask me to tell you something about the Kansas and Missouritroubles. Of course you know in what they have originated. There isno denying that the Missourians have determined to control the elections, ifpossible; and I don't know that their measures would be justifiable,except upon the principle of self-preservation; and that, you know, isthe first law of nature."

7. And it is confirmed still further by the circular of theEmigration Society of Lafayette, in Missouri, dated as late as25th March, 1856, in which the efforts of Missourians areopenly confessed:

"The western counties of Missouri have, for the last two years, been heavily taxed, both in money and time, in fighting the battles of theSouth.Lafayette County alone has expended more than one hundred thousand dollars in money, and as much or more in time. Up to this time, the border counties of Missouri have upheld and maintained the rights and interests of the South in this struggle, unassisted, and not unsuccessfully.But the Abolitionists, staking their all upon the Kansas issue, and hesitating at no means, fair or foul, are moving heaven and earth to render that beautiful Territory a Free State."

8. Here, also, is complete admission of the usurpation, by theIntelligencer, a leading paper of St. Louis, Missouri, made in the ensuing summer:

"Atchison and Stringfellow, with their Missouri followers, overwhelmed the settlers in Kansas, browbeat and bullied them, and took ​the Government from their hands. Missouri votes elected the presentbody of men who insult public intelligence and popular rights by stylingthemselves the Legislature of Kansas.' This body of men are helpingthemselves to fat speculations by locating the seat of Government,' andgetting town lots for their votes. They are passing laws disfranchisingall the citizens of Kansas who do not believe Negro Slavery to be aChristian institution and a national blessing. They are proposing topunish with imprisonment the utterance of views inconsistent with theirown; and they are trying to perpetuate their preposterous and infernaltyranny by appointing, for a term of years, creatures of their own, ascommissioners in every county, to lay and collect taxes, and see that thelaws they are passing are faithfully executed. Has this age anythingto compare with these acts in audacity?"

9. In harmony with all these is the authoritative declarationof Governor Reeder, in a speech addressed to his neighbors atEaston, Pennsylvania, at the end of April, 1855, and immediately afterwards published in the WashingtonUnion. Here it is:

"It was, indeed, too true that Kansas had been invaded, conquered,subjugated, by an armed force from beyond her borders, led on by afanatical spirit, trampling under foot the principles of the Kansas billand the right of suffrage."

10. And in similar harmony is the complaint of the peopleof Kansas, in a public meeting at Big Springs, on the 5th September, 1855, embodied in these words:

Resolved, That the body of men who, for the last two months, have been passing laws for the people of our Territory, moved, counselled,and dictated to, by the demagogues of Missouri, are to us a foreign body,representing only the lawless invaders who elected them, and not thepeople of the Territory; that we repudiate their action as the monstrousconsummation of an act of violence, usurpation, and fraud, unparalleledin the history of the Union, and worthy only of men unfitted for theduties and regardless of the responsibilities of Republicans."

11. And, finally, by the official minutes which have been.laid on our table by the President, the invasion, which ended in ​the usurpation, is clearly established; but the effect of thistestimony has been so amply exposed by the senator from Vermont [Mr.Collamer], in his able and indefatigable argument,that I content myself with simply referring to it.

On this cumulative, irresistible evidence, in concurrence withthe antecedent history, I rest. And yet, senators here haveargued that this cannot be so; precisely as the conspiracy ofCatiline was doubted in the Roman Senate.Nonnulli sunt in hoc ordine, qui aut ea, quæ imminent, non videant; aut ca, quæ vident, dissimulent; qui spem Catilina mollibus sententiis aluerunt, conjurationemque nascentem non credendo corroboraverunt. As I listened to the senator from Illinois,while he painfully strove to show that there was no usurpation,I was reminded of the effort by a distinguished logician, in amuch-admired argument, to prove that Napoleon Bonapartenever existed. And permit me to say that the fact of hisexistence is not placed more completely above doubt than thefact of this usurpation. This I assert on the proofs alreadypresented. But confirmation comes almost while I speak. Thecolumns of the public press are now daily filled with testimony,solemnly taken before the committee of Congress in Kansas,which shows, in awful light, the violence ending in the Usurpation. Of this I may speak on some other occasion. Meanwhile I proceed with the development of the Crime.

The usurping Legislature assembled at the appointed place inthe interior, and then, at once, in opposition to the veto of theGovernor, by a majority of two thirds, removed to the ShawneeMission, a place in most convenient proximity to the Missouriborderers, by whom it had been constituted, and whose tyrannical agent it was. The statutes of Missouri, in all their text,with their divisions and subdivisions, were adopted bodily, andwith such little local adaptation that the word "State" in theoriginal is not even changed to "Territory," but is left to becorrected by an explanatory act. But all this general legis​.lation was entirely subordinate to the special act, entitled "AnAct to punish Offences against Slave Property," in which theOne Idea, that provoked this whole conspiracy, is, at last,embodied in legislative form, and human slavery openly recognized on free soil, under the sanction of pretended law. Thisact of thirteen sections is in itself a Dance of Death. But itscomplex completeness of wickedness, without a parallel, may bepartially conceived, when it is understood that in three sectionsonly of it is the penalty of death denounced no less than forty-eight different times, by as many changes of language, againstthe heinous offence, described in forty-eight different ways, ofinterfering with what does not exist in that Territory, andunder the constitution cannot exist there, I mean propertyin human flesh. Thus is Liberty sacrificed to Slavery, andDeath summoned to sit at the gates as guardian of the Wrong.

But the work of Usurpation was not perfected even yet. Ithad already cost too much to be left at any hazard.

Such was the object. And this could not be, except by theentire prostration of all the safeguards of human rights. Theliberty of speech, which is the very breath of a republic; thepress, which is the terror of wrong-doers; the bar, throughwhich the oppressed beards the arrogance of law; the jury, bywhich right is vindicated; all these must be struck down, whileofficers are provided, in all places, ready to be the tools of thistyranny; and then, to obtain final assurance that their crimewas secure, the whole Usurpation, stretching over the Territory,must be fastened and riveted by legislative bolts, spikes, andscrews,so as to defy all effort at change through the ordinary forms of law. To this work, in its various parts, were bent the subtlest energies; and never, from Tubal Cain to this ​hour, was any fabric forged with more desperate skill andcompleteness.

Mark, sir, three different legislative enactments, which con-stitute part of this work. First, according to one act, all whodeny, by spoken or written word, "the right of persons to holdslaves in this territory," are denounced as felons, to be punishedby imprisonment at hard labor, for a term not less than twoyears; it may be for life. And, to show the extravagance ofthis injustice, it has been well put by the senator from Vermont[Mr.Collamer], that should the sonator from Michigan [Mr.Cass], who believes that Slavery cannot exist in a Territory,unless introduced by express legislative acts, venture therewith his moderate opinions, his doom must be that of a felon!To this extent are the great liberties of speech and of the presssubverted. Secondly, by another act, entitled "An Act concerning Attorneys-at-Law," no person can practise as anattorney, unless he shall obtain a license from the Territorialcourts, which, of course, a tyrannical discretion will be free todeny; and, after obtaining such license, he is constrained totake an oath, not only "to support" the constitution of theUnited States, but also "to support and sustain "mark herethe reduplication!—the Territorial act, and the Fugitive SlaveBill; thus erecting a test for the function of the bar, calculatedto exclude citizens who honestly regard that latter legislativeenormity as unfit to be obeyed. And, thirdly, by another act,entitled "An Act concerning Jurors," all persons “conscientiously opposed to holding slaves," or "not admitting the rightto hold slaves in the Territory," are excluded from the jury onevery question, civil or criminal, arising out of asserted slaveproperty; while, in all cases, the summoning of the jury is leftwithout one word of restraint to "the marshal, sheriff, or otherofficer," who are thus free to pack it according to their tyrannical discretion.

For the ready enforcement of all statutes against Human Freedom, the President had already furnished a powerful quota ​of officers, in the Governor, Chief Justice, Judges, Secretary,Attorney, and Marshal. The Legislature completed this partof the work, by constituting, in each county, a Board of Commissioners, composed of two persons, associated with the Probate Judge, whose duty it is "to appoint a county treasurer,coroner, justices of the peace, constables, and all other officersprovided for by law," and then proceeded to the choice of thisvery Board; thus delegating and diffusing their usurped power,and tyrannically imposing upon the Territory a crowd of officers in whose appointment the people have had no voice,directly or indirectly.

And still the final inexorable work remained. A Legislature, renovated in both branches, could not assemble until1858, so that, during this long intermediate period, this wholesystem must continue in the likeness of law, unless overturnedby the Federal Government, or, in default of such interposition,by a generous uprising of an oppressed people. But it wasnecessary to guard against the possibility of change, even tardily, at a future election; and this was done by two differentacts; under the first of which, all who will not take the oathto support the Fugitive Slave Bill are excluded from the elective franchise; and under the second of which, all others areentitled to vote who shall tender a tax of one dollar to theSheriff on the day of election; thus, by provision of Territoriallaw, disfranchising all opposed to Slavery, and at the same timeopening the door to the votes of the invaders; by an unconstitutional shibboleth, excluding from the polls the mass of actualsettlers, and by making the franchise depend upon a petty taxonly, admitting to the polls the mass of borderers from Missouri. Thus, by tyrannical forethought, the Usurpation notonly fortified all that it did, but assumed a self-perpetuatingenergy.

Thus was the Crime consummated. Slavery now standserect, clanking its chains on the Territory of Kansas, surrounded by a code of death, and trampling upon all cherished ​liberties, whether of speech, the press, the bar, the trial by jury,or the electoral franchise. And, sir, all this has been done,not merely to introduce a wrong which in itself is a denial of allrights, and in dread of which a mother has lately taken the lifeof her offspring; not merely, as has been sometimes said, toprotect Slavery in Missouri, since it is futile for this State tocomplain of Freedom on the side of Kansas, when Freedomexists without complaint on the side of Iowa, and also on theside of Illinois; but it has been done for the sake of politicalpower, in order to bring two new slaveholding senators uponthis floor, and thus to fortify in the National Government thedesperate chances of a waning Oligarchy. As the ship, voyaging on pleasant summer scas, is assailed by a pirate crew, androbbed for the sake of its doubloons and dollars—so is thisbeautiful Territory now assailed in its peace and prosperity, androbbed, in order to wrest its political power to the side ofSlavery. Even now the black flag of the land-pirates fromMissouri waves at the mast-head; in their laws you hear thepirate yell, and see the flash of the pirate-knife; while, incredible to relate the President, gathering the Slave Power at hisback, testifies a pirate sympathy.

Sir, all this was done in the name of Popular Sovereignty.And this is the close of the tragedy. Popular Sovereignty,which, when truly understood, is a fountain of just power, hasended in Popular Slavery; not merely in the subjection of theunhappy African race, but of this proud Caucasian blood,which you boast. The profession with which you began, ofAll by the People, has been lost in the wretched reality ofNothing for the People. Popular Sovereignty, in whose deceitfulname plighted faith was broken, and an ancient Landmark ofFreedom was overturned, now lifts itself before us, like Sin, inthe terrible picture of Milton,

The image is complete at all points; and, with this exposure, Itake my leave of the Crime against Kansas.

II. Emerging from all the blackness of this Crime, inwhich we seem to have been lost, as in a savage wood, andturning our backs upon it, as upon desolation and death, fromwhich, while others have suffered, we have escaped, I come nowtoThe Apolofies which the Crime has found. Sir, well may you start at the suggestion that such a series of wrongs, soclearly proved by various testimony, so openly confessed by thewrong-doers, and so widely recognized throughout the country,should find Apologies. But the partisan spirit, now, as inother days, hesitates at nothing. The great crimes of historyhave never been without Apologies. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, which you now instinctively condemn, was, at thetime, applauded in high quarters, and even commemorated bya Papal medal, which may still be procured at Rome; as theCrime against Kansas, which is hardly less conspicuous indreadful eminence, has been shielded on this floor by extenuating words, and even by a Presidential message, which, like thePapal medal, can never be forgotten in considering the madnessand perversity of men.

Sir, the Crime cannot be denied. The President himselfhas admitted illegal and reprehensible" conduct. To suchconclusion he was compelled by irresistible evidence; but whathe mildly describes I openly arraign. Senators may affect toput it aside by a sneer; or to reason it away by figures; or to explain it by a theory, such as desperate invention has produced ​on this floor, that the Assassins and Thugs of Missouri were inreality citizens of Kansas; but all these efforts, so far as made,are only tokens of the weakness of the cause, while to the orig-inal Crime they add another offence of false testimony against.innocent and suffering men. But the Apologies for the Crimeare worse than the efforts at denial. In cruelty and heartlessness they identify their authors with the great transgression.

They are four in number, and four-fold in character. Thefirst is the Apology tyrannical; the second, the Apology imbecile; the third, the Apology absurd; and the fourth, theApology infamous. This is all. Tyranny, imbecility, absurdity, and infamy, all unite to dance, like the weird sisters,about this Crime.

The Apology tyrannical is founded on the mistaken act ofGovernor Reeder, in authenticating the Usurping Legislature,by which it is asserted that, whatever may have been the actualforce or fraud in its election, the people of Kansas are effectually concluded, and the whole proceeding is placed under theformal sanction of law. According to this assumption, complaintis now in vain, and it only remains that Congress should sitand hearken to it, without correcting the wrong, as the ancienttyrant listened and granted no redress to the human moans thatissued from the heated brazen bull, which subtle cruelty haddevised. This I call the Apology of technicality inspired bytyranny.

The facts on this head are few and plain. Governor Reeder,after allowing only five days for objections to the returns,—aspace of time unreasonably brief in that extensive Territory,—declared a majority of the members of the Council and of theHouse of Representatives "duly elected," withheld certificates.from certain others, because of satisfactory proof that they werenot duly elected, and appointed a day for new elections to supply these vacancies. Afterwards, by formal message, he recog​nized the Legislature as a legal body; and when he vetoed theiract of adjournment to the neighborhood of Missouri, he did itsimply on the ground of the illegality of such an adjournmentunder the organic law. Now, to every assumption founded onthese facts, there are two satisfactory replies: first, that no certificate of the Governor can do more than authenticate a subsisting legal act, without of itself infusing legality where theessence of legality is not already; and, secondly, that violenceor fraud, wherever disclosed, vitiates completely every proceeding. In denying these principles, you place the certificateabove the thing certified, and give a perpetual lease to violenceand fraud, merely because at an ephemeral moment they wereunquestioned. This will not do.

Sir, I am no apologist for Governor Reeder. There is sadreason to believe that he went to Kansas originally as the toolof the President; but his simple nature, nurtured in theatmosphere of Pennsylvania, revolted at the service required,and he turned from his patron to duty. Grievously did he errin yielding to the Legislature any act of authentication; but hehas in some measure answered for this error by determinedefforts since to expose the utter illegality of that body, whichlie now repudiates entirely. It was said of certain RomanEmperors, who did infinite mischief in their beginnings, andinfinite good towards their ends, that they should never havebeen born, or never died; and I would apply the same to theofficial life of this Kansas Governor. At all events, I dismissthe Apology founded on his acts, as the utterance of tyrannyby the voice of law, transcending the declaration of the pedanticjudge, in the British Parliament, on the eve of our Revolution,that our fathers, notwithstanding their complaints, were inreality represented in Parliament, inasmuch as their lands, underthe original charters, were held "in common socage, as of themanor of Greenwich in Kent," which, being duly represented,carried with it all the Colonies. Thus in other ages has tyranny assumed the voice of law.

​Next comes the Apology imbecile, which is founded on thealleged want of power in the President to arrest this Crime. Itis openly asserted that, under the existing laws of the UnitedStates, the Chief Magistrate had no authority to interfere inKansas for this purpose. Such is the broad statement, which,even if correct, furnishes no Apology for any proposed ratification of the Crime, but which is in reality untrue; and this I call the Apology of imbecility.

In other matters, no such ostentatious imbecility appears.Only lately, a vessel of war in the Pacific has chastised thecannibals of the Fejee Islands for alleged outrages on Americancitizens. But no person of ordinary intelligence will pretendthat American citizens in the Pacific have received wrongsfrom these cannibals comparable in atrocity to those receivedby American citizens in Kansas. Ah, sir, the interests ofSlavery are not touched by any chastisement of the Fejees!

Constantly we are informed of efforts at New York, throughthe agency of the Government, and sometimes only on thebreath of suspicion, to arrest vessels about to sail on foreignvoyages in violation of our neutrality laws or treaty stipulations. Now, no man familiar with the cases will presume to suggest that the urgency for these arrests was equal to the urgency for interposition against these successive invasions from Missouri. But the Slave Power is not disturbed by such arrests atNew York!

At this moment, the President exults in the vigilance withwhich he has prevented the enlistment of a few soldiers, to becarried off to Halifax, in violation of our territorial sovereignty,and England is bravely threatened, even to the extent of arupture of diplomatic relations, for her endeavor, though unsuccessful, and at once abandoned. Surely, no man in his senseswill urge that this act was anything but trivial by the side ofthe Crime against Kansas. But the Slave Power is not concerned in this controversy!

Thus, where the Slave Power is indifferent, the President ​will see that the laws are faithfully executed; but, in othercases, where the interests of Slavery are at stake, he is controlled absolutely by this tyranny, ready at all times to do, ornot to do, precisely as it dictates. Therefore it is that Kansasis left a prey to the Propagandists of Slavery, while the wholeTreasury, the Army and Navy of the United States, are lavishedto hunt a single slave through the streets of Boston. You havenot forgotten the latter instance; but I choose to refresh it inyour minds.

As long ago as 1851, the War Department and Navy Department concurred in placing the forces of the United States,near Boston, at the command of the Marshal, if needed, for theenforcement of an act of Congress, which had no support inthe public conscience, as I believe it has no support in the constitution; and thus these forces were degraded to the loathsome.work of slave-hunters. More than three years afterwards, anoccasion arose for their intervention. A fugitive from Virginia,who for some days had trod the streets of Boston as a freeman,was scized as a slave. The whole community was aroused,while Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall quaked with responsive indignation. Then, sir, the President, anxious that no tittle ofSlavery should suffer, was curiously eager in the enforcementof the statute. The despatches between him and his agents inBoston attest his zeal. Here are some of them:

To the President of the United States:

"In consequence of an attack upon the Court-house, last night for the purpose of rescuing a fugitive slave, under arrest, and in which one ofmy own guards was killed,I have availed myself of the resources of the United States, placed under my control by letter from the War and Navy Department, in 1851, and now have two companies of Troops, from Fort.Independence, stationed in the Court-house. Everything is now qu et.The attack was repulsed by my own guard.

"ToWatson Freeman,
United States Marshal, Boston, Mass.:
"Your conduct is approved. The law must be executed.

"To Hon. B. F. Hallet,Boston, Mass.:
"What is the state of the case of Burns?

"To B. F.Hallet,
United States Attorney, Boston Mass.
"Incur any expense deemed necessary by the Marshal and yourself, for City Military, or otherwise, to insure the execution of the law.

But the President was not content with such forces as werethen on hand in the neighborhood. Other posts also were putunder requisition. Two companies of National troops, stationedat New York, were kept under arms, ready at any moment toproceed to Boston; and the Adjutant General of the Army wasdirected to repair to the scene, there to superintend the execution of the statute. All this was done for the sake of Slavery;but during long months of menace suspended over the FreeSoil of Kansas, breaking forth in successive invasions, thePresident has folded his hands in complete listlessness, or, ifhe has moved at all, it has been only to encourage the robberpropagandists.

And now the intelligence of the country is insulted by theApology, that the President had no power to interfere. Why,sir, to make this confession is to confess our Government to bea practical failure—which I will never do, except, indeed, asit is administered now. No, sir; the imbecility of the ChiefMagistrate shall not be charged upon our American Institutions.Where there is a will, there is a way; and in his case, had thewill existed, there would have been a way, easy and triumphant, ​to guard against the Crime we now deplore. His powers werein every respect ample; and this I will prove by the statute-book. By the act of Congress of 28th February, 1795, it isenacted, "that whenever the laws of the United States shallbe opposed,or the execution thereof obstructed, in any State,by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinarycourse of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in themarshals," the President "may call forth the militia." Bythe supplementary act of 3d March, 1807, in all cases wherehe is authorized to call forth the militia "for the purpose ofcausing the laws to be duly executed," the President is furtherempowered, in any Stateor Territory, "to employ for the samepurposes such part of the land or naval force of the UnitedStates as shall be judged necessary." There is the letter ofthe law; and you will please to mark the power conferred. Inno case where thelaws of the United States areopposed, ortheir executionobstructed, is the President constrained to waitfor the requisition of a Governor, or even the petition of a citizen. Just so soon as he learns the fact, no matter by whatchannel, he is invested by law with full power to counteract it.True it is, that when thelaws of a State are obstructed, hecan interfere only on the application of the Legislature of suchState, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened; but when the Federal laws are obstructed, no such preliminary application is necessary. It is his high duty, underhis oath of office, to see that they are executed, and, if needbe, by the Federal forces.

And, sir, this is the precise exigency that has arisen inKansas, precisely this, nor more, nor less. The act of Congress, constituting the veryorganic law of the Territory, which,in peculiar phrase, as if to avoid ambiguity, declares, as "itstrue intent and meaning," that the people thereof "shall beleft perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way," has been from the beginningopposed andobstructed in its execution. If the President had power ​to employ the Federal forces in Boston, when he supposed theFugitive Slave Bill was obstructed, and merely in anticipation ofsuch obstruction, it is absurd to say that he had not power inKansas, when, in the face of the whole country, the veryorganic law of the Territory was trampled under foot by successiveinvasions, and the freedom of the people there overthrown. Toassert ignorance of this obstruction—premeditated, long-continued, and stretching through months—attributes to him notmerely imbecility, but idiocy. And thus do I dispose of thisApology.

Next comes the Apologyabsurd, which is, indeed, in the nature of a pretext. It is alleged that a small printed pamphlet, containing the "Constitution and Ritual of the Grand Encampment and Regiments of the Kansas Legion," was taken from the person of one George F. Warren, who attempted to avoiddetection by chewing it. The oaths and grandiose titles of thepretended Legion have all been set forth, and this poor mummery of a secret society, which existed only on paper, has beengravely introduced on this floor, in order to extenuate theCrime against Kansas. It has been paraded in more than onespeech, and even stuffed into the report of the committee.

A part of the obligations assumed by the members of thisLegion shows why it has been thus pursued, and also attests itsinnocence. It is as follows:

"I will never knowingly propose a person for membership in this orderwho is not in favor of making Kansas a free State, and whom I feel satisfied will exert his entire influence to bring about this result. I will support, maintain, and abide by, any honorable movement made by theorganization to secure this great end,which will not conflict with the laws of the country and the constitution of the United States."

Kansas is to be made a free State, by an honorable movement,which will not conflict with the laws and the constitution.That is the object of the organization, declared in the verywords of the initiatory obligation. Where is the wrong in this? ​What is there here which can cast reproach, or even suspicion,upon the people of Kansas? Grant that the Legion was constituted, can you extract from it any Apology for the originalCrime, or for its present ratification? Secret societies, withtheir extravagant oaths, are justly offensive; but who can find,in this mistaken machinery, any excuse for the denial of allrights to the people of Kansas? All this I say on the supposition that the society was a reality—which it was not. Existing in the fantastic brains of a few persons only, it never hadany practical life. It was never organized. The whole tale,with the mode of obtaining the copy of the constitution, is atonce a cock-and-bull story and a mare's nest; trivial as theformer, absurd as the latter; and to be dismissed, with theApology founded upon it, to the derision which triviality andabsurdity justly receive.

It only remains, under this head, that I should speak of theApologyinfamous; founded on false testimony against theEmigrant Aid Company, and assumptions of duty more falsethan the testimony. Defying Truth and mocking Decency,this Apology excels all others in futility and audacity, while,from its utter hollowness, it proves the utter impotence of theconspirators to defend their Crime. Falsehood, always infamous, in this case arouses peculiar scorn. An association ofsincere benevolence, faithful to the constitution and laws,whose only fortifications are hotels, school-houses, and churches;whose only weapons are saw-mills, tools, and books; whose mission is peace and good-will, has been falsely assailed on thisfloor, and an errand of blameless virtue has been made the pretext for an unpardonable Crime. Nay, more—the innocentare sacrificed, and the guilty set at liberty. They whoseek to do the mission of the Saviour are scourged and crucified, while the murderer, Barabbas, with the sympathy of thechief priests, goes at large.

Were I to take counsel of my own feelings, I should dismiss ​this whole Apology to the ineffable contempt which it deserves;but it has been made to play such a part in this conspiracy,that I feel it a duty to expose it completely.

Sir, from the earliest times, men have recognized the advantages of organization, as an effective agency in promoting worksof peace or war. Especially at this moment, there is no interest, public or private, high or low, of charity or trade, ofluxury or convenience, which does not seek its aid. Menorganize to rear churches and to sell thread; to build schoolsand to sail ships; to construct roads and to manufacture toys;to spin cotton and to print books; to weave cloths and toquicken harvests; to provide food and to distribute light; to influence Public Opinion and to secure votes; to guard infancy inits weakness, old age in its decrepitude, and womanhood in itswretchedness; and now, in all large towns, when death has come,they are buried by organized societies, and, emigrants to anotherworld, they lie down in pleasant places, adorned by organized.skill. To complain that this prevailing principle has been appliedto living emigration, is to complain of Providence and the irresistible tendencies implanted in man.

But this application of the principle is no recent invention,brought forth for an existing emergency. It has the best stampof antiquity. It showed itself in the brightest days of Greece,where colonists moved in organized bands. It became a partof the mature policy of Rome, where bodies of men were constituted expressly for this purpose,triumviri ad colonos deducendos.—(Livy, xxxvii., §46.) Naturally it has been.accepted in modern times by every civilized State. With thesanction of Spain, an association of Genoese merchants first.introduced slaves to this continent. With the sanction ofFrance, the Society of Jesuits stretched their labors over Canada and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. It was under theauspices of Emigrant Aid Companies that our country wasoriginally settled, by the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth, by theadventurers of Virginia, and by the philanthropic Oglethorpe, ​whose "benevolence of soul," commemorated by Pope, soughtto plant a Free State in Georgia. At this day, such associations, of a humbler character, are found in Europe, with offices in the great capitals, through whose activity emigrants aredirected here.

For a long time, emigration to the West, from the Northernand Middle States, but particularly from New England, hasbeen of marked significance. In quest of better homes, annually it has pressed to the unsettled lands, in numbers to hecounted by tens of thousands; but this has been done herotofore with little knowledge, and without guide or counsel.Finally, when, by the establishment of a Government in Kansas, the tempting fields of that central region were opened tothe competition of peaceful colonization, and especially when itwas declared that the question of Freedom or Slavery therewas to be determined by the votes of actual settlers, then atonce was organization enlisted as an effective agency in quickening and conducting the emigration impelled thither, and,more than all, in providing homes for it on arrival there.

The Company was first constituted under an act of the Legislature of Massachusetts, 4th of May, 1854, some weeksprior to the passage of the Nebraska Bill. The original act ofincorporation was subsequently abandoned, and a new charterreceived in February, 1855, in which the objects of the Societyare thus declared:

For the purposes of directing emigration Westward, and aiding in providing accommodations for the emigrants after arriving at their places of destination."

At any other moment, an association for these purposes wouldhave taken its place, by general consent, among the philanthropic experiments of the age; but crime is always suspicious,and shakes, like a sick man, merely at the pointing of a finger.The conspirators against freedom in Kansas now shook withtremor, real or affected. Their wicked plot was about to fail ​To help themselves, they denounced the Emigrant Aid Company; and their denunciations, after finding an echo in thePresident, have been repeated, with much particularity, on thisfloor, in the formal report ofyour committee.

The falsehood of the whole accusation will appear in illustrative specimens.

A charter is set out, section by section, which, thoughoriginally granted, was subsequently abandoned, and is not inreality the charter of the Company, but is materially unlike it.

The Company is represented as "a powerful corporation, witha capital of five millions; " when, by its actual charter, it isnot allowed to hold property above one million, and in point offact its capital has not exceeded one hundred thousand dollars.

Then, again, it is suggested, if not alleged, that this enormous capital, which I have already said does not exist, is investedin cannon and rifles, in powder and lead, and implements ofwar," all of which, whether alleged or suggested, is absolutely false. The officers of the Company authorize me to giveto this whole pretension a point-blank denial.

All these allegations are of small importance, and I mentionthen only because they show the character of the report, andalso something of the quicksand on which the senator fromIllinois has chosen to plant himself. But these are all cappedby the unblushing assertion that the proceedings of the Companywere in perversion of the plain provisions of an act of Congress;" and also another unblushing assertion, as "certain"and undeniable," that the Company was formed to promote certain objects, "regardless of the rights and wishes of the people,as guaranteed by the constitution of the United States, andsecured by their organic law;" when it is certain and undeniable that the Company has done nothing in perversion of anyact of Congress, while, to the extent of its power, it has soughtto protect the rights and wishes of the actual people in theTerritory.

Sir, this Company has violated in no respect the constitution ​or laws of the land; not in the severest letter or the slightestspirit. But every other imputation is equally baseless. It isnot true, as the senator from Illinois has alleged, in order insome way to compromise the Company, that it was informedbefore the public of the date fixed for the election of the Legislature. This statement is pronounced by the Secretary, in aletter now before me, "an unqualified falsehood, not havingeven the shadow of a shade of truth for its basis." It is nottrue that men have been hired by the Company to go to Kansas;for every emigrant, who has gone under its direction, has himself provided the means for his journey. Of course, sir, it isnot true, as has been complained by the senator from SouthCarolina, with that proclivity to error which marks all hisutterances, that men have been sent by the Company "with oneuniform gun, Sharpe's rifle; "for it has supplied no arms ofany kind to anybody. It is not true that the Company hasencouraged any fanatical aggression upon the people ofMissouri; for it has counselled order, peace, forbearance. Itis not true that the Company has chosen its emigrants onaccount of their political opinions; for it has asked no questionswith regard to the opinions of any whom it aids, and at thismoment stands ready to forward those from the South as wellas the North, while, in the Territory, all, from whateverquarter, are admitted to an equal enjoyment of its temptingadvantages. It is not true that the Company has sent persons.merely to control elections, and not to remain in the Territory;for its whole action, and all its anticipation of pecuniary profits,are founded on the hope to stock the country with permanentsettlers, by whose labor the capital of the Company shall bemade to yield its increase, and by whose fixed interest in thesoil the welfare of all shall be promoted.

Sir, it has not the honor of being an Abolition society, or ofnumbering among its officers Abolitionists. Its President is aretired citizen, of ample means and charitable life, who hastaken no part in the conflicts on Slavery, and has never allowed ​his sympathies to be felt by Abolitionists. One of its Vice-Presidents is a gentleman from Virginia, with family andfriends there, who has always opposed the Abolitionists. Itsgenerous Treasurer, who is now justly absorbed by the objectsof the Company, has always been understood as ranging withhis extensive connections, by blood and marriage, on the sideof that quietism which submits to all the tyranny of the SlavePower. Its Directors are more conspicuous for wealth andscience than for any activity against Slavery. Among these isan eminent lawyer of Massachusetts, Mr. Chapman,—personally known, doubtless, to some who hear me,—who has distinguished himself by an austere conservatism, too natural to theatmosphere of courts, which does not flinch even from the support of the Fugitive Slave Bill. In a recent address at a public meeting in Springfield, this gentleman thus speaks for himself and his associates:

"I have been a Director of the Society from the first, and have kept myself well informed in regard to its proceedings. I am not aware thatany one in this community ever suspected me of being an Abolitionist; but I have been accused of being Pro-Slavery; and I believe many goodpeople think I am quite too conservative on that subject. I take thisoccasion to say that all the plans and proceedings of the Society havemet my approbation; and I assert that it has never done a single act.with which any political party, or the people of any section of the country, can justly find fault. The name of its President, Mr. Brown, ofProvidence, and of its Treasurer, Mr. Lawrence, of Boston, are a sufficient guaranty, in the estimation of intelligent men, against its being engaged in any fanatical enterprise. Its stockholders are composed of men of all political parties, except Abolitionists. I am not aware thatit has received the patronage of that class of our fellow-citizens, and Iam informed that some of them disapprove of its proceedings."

The acts of the Company have been such as might be expected from auspices thus severely careful at all points. The secret through which, with small means, it has been able to accomplish so much, is, that,as an inducement to emigration, it has gone forward and planted capital in advance of ​population. According to the old immethodical system, thisrule is reversed, and population has been left to grope blindly,without the advantage of fixed centres, with mills, schools, andchurches,—all calculated to soften the hardships of pioneerlife,—such as have been established beforehand in Kansas.Here, sir, is the secret of the Emigrant Aid Company. Bythis single principle, which is now practically applied for thefirst time in history, and which has the simplicity of genius, abusiness association at a distance, without a large capital, hasbecome a beneficent instrument of civilization, exercising thefunctions of various societies, and in itself being a MissionarySociety, a Bible Society, a Tract Society, an Education Society,and a Society for the Diffusion of the Mechanic Arts. I wouldnot claim too much for this Company; but I doubt if, at thismoment, there is any society which is so completely philanthropic; and since its leading idea, like the light of a candle, fromwhich other candles are lighted without number, may be appliedindefinitely, it promises to be an important aid to HumanProgress. The lesson it teaches cannot be forgotten; and hereafter, wherever unsettled lands exist, intelligent capital will lead the way, anticipating the wants of the pioneer,―nay, doing the very work of the original pioneer,—while, amidst well-arranged harmonies, a new community will arise, tobecome, by its example, a more eloquent preacher than anysolitary missionary. In subordination to this essential idea isits humbler machinery for the aid of emigrants on their way,by combining parties, so that friends and neighbors mightjourney together; by purchasing tickets at wholesale, and furnishing then to individuals at the actual cost; by providing foreach party a conductor familiar with the road, and, throughthese simple means, promoting the economy, safety, and comfort,of the expedition. The number of emigrants it has directlyaided, even thus slightly, in their journey, has been infinitelyexaggerated. From the beginning of its operations down to the ​close of the last autumn, all its detachments from Massachusettscontained only thirteen hundred and twelve persons.

Such is the simple tale of the Emigrant Aid Company.Sir, not even suspicion can justly touch it. But it must bemade a scapegoat. This is the decree which has gone forth. Iwas hardly surprised at this outrage, when it proceeded fromthe President, for, like Macbeth, he is stepped so far in, thatreturning were as tedious as go on; but I did not expect itfrom the senator from Missouri [Mr.Geyer], whom I hadlearned to respect for the general moderation of his views, andthe name he has won in an honorable profession. Listening tohim, I was saddened by the spectacle of the extent to whichSlavery will sway a candid mind to do injustice. Had anyother interest been in question, that senator would have scornedto join in impeachment of such an association. His instincts asa lawyer, as a man of honor, and as a senator, would have forbidden but the Slave Power, in enforcing its behests, allows nohesitation, and the senator surrendered.

In this vindication, I content myself with a statement offacts, rather than an argument. It might be urged that Missouri had organized a propagandist emigration long before anyfrom Massachusetts; and you might be reminded of the wolf inthe fable, which complained of the lamb for disturbing the waters, when in fact the alleged offender was lower down on thestream. It might be urged, also, that South Carolina haslately entered upon a similar system, while one of her chieftains, in rallying recruits, has unconsciously attested to thecause in which he was engaged, by exclaiming, in the words ofSatan, addressed to his wicked force, "Awake! arise! or beforever fallen!"^[1] But the occasion needs no such defences. I put them aside. Not on the example of Missouri, or the example of South Carolina, but on inherent rights, which no man, ​whether senator or President, can justly assail, do I plant thisimpregnable justification. It will not do, in specious phrases, toallege the right of every State to be free in its domestic policy fromforeign interference, and then to assume such wrongful interference by this Company. By the law and constitution we stand orfall; and that law and constitution we have in no respect offended.

To cloak the overthrow of all law in Kansas, an assumptionis now set up, which utterly denies one of the plainest rightsof the people everywhere. Sir, I beg senators to understandthat this is a Government of laws; and that, under these laws,the people have an incontestable right to settle any portion ofour broad territory, and, if they choose, to propagate any opinionsthere not openly forbidden by the laws. If this were not so,pray, sir, by what title is the senator from Illinois, who is anemigrant from Vermont, propagating his disastrous opinions inanother State? Surely he has no monopoly of this right.Others may do what he is doing; nor can the right be in anyway restrained. It is as broad as the people; and it matters notwhether they go in numbers small or great, with assistance orwithout assistance, under the auspices of societies or not undersuch auspices. If this were not so, then, by what title are somany foreigners annually naturalized, under Democratic auspices, in order to secure their votes for misnamed Democraticprinciples? And if capital as well as combination cannot beemployed, by what title do venerable associations exist, of ampler means and longer duration than any Emigrant Aid Company, around which cluster the regard and confidence of the country? the Tract Society, a powerful corporation, which scattersits publications freely in every corner of the land; the Bible Society, an incorporated body, with large resources, which seeksto carry the Book of Life alike into Territories and States;the Missionary Society, also an incorporated body, with largeresources, which sends its agents everywhere, at home and inforeign lands.—By what title do all these exist? Nay, sir,by what title does an Insurance Company in New York send ​its agent to open an office in New Orleans, and by what titledoes Massachusetts capital contribute to the IIannibal and St.Josephi Railroad in Missouri, and also to the copper mines ofMichigan? The seuator inveighs against the Native Americanparty but his own principle is narrower than any attributedto them. They object to the influence of emigrants fromabroad; he objects to the influence of American citizens at home.when exerted in States or Territories where they were notborn! The whole assumption is too audacious for respectfulargument. But, since a great right has been denied, the chil-dren of the Free States, over whose cradles has shone the NorthStar, owe it to themselves, to their ancestors, and to Freedomitself, that this right should now be asserted to the fullest extent. By the blessing of God, and under the continued protection of the laws, they will go to Kansas, there to plant theirhomes, in the hope of elevating this Territory soon into thesisterhood of Free States; and to such end they will not hesitate, in the employment of all legitimate means, whether bycompanies of men or contributions of money, to swell a virtuous.emigration, and they will justly scout any attempt to questionthis unquestionable right. Sir, if they failed to do this, theywould be fit only for slaves themselves.

God be praised! Massachusetts, honored Commonwealththat gives me the privilege to plead for Kansas on this floor,knows her rights, and will maintain them firmly to the end.This is not the first time in history that her public acts havebeen arraigned, and that her public men have been exposed tocontumely. Thus was it when, in the olden time, she beganthe great battle whose fruits you all enjoy. But never yet hasshe occupied a position so lofty as at this hour. By the intelligence of her population—by the resources of her industry—by her commerce, cleaving every wave—by her manufactures,various as human skill—by her institutions of education, various as human knowledge—by her institutions of benevolence,various as human suffering—by the pages of her scholars and ​historians by the voices of her poets and orators, she is nowexerting an influence more subtle and commanding than everbefore shooting her far-darting rays wherever ignorance,wretchedness, or wrong, prevail, and flashing light even uponthose who travel far to persecute her. Such is Massachusetts;and I am proud to believe that you may as well attempt,with puny arm, to topple down the earth-rooted, heaven-kissinggranite which crowns the historic sod of Bunker Hill, as tochange her fixed resolves for Freedom everywhere, and especially now for Freedom in Kansas. I exult, too, that in thisbattle, which surpasses far, in moral grandeur, the whole warof the Revolution, she is able to preserve her just eminence. Tothe first she contributed a larger number of troops than anyother State in the Union, and larger than all the Slave Statestogether and now to the second, which is not of contendingarmies, but of contending opinions, on whose issue hangs trembling the advancing civilization of the country, she contributes,through the manifold and endless intellectual activity of herchildren, more of that divine spark by which opinions are quickened into life, than is contributed by any other State, or by allthe Slave States together; while her annual productive industryexcels in value three times the whole vaunted cotton crop of thewhole South.

Sir, to men on earth it belongs only to deserve success—notto secure it and I know not how soon the efforts of Massachusetts will wear the crown of triumph. But it cannot bethat she acts wrong for herself or children, when in this causeshe thus encounters reproach. No; by the generous souls whowere exposed at Lexington; by those who stood arrayed atBunker Hill; by the many from her bosom who, on all thefields of the first great struggle, lent their vigorous arms to thecause of all; by the children she has borne, whose names aloneare national trophies, is Massachusetts now vowed irrevocablyto this work. What belongs to the faithful servant she will doin all things, and Providence shall determine the result.

​And here ends what I have to say of the four Apologies forthe Crime against Kansas.

III. From this ample survey, where one obstruction afteranother has been removed, I now pass, in the third place, tothe consideration of thevarious remedies proposed, endingwith theTrue Remedy.

The Remedy should be coëxtensive with the original Wrong;.and since, by the passage of the Nebraska Bill, not only Kansas,but also Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington, and even Oregon,have been opened to Slavery, the original Prohibition should berestored to its complete activity throughout these various Territorics. By such a happy restoration, made in good faith, thewhole country would be replaced in the condition which itenjoyed before the introduction of that dishonest measure.Here is the Alpha and the Omega of our aim in this immediatecontroversy. But no such extensive measure is now in question. The Crime against Kansas has been special, and all else isabsorbed in the special remedies for it. Of these I shall nowspeak.

As the Apologies were four-fold, so are the Remedies proposed four-fold; and they range themselves in natural order,under designations which so truly disclose their character aseven to supersede argument. First, we have the Remedy ofTyranny; next, the Remedy of Folly; next, the Remedy ofInjustice and Civil War; and fourthly, the Remedy of Justiceand Peace. There are the four caskets; and you are to determine which shall be opened by senatorial votes.

There is theRemedy of Tyranny, which, like its complement, the Apology of Tyranny, though espoused on this floorespecially by the senator from Illinois, proceeds from thePresident, and is embodied in a special message. It proposesto enforce obedience to the existing laws of Kansas, "whether ​Federal orlocal," when, in fact, Kansas has no "local" lawsexcept those imposed by the Usurpation from Missouri; and itcalls for additional appropriations to complete this work oftyranny.

I shall not follow the President in his elaborate endeavor toprejudge the contested election now pending in the House ofRepresentatives; for this whole matter belongs to the privileges.of that body, and neither the President nor the Senate has aright to intermeddle therewith. I do not touch it. But now,while dismissing it, I should not pardon myself if I failed toadd, that any person who founds his claim to a seat in Congresson the pretended votes of hirelings from another State, with nohome on the soil of Kansas, plays the part of Anacharsis Clootz,who, at the bar of the French Convention, undertook to represent nations that knew him not, or, if they knew him, scornedhim with this difference, that in our American case theexcessive farce of the transaction cannot cover its tragedy. Butall this I put aside, to deal only with what is legitimatelybefore the Senate.

I expose simply the Tyranny which upholds the existingUsurpation, and asks for additional appropriations. Let it bejudged by an example, from which in this country there can be.no appeal. Here is the speech of George III., made from theThrone to Parliament, in response to the complaints of theProvince of Massachusetts Bay, which, though smarting underlaws passed by usurped power, had yet avoided all armedopposition, while Lexington and Bunker Hill still slumberedin rural solitude, unconscious of the historic kindred which theywere soon to claim. Instead of Massachusetts Bay, in theRoyal speech, substitute Kansas, and the message of the President will be found fresh on the lips of the British King. Listennow to the words, which, in opening Parliament, 30th November, 1774, his Majesty, according to the official report, waspleased to speak:

​"My Lords and Gentlemen:

It gives me much concern that I am obliged, at the opening of thisParliament, to inform you that a most daring spirit of resistance anddisobedience to the law still unhappily prevails in the Province of theMassachusetts Bay, and has in divers parts of it broke forth in fresh.violences of a very criminal nature. These proceedings have been countenanced in other of my Colonies, and unwarrantable attempts have beenmade to obstruct the Commerce of this Kingdom, by unlawful combinations.I have taken such measures, and given such orders, as I have judged.most proper and effectual for carrying into execution the laws which werepassed in the last session of the late Parliament for the protection andsecurity of the Commerce of my subjects, and for the restoring and preserving peace, order, and good government, in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay."—American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, page 1465.

The King complained of a "daring spirit of resistance anddisobedience to the law;" so also does the President. TheKing adds that it has "broke forth in fresh violences of a verycriminal nature;" so also does the President. The Kingdeclares that these proceedings have been "countenanced andencouraged in other of my Colonies; " even so the Presidentdeclares that Kansas has found sympathy in "remote States."The King inveighs against "unwarrantable measures" and"unlawful combinations; " even so inveighs the President.The King proclaims that he has taken the necessary steps "forcarrying into execution the laws," passed in defiance of theconstitutional rights of the Colonies; even so the Presidentproclaims that he shall "exert the whole power of the FederalExecutive to support the Usurpation in Kansas. The parallelis complete. The message, if not copied from the speech ofthe King, has been fashioned on the same original block, andmust be dismissed to the same limbo. I dismiss its tyrannicalassumptions in favor of the Usurpation. I dismiss also itspetition for additional appropriations in the affected desire tomaintain order in Kansas. It is not money or troops that youneed there, but simply the good-will of the President. Thatis all, absolutely. Let his complicity with the Crime cease, ​and peace will be restored. For myself, I will not consent towad the National artillery with fresh appropriation bills, whenits murderous hail is to be directed against the constitutionalrights of my fellow-citizens.

Next comes theRemedy of Folly, which, indeed, is also aRemedy of Tyranny; but its Folly is so surpassing as to eclipseeven its Tyranny. It does not proceed from the President.With this proposition he is not in any way chargeable. Itcomes from the senator from South Carolina, who, at the closeof a long speech, offered it as his single contribution to theadjustment of this question, and who thus far stands alone inits support. It might, therefore, fitly bear his name; but thatwhich I now give to it is a more suggestive synonym.

This proposition, nakedly expressed, is that the people ofKansas should be deprived of their arms. That I may not dothe least injustice to the senator, I quote his precise words:

"The President of the United States is under the highest and mostsolemn obligations to interpose; and, if I were to indicate the mannerin which he should interpose in Kansas, I would point out the old common law process; I would serve a warrant on Sharpe's rifles, and if Sharpe's rifles did not answer the summons, and come into court on a day certain, or if they resisted the sheriff, I would summon theposse comitatus, and would have Colonel Sumner's regiment to be a part of thatposse comitatus."

Really, sir, has it come to this? The rifle has ever been thecompanion of the pioneer, and, under God, his tutelary protector against the red man and the beast of the forest. Neverwas this efficient weapon more needed in just self-defence thannow in Kansas, and at least one article in our National Constitution must be blotted out, before the complete right to it canin any way be impeached. And yet, such is the madness of thelour, that, in defiance of the solemn guaranty, embodied in theAmendments of the Constitution, that "the right of the peopleto keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," the people of ​Kansas have been arraigned for keeping and bearing them, andthe senator from South Carolina has had the face to say openly,on this floor, that they should be disarmed—of course, thatthe fanatics of Slavery, his allies and constituents, may meetno impediment. Sir, the senator is venerable with years; heis reputed also to have worn at home, in the State which herepresents, judicial honors; and he is placed here at the headof an important committee occupied particularly with questionsof law; but neither his years, nor his position, past or present,can give respectability to the demand he has made, or save him.from indignant condemnation, when, to compass the wretchedpurposes of a wretched cause, he thus proposes to trample onone of the plainest provisions of constitutional liberty.

Next comes theRemedy of Injustice and Civil War—organized by Act of Congress. This proposition, which is also an offshoot of the original Remedy of Tyranny, proceeds from the senator from Illinois [Mr.Douglas], with the sanction of the Committee on Territories, and is embodied in the Bill whichis now pressed to a vote.

By this Bill it is proposed as follows:

That whenever it shall appear, by a census to be taken under the direction of the Governor, by the authority of the Legislature, that there shall be 93,420 inhabitants (that being the number required by the present ratio of representation for a member of Congress) within the limits hereafter described as the Territory of Kansas,the Legislature of said Territory shall be, and is hereby, authorized to provide by law for the election of delegates, by the people of said Territory, to assemble in Convention, and form a Constitution and State Government, preparatory to their admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever, by the name of the State of Kansas."

Now, sir, consider these words carefully, and you will seethat, however plausible and velvet-pawed they may seem, yet, inreality, they are most unjust and cruel. While affecting toinitiate honest proceedings for the formation of a State, theyfurnish to this Territory no redress for the Crime under which ​it suffers; nay, they recognize the very Usurpation, in whichthe Crime ended, and proceed to endow it with new prerogatives. It isby the authority of the Legislature that thecensus is to be taken, which is the first step in the work. It isalsoby the authority of the Legislature that a Convention isto be called for the formation of a Constitution, which is thesecond step. But the Legislature is not obliged to take eitherof these steps. To its absolute wilfulness is it left to act or notto act in the premises. And since, in the ordinary course ofbusiness, there can be no action of the Legislature till Januaryof the next year, all these steps, which are preliminary in theircharacter, are postponed till after that distant day—thuskeeping this great question open, to distract and irritate thecountry. Clearly this is not what is required. The countrydesires peace at once, and is determined to have it. But thisobjection is slight by the side of the glaring Tyranny, that, inrecognizing the Legislature, and conferring upon it these newpowers, the Bill recognizes the existing Usurpation, not only asthe authentic Government of the Territory for the time being,but also as possessing a creative power to reproduce itself in thenew State. Pass this Bill, and you enlist Congress in the conspiracy, not only to keep the people of Kansas in their presentsubjugation, throughout their Territorial existence, but also toprotract this subjugation into their existence as a State, whileyou legalize and perpetuate the very force by which Slavery hasbeen already planted there.

I know that there is another deceptive clause, which seems tothrow certain safeguards around the election of delegates tothe Convention,when that Convention shall be ordered by the Legislature; but out of this very clause do I draw a condemnation of the Usurpation which the Bill recognizes. It providesthat the tests, coupled with the electoral franchise, shall notprevail in the election of delegates, and thus impliedly condemns them. But, if they are not to prevail on this occasion,why are they permitted at the election of the Legislature? If ​they are unjust in the one case, they are unjust in the other.If annulied at the election of delegates, they should be annulledat the election of the Legislature;whereas the Bill of the senator leaves all these offensive tests in full activity at the election of the very Legislature out of which this whole proceeding is to come, and it leaves the polls at both elections in the control of the officers appointed by the Usurpation. Consider well the facts. By an existing statute, establishing theFugitive Slave Bill as a shibboleth, a large portion of the honest.citizens are excluded from voting for the Legislature, while, byanother statute, all who present themselves with a fee of onedollar, whether from Missouri or not, and who can utter thisshibboleth, are entitled to vote. And it is a Legislature thuschosen, under the auspices of officers appointed by the Usurpation, that you now propose to invest with parental powers torear the Territory into a State. You recognize and confirm theUsurpation, which you ought to annul without delay. You putthe infant State, now preparing to take a place in our sisterhood, to suckle with the wolf, which you ought at once to kill.The improbable story of Baron Munchausen is verified. Thebear, which thrust itself into the harness of the horse it haddevoured, and then whirled the sledge according to mere brutalbent, is recognized by this Bill, and kept in its usurped place,when the safety of all requires that it should be shot.

In characterizing this Bill as the Remedy of Injustice andCivil War, I give it a plain, self-evident title. It is a continuation of the Crime against Kansas, and, as such, deserves thesame condemnation. It can only be defended by those whodefend the Crime. Sir, you cannot expect that the people ofKansas will submit to the usurpation which this Bill sets up,and bids them bow before—as the Austrian tyrant set up hiscap in the Swiss market-place. If you madly persevere, Kansas will not be without her William Tell, who will refuse at all hazards to recognize the tyrannical edict; and this will be thebeginning of civil war.

​Next, and lastly, comes the Remedy of Justice and Peace,proposed by the senator from New York [Mr.Seward], andembodied in his Bill for the immediate admission of Kansas asa State of this Union, now pending as a substitute for the Billof the senator from Illinois. This is sustained by the prayerof the people of the Territory, setting forth a constitutionformed by a spontaneous movement, in which all there hadopportunity to participate, without distinction of party. Rarelyhas any proposition, so simple in character, so entirely practicable, so absolutely within your power, been presented, which promised at once such beneficent results. In its adoption, the Crime against Kansas will be all happily absolved, the Usurpation which it established will be peacefully suppressed, and order will be permanently secured. By a joyful metamorphosis, this fair Territory may be saved from outrage.

In offering this proposition, the senator from New York hasentitled himself to the gratitude of the country. He has,throughout a life of unsurpassed industry, and of eminentability, done much for Freedom, which the world will not letdie; but he has done nothing more opportune than this, and hehas uttered no words more effective than the speech, so masterlyand ingenious, by which he has vindicated it.

Kansas now presents herself for admission with a constitutionrepublican in form. And, independent of the great necessityof the case, three considerations of fact concur in commending her.First. She thus testifies her willingness to relieve theFederal Government of the considerable pecuniary responsibilityto which it is now exposed on account of the pretended Territorial government. Secondly. She has, by her recent conduct, particularly in repelling the invasion at Wacherusa, evinced an ability to defend her Government. And, thirdly, by the pecu​niary credit which she now enjoys she shows an undoubtedability to support it. What now can stand in her way?

The power of Congress to admit Kansas at once is explicit.It is found in a single clause of the constitution, which, stand-ing by itself, without any qualification applicable to the presentcase, and without doubtful words, requires no commentary.Here it is:

"New States may be admitted by Congress into this Union; but nonew State shall be formed or crected within the jurisdiction of any otherState, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States orparts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the Statesconcerned, as well as of the Congress."

New Statesmay be admitted. Out of that little word maycomes the power, broadly and fully, without any limitationfounded on population or preliminary forms, provided theState is not within the jurisdiction of another State, nor formedby the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States. Kansas is notwithin the legal jurisdiction of another State, although the laws.of Missouri have been tyrannically extended over her; nor isKansas formed by the junction of two or more States; and,therefore, Kansas may be admitted by Congress into theUnion, without regard to population or preliminary forms.You cannot deny the power, without obliterating this clause ofthe constitution. The senator from. New York was right inrejecting all appeal to precedents, as entirely irrelevant; forthe power invoked is clear and express in the constitution,which is above all precedent. But, since precedent has beenenlisted, let us look at precedent.

It is objected that thepopulation of Kansas is not sufficientfor a State; and this objection is sustained by under-reckoningthe numbers there, and exaggerating the numbers required byprecedent. In the absence of any recent census, it is impossible to do more than approximate to the actual population; but,from careful inquiry of the best sources, I am led to place it ​now at fifty thousand, though I observe that a prudentauthority, theBoston Daily Advertiser, puts it as high assixty thousand, and, while I speak, this remarkable population,fed by fresh emigration, is outstripping even these calculations.Nor can there be a doubt that, before the assent of Congresscan be perfected in the ordinary course of legislation, this population will swell to the large number of ninety-three thousandfour hundred and twenty, required in the Bill of the senatorfrom Illinois.But, in making this number the condition of the admission of Kansas, you set up an extraordinary standard. There is nothing out of which it can be derived, from the beginning to the end of the precedents. Going back to the days of the Continental Congress, you will find that, in 1784, it was declared that twenty thousand freemen in a Territory might establish a permanent Constitution and Government for themselves" (Journals of Congress, vol. 4, p. 379);and, though this number was afterwards, in the Ordinance of1787 for the North-western Territory, raised to sixty thousand,Jet the power was left in Congress, and subsequently exercisedin more than one instance, to constitute a State with a smallernumber. Out of all the new States, only Maine, Wisconsin, andTexas, contained, at the time of their admission into the Union,so large a population as it is proposed to require in Kansas;while no less thanfourteen new States have been admitted witha smaller population; as will appear in the following list, whichis the result of research, showing the number of "free inhalitants" in these States at the time of the proceedings which ended in their admission:

But this is not all. At the adoption of the Federal Constitution, there were three of the old thirteen States whose respective populations did not reach the amount now required forKansas. These were Delaware, with a population of 59,096;Rhode Island, with a population of 64,689; and Georgia, witha population of 82,548. And even now, while I speak, thereare at least two States, with senators on this floor, which, according to the last census, do not contain the population nowrequired of Kansas. I refer to Delaware, with a population of91,635, and Florida, with a population of freemen amountingonly to 47,203. So much for precedents of population.

But, in sustaining this objection, it is not uncommon todepart from the strict rule of numerical precedent, by suggesting that the population required in a new State has always been,in point of fact, above the existing ratio of representation for amember of the House of Representatives. But this is not true;for at least one State, Florida, was admitted with a populationbelow this ratio, which at the time was 70,680. So much,again, for precedents. But, even if this coincidence were complete, it would be impossible to press it into a binding precedent.

The rule seems reasonable, and, in ordinary cases, would notbe questioned; but it cannot be drawn or implied from the constitution. Besides, this ratio is, in itself, a sliding scale. Atfirst it was 33,000; and this continued till 1811, when it wasput at 35,000. In 1822, it was 40,000; in 1832, it was47,700 in 1842, it was 70,680; and now, it is 93,420. Ifany ratio is to be made the foundation of a binding rule, itshould be that which prevailed at the adoption of the constitution, and which still continued, when Kansas, as a part ofLouisiana, was acquired from France, under solemn stipulation.that it should be incorporated into the Union of the United.States as soon as may be consistent with the principles of theFederal Constitution." But this whole objection is met by thememorial of the people of Florida, which, if good for that State,is also good for Kansas. Here is a passage:

​"But the people of Florida respectfully insist that their right to headmitted into the Federal Union as a State is not dependent upon thefact of their having a population equal to such ratio. Their right toadmission, it is conceived, is guaranteed by the express pledge in the sixth.article of the treaty before quoted; and if any rule as to the number ofthe population is to govern, it should be that in existence at the time ofthe eession, which was thirty-five thousand. They submit, however, thatany ratio of representation dependent upon legislative action, basedsolely on convenience and expediency, shifting and vacillating as theopinion of a majority of Congress may make it, now greater than at aprevious apportionment, but which a future Congress may prescribe tobe less, cannot be one of the constitutional PRINCIPLES' referred to inthe treaty, consistency with which, by its terms, is required. It is, intruth, but a mere regulation, not founded on principle. No specifiednumber of population is required by any recognized principle as necessary in the establishment of a free Government.

"It is in no wise 'inconsistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution,'that the population of a State should be less than the ratio of Congressional representation. The very case is provided for in the constitution. With such deficient population, she would be entitled to oneRepresentative. If any event should cause a decrease of the populationof one of the States even to a number below the minimum ratio of representation prescribed by the constitution, she would still remain a member of the Confederacy, and be entitled to such Representative. It isrespectfully urged, that a rule or principle which would not justify theexpulsion of a State with a deficient population, on the ground of inconsistency with the constitution, should not exclude or prohibitadmission."—(Exec. Doc., 27th Cong., 2dsess., Vol. 4, No. 206.)

Thus, sir, do the people of Florida plead for the people ofKansas.

Distrusting the objection from inadequacy of population, it issaid that theproceedings for the formation of a new State are fatally defective in form. It is not asserted that a previous enabling act of Congress is indispensable; for there arenotorious precedents the other way, among which are Kentuckyin 1791, Tennessee in 1796, Maine in 1820, and Arkansasand Michigan in 1836. But it is urged that in no instance hasa State been admitted whose constitution was formed withoutsuch enabling act, or without the authority of the Territorial ​Legislature. This is not true; for California came into theUnion with a constitution, formed not only without any previous enabling act, but also without any sanction from a Territorial Legislature. The proceedings which ended in this constitution were initiated by the military Governor there, actingunder the exigency of the hour. This instance may not beIdentical in all respects with that of Kansas; but it displacescompletely one of the assumptions which Kansas now encounters, and it also shows completely the disposition to relax allrule, under the exigency of the hour, in order to do substantialjustice.

But there is a memorable instance, which contains in itselfevery element of irregularity which you denounce in the proceedings of Kansas. Michigan, now cherished with such prideas a sister State, achieved admission into the Union in persistentdefiance of all rule. Do you ask for precedents? Here is aprecedent for the largest latitude, which you, who profess adeference to precedent, cannot disown. Mark now the stagesof this case. The first proceedings of Michigan were withoutany previous enabling act of Congress; and she presented herself at your door with a constitution thus formed, and withsenators chosen under that constitution, precisely as KansasThis was in December, 1835, while Andrew Jacksonwas President. By the leaders of the Democracy at that time,all objection for alleged defects of form was scouted, and language was employed which is strictly applicable to Kansas.There is nothing new under the sun; and the very objection ofthe President, that the application of Kansas proceeds frompersons acting against authorities duly constituted by act ofCongress," was hurled against the application of Michigan, indebate on this floor, by Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana. This washis language:

"But the people of Michigan, in presenting their Senate and House of Representatives as the legislative power existing there,showed that they had trampled upon and violated the laws of the United States establish- ​ing a Territorial Government in Michigan. These laws were, or oughtto be, in full force there; but, by the character and position assumed,they had set up a Government antagonist to that of the United States."—(Congress. Deb., Vol. 12, p. 288, 24th Cong., 1st session.)

To this impeachment Mr. Benton replied in these effectivewords:

"Conventions were original acts of the people. They depended uponinherent and inalienable rights. The people of any State may at anytime meet in Convention, without a law of their Legislature, and without any provision or against any provision in their constitution, andmay alter or abolish the whole frame of Government, as they please.The sovereign power to govern themselves was in the majority, and they could not be divested of it."—(Ibid., p. 1030.)

Mr. Buchanan vied with Mr. Benton in vindicating the newState:

"The precedent in the case of Tennessee has completely silenced allopposition in regard to the necessity of a previous act of Congress toenable the people of Michigan to form a State Constitution. It nowseems to be conceded that our subsequent approbation is equivalent toour previous action. This can no longer be doubted.We have the unquestionable power of waiving any irregularities in the mode of framing the constitution, had any such existed."—(Ibid., p. 1041.)

"He did hope that by this bill all objections would be removed; andthat this State, so ready to rush into our arms, would not be repulsed,because of the absence of some formalities which perhaps were very proper, but certainly not indispensable."—(Ibid., p. 1015.)

After an animated contest in the Senate, the Bill for the ad-mission of Michigan, on her assent to certain conditions, waspassed, by twenty-three yeas to eight nays. But you findweight, as well as numbers, on the side of the new State.Among the yeas were Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, JamesBuchanan, of Pennsylvania, Silas Wright, of New York, W.R. King, of Alabama.—(Cong. Globe. Vol. 3d, p. 270, 1st session 24th Cong.) Subsequently, on motion of Mr. Buchanan, the two gentlemen sent as senators by the new Statereceived the regular compensation for attendance throughout ​the very session in which their seats had been so acrimoniouslyassailed.—(Ibid., p. 448.)

In the House of Representatives the application was equallysuccessful. The Committee on the Judiciary, in an elaboratereport, reviewed the objections, and, among other things, said:

"That the people of Michigan have without due authority formed aState Government, but, nevertheless, that Congress has power to waive any objection which might, on that account, be entertained to the ratification of the constitution which they have adopted, and to admit their Senators and Representatives to take their seats in the Congress of the United States."—(Exec. Doc., 1st sess. 24th Cong., Vol. 2, No. 380.)

The House sustained this view by a vote of one hundred andfifty-three yeas to forty-five nays. In this large majority, bywhich the title of Michigan was then recognized, will be foundthe name of Franklin Pierce, at that time a Representative fromNew Hampshire.

But the case was not ended. The fiercest trial and thegreatest irregularity remained. The act providing for theadmission of the new State contained a modification of itsboundaries, and proceeded to require, as a fundamental condition, that these should receive the assent of a Convention ofdelegates, elected by the people of the said State, for the solepurpose of giving the assent herein required."—(Statutes at Large, Vol. 5, p. 50,Act of June 5th, 1836.) Such a Convention, duly elected under a call from the Legislature, met inpursuance of law, and, after consideration, declined to come intothe Union on the condition proposed. But the action of thisConvention was not universally satisfactory, and, in order toeffect an admission into the Union, another Convention wascalledprofessedly by the people, in their sovereign capacity,without any authority from State or Territorial Legislature;nay, sir, according to the language of the present President,"against authorities duly constituted by Act of Congress;"at least, as much as the recent Convention in Kansas. The ​irregular y of this Convention was increased by the circum-stance that two of the oldest counties of the State, comprisinga population of some twenty-five thousand souls, refused to takeany part in it, even to the extent of not opening the polls forthe election of delegates, claiming that it was held without warrant of law, and in defiance of the legal Convention. Thispopular Convention, though wanting a popular support coëxtensive with the State, yet proceeded, by formal act, to givethe assent of the people of Michigan to the fundamental condition proposed by Congress.

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

"This Convention was not held or elected by virtue of any act of theTerritorial or State Legislature. It originated from the People themselves, and was chosen by them in pursuance of resolutions adopted inprimary 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 himduring the recess of Congress, he should have felt it his duty,,on being satisfied that they emanated from a Convention ofdelegates 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 whichFeliz Grundy was Chairman, after inquiry, recognized thecompetency of the popular Convention, as "elected by thepeople of the State of Michigan," and reported a Bill, responsive to their assent of the proposed condition, for the admissionof the State without further condition. (Statutes at Large,Vol. 5, p. 144,Act of 26th Jan., 1837.) Then, sir, appearedthe very objections which are now directed against Kansas. Itwas complained that the movement for immediate admission was ​the work of "a minority," and that "a great majority of theState feel otherwise."—(Sen. Doc., 2d Sess. 24th Cong.,Vol. 1. No. 37.) And a leading senator, of great ability andintegrity, Mr. EWING, of Ohio, broke forth in a catechismwhich 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 appointedtheir delegates to that Convention? None on earth. Who they werethat 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 low?Were the delegates sworn? And if so, they were extra-judical oaths,and not binding upon them. Were the votes counted? In fact, it wasnot 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 exposingthe imperfect evidence with regard to the action of the Convention, existing only in letters, and in an article from a Detroitnewspaper, 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 oppositionwith, the most persevering intensity. In his sight, the admission of Michigan, under the circumstances, "would be themost monstrous proceeding under our constitution that can beconceived, the most repugnant to its principles, and dangerousin its consequences."—(Cong. Debates, Vol. 13, p. 210.)"There is not," he exclaimed, "one particle of official evidencebefore us. We have nothing but the private letters of individuals, who do not know even the numbers that voted oneither occasion. They know nothing of the qualifications ofvoters, nor how their votes were received, nor by whom count​ed." (Ibid.) And he proceeded to characterize the popularConvention as "not only a party caucus, for party purpose,but a criminal meeting,—a meeting to subvert the authorityof the State, and to assume its sovereignty;" adding "thatthe actors in that meeting might be indicted, tried, and punished;" and he expressed astonishment that "a self-createdmeeting, convened for a criminal object, had dared to presentto this Government an act of theirs, and to expect that we areto receive this irregular and criminal act as a fulfilment of thecondition which we had presented for the admission of theState"—(Ibid., p. 299.) No stronger words have beenemployed against Kansas.

But the single question on which all the proceedings thenhinged, and which is as pertinent in the case of Kansas as inthe 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 thatoccasion contain an unanswerable argument, at all points,mutato nomine, for the immediate admission of Kansas underher present constitution; nor is there anything by which heis now distinguished that will redound so truly to his fame, ifhe only continues true to them. But the question was emphat​ical answered in the Senate by the final vote on the passageof the Bill, where we find twenty-five yeas to only ten nays.In the House of Representatives, after debate, the question wasanswered in the same way, by a vote of one hundred and forty-eight yeas to fifty-eight nays; and among the was is again thename ofFranklin Pierce, a Representative from New Hampshire.

Thus, in that day, by such triumphant votes, did the causeof Kansas prevail in the name of Michigan. A popular Convention, called absolutely without authority, and containingdelegates from a portion only of her population,—called, too,in opposition to constituted authorities, and in derogation ofanother 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 ampledebate, recognized by Congress as valid; and Michigan nowholds her place in the Union, and her senators sit on this floor,by virtue of that act. Sir, if Michigan is legitimate, Kansascannot be illegitimate. You bastardize Michigan when yourefuse 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 itfirmly on the fundamental principle of American Institutions,as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, by whichGovernment is recognized as deriving its just powers onlyfrom the consent of the governed, who may alter or abolish it whenit becomes destructive of their rights. In the debate on theNebraska Bill, at the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery,the Declaration of Independence was denounced as a "self-evident lie." It is only by a similar audacity that the fundamental principle which sustains the proceedings in Kansas canbe assailed. Nay, more: you must disown the Declaration ofIndependence, and adopt the Circular of the Holy Alliance,which declares that "useful and necessary changes in legislation and in the administration of Statesought 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 Declarationof Independence and the principle of the Holy Alliance, andbid them grapple! "The one places the remedy in the handswhich feel the disorder; the other places the remedy in thehands which cause the disorder;" and when I thus truthfullycharacterize them, I but adopt a sententious phrase from theDebates in the Virginia Convention on the adoption of theFederal Constitution.—(3Elliot'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 namesof authority in American history, espouse and vindicate theAmerican principle. Hand in hand, they now stand aroundKansas, and feel this new State lean on them for support. Ofthese I content myself with adducing two only, both from slave-holding Virginia, in days when Human Rights were not withoutsupport in that State. Listen to the language of St. GeorgeTucker, the distinguished commentator upon Blackstone, utteredfrom 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 ​acting in all things for the common safety."—1Virginia Cases, 70, 71,Kamper vs. Hawkins.

Listen, also, to the language of James Madison:

{{smaller|"That in all great changes of established government, forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the formswould render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious rightof the people to abolish or alter their Government, as to them shallseem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' * * Nor can it have been forgottenthat no little, ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those who wished to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity to the substance contended for."—The Federalist, No. 40.

Proceedings thus sustained I am unwilling to call revolutionary, although this term has the sanction of the senatorfrom New York. They are founded on an unquestionableAmerican right, declared with Independence, confirmed by theblood of the fathers, and expounded by patriots, which cannotbe impeached without impairing the liberties of all. On thishead the language of Mr. Buchanan, in reply to Mr. Calhoun,is explicit:

"Does the senator [Mr. Calhoun] contend, then, that if, in one of the States of this Union, the Government be so organized as to utterly destroy the right of equal representation, there is no mode of obtaining redress but by an act of the Legislature authorizing a Convention, or by open rebellion? Must the people step at once from oppression to open war? Must it be either absolute submission, or absolute revolution?Is there no middle course? I cannot agree with the senator. I say that the whole history of our Government establishes the principle that the people are sovereign, and that a majority of them can alter or change their fundamental laws at pleasure.I deny that this is either rebellion or revolution. It is an essential and a recognized principle in all our forms of government."—Congress. Deb., Vol. 13, p. 313, 24th Cong., 2d session.

Surely, sir, if ever there was occasion for the exercise of this right, the time had come in Kansas. The people there had ​been subjugated by a horde of foreign invaders, and broughtunder a tyrannical code of revolting barbarity, whilepropertyand life among them were left exposed to audacious assaultswhich flaunted at noonday, and to reptile abuses which crawledin the darkness of night. "Self-defence is the first law of nature;" and unless this law is temporarily silenced,—as all other law has been silenced there, —you cannot condemn theproceedings in Kansas. Here, sir, is an unquestionable authority,in itself an overwhelming law, which belongs to all countries and times; which is the same in Kansas as at Athens andRome; which is now, and will be hereafter, as it was in otherdays; in presence of which Acts of Congress and Constitutionsare powerless as the voice of man against the thunder whichrolls through the sky; which whispers itself coëval with life;whose very breath is life itself; and now, in the last resort, doI place all these proceedings under this supreme safeguard,which you will assail in vain. Any opposition must be foundedon a fundamental perversion of facts, or a perversion of fundamental principles, which no speeches can uphold, though surpassing in numbers the nine hundred thousand piles driven into the mud in order to sustain the Dutch Stadt-house at Amsterdam!

Thus, on every ground of precedent, whether as regards population or forms of proceeding; also, on the vital principle ofAmerican Institutions; and, lastly, on the absolute law of self-defence, do I now invoke the power of Congress to admit Kansas at once and without hesitation into the Union. "New States may be admitted by the Congress into the Union; "such are the words of the Constitution. If you hesitate for wantof precedent, then do I appeal to the great principle of American Institutions. If, forgetting the origin of the Republic, youturn away from this principle, then, in the name of humannature, trampled down and oppressed, but aroused to a justself-defence, do I plead for the exercise of this power. Do nothearken, I pray you, to the propositions of Tyranny and Folly; ​do not be ensnared by that other proposition of the senator fromIllinois [Mr.Douglas], in which is the horrid root of Injustice and Civil War. But apply gladly, and at once, the TrueRemedy, wherein are Justice and Peace.

Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and Inow stand at the goal. The argument in its various parts ishere closed. The Crime against Kansas has been displayed inits origin and extent, beginning with the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery; next cropping out in conspiracy on theborders of Missouri; then hardening into a continuity of out-.rage, through organized invasions and miscellaneous assaults,in which all security was destroyed, and ending at last in theperfect subjugation of a generous people to an unprecedentedUsurpation. Turning aghast from the Crime, which, likemurder, seemed to confess itself "with most miraculous organ,"we have looked with mingled shame and indignation upon thefour Apologies, whether of Tyranny, Imbecility, Absurdity, orInfamy, in which it has been wrapped, marking especially thefalse testimony, congenial with the original Crime, against theEmigrant Aid Company. Then were noted, in succession,the four Remedies, whether of Tyranny, Folly, Injustice andCivil War, or Justice and Peace; which last bids Kansas, inconformity with past precedents and under the exigencies of thehour, in order to redeem her from Usurpation, to take a placeas a sovereign State of the Union; and this is the True Remedy. If in this argument I have not unworthily vindicated. Truth, then have I spoken according to my desires; if imperfectly, then only according to my powers. But there are otherthings, not belonging to the argument, which still press forutterance.

Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh ofyour flesh, with the education of freemen and the rights ofAmerican citizens, now stand at your door. Will you send ​them away, or bid them enter? Will you push them back torenew their struggles with a deadly foe, or will you preservethem in security and peace? Will you cast them again intothe den of Tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts toescape? These questions I put with no common solicitude;for I feel that on their just determination depend all the mostprecious interests of the Republic; and I perceive too clearlythe prejudices in the way, and the accumulating bitternessagainst this distant people, now claiming their simple birth-right, while I am bowed with mortification, as I recognize thePresident of the United States, who should have been a staff tothe weak and a shield to the innocent, at the head of thisstrange oppression.

At every stage, the similitude between the wrongs of Kansasand those other wrongs against which our Fathers rose becomes more apparent. Read the Declaration of Independence,and there is hardly an accusation which is there directed againstthe British Monarch, which may not now be directed with increased force against the American President. The parallelhas a fearful particularity. Our Fathers complained that theking had sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our peopleand eat out their substance;" that he "had combined withothers to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution,giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation;"that "he had abdicated government here, by declaring us outof his protection, andwaging war against us;" that "he hadexcited domestic insurrection among us, andendeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontier the merciless savages;" that "our repeated petitions have been answered only byrepeated injury." And this arraignment was aptly followed bythe damning words, that "a Prince, whose character is thusmarked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to bethe ruler of a free people." And surely, a President who hasdone all these things cannot be less unfit than a Prince. Atevery stage, the responsibility is brought directly to him. His ​offence has been both of commission and omission. He hasdone that which he ought not to have done, and he has left un-done that which he ought to have done. By his activity, theProhibition of Slavery was overturned. By his failure to act,the honest emigrants in Kansas have been left a prey to wrongof all kinds.Nullum flagitium extitit, nisi per te; nullum flagitium sine te. And now he stands forth the most conspicuous enemy of that unhappy Territory.

As the tyranny of the British King is all renewed in thePresident, so on this floor have the old indignities been renewedwhich embittered and fomented the troubles of our Fathers. Theearly petition of the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of Independence, was opposed—like thepetitions of Kansas—because that body "was assembled without any requisition on the part of the Supreme Power." Another petition from New York, presented by Edmund Burke,was flatly rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to Parliament.And still another petition from Massachusetts Bay was dismissedas "vexatious and scandalous," while the patriot philosopherwho bore it was exposed to peculiar contumely. Throughoutthe debates, our Fathers were made the butt of sorry jests andsupercilious assumptions. And now these scenes, with theseprecise objections, have been renewed in the American Senate.

With regret, I come again upon the senator from South Carolina [Mr.Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate, overflowed.with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied foradmission as a State; and, with incoherent phrases, dischargedthe loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance ofthe ancient Parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; norwas there any possible deviation from truth which he did notmake, with so much of passion, I am glad to add, as to savehim from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the senator touches nothing that he does not disfigure—with error,sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an inca​pacity of accuracy, whether in stating the constitution or instating the law, whether in the details of statistics or the diver-sions of scholarship. IIe cannot ope his mouth, but out thereflies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar with the life ofFranklin; and yet he referred to this household character,while acting as agent of our Fathers in England, as abovesuspicion; and this was done that he might give point to afalse contrast with the agent of Kansas, not knowing that, how-ever they may differ in genius and fame, in this experience theyare alike that Franklin, when intrusted with the petition ofMassachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker,where he could not be heard in defence, and denounced as a"thief," even as the agent of Kansas has been assaulted onthis floor, and denounced as a "forger." And let not the van-ity of the senator be inspired by the parallel with the Britishstatesman of that day; for it is only in hostility to Freedom thatany parallel can be recognized.

But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities.of the senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as heannounces, "from a State,"—ay, sir, from South Carolina,—he turns with lordly disgust from this newly-formed community,which he will not recognize even as "a body politic." Pray,sir, by what title docs he indulge in this egotism? Has he readthe history of "the State" which he represents? He cannotsurely have forgotten its shameful imbecility from Slavery, con-fessed throughout the Revolution, followed by its more shamefulassumptions for Slavery since. He cannot have forgotten itswretched persistence in the slave-trade as the very apple of itseye, and the condition of its participation in the Union. Hecannot have forgotten its constitution, which is republican onlyin name, confirming power in the hands of the few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators on "a settled freeholdestate, or ten negroes." And yet the senator, to whom that"State" has in part committed the guardianship of its goodname, instead of moving with backward-treading steps, to cover ​its nakedness, rushes forward, in the very ecstasy of madness,to expose it, by provoking a comparison with Kansas. SouthCarolina is old; Kansas is young. South Carolina counts bycenturies, where Kansas counts by years. But a beneficentexample may be born in a day; and I venture to say, thatagainst the two centuries of the older "State" may be alreadyset the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in theyounger community. In the one, is the long wail of Slavery;the other, the hymns of Freedom. And if we glance atspecial achievements, it will be difficult to find anything in thehistory of South Carolina which presents so much of heroicspirit in an heroic cause as appears in that repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, whereeven the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. Thematrons of Rome, who poured their jewels into the treasury forthe public defence; the wives of Prussia, who, with delicatefingers, clothed their defenders against French invasion; themothers of our own Revolution, who sent forth their sons, covered over with prayers and blessings, to combat for humanrights, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these womenon this occasion. Were the whole history of South Carolinablotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to theday of the last election of the senator to his present scat on thisfloor, civilization might lose—I do not say how little; butsurely less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in its valiant struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration. Already in Lawrencealone there are newspapers and schools, including a High School,and throughout this infant Territory there is more of maturescholarship, in proportion to its inhabitants, than in all SouthCarolina. Ah, sir, I tell the senator that Kansas, welcomed asa free State, will be a "ministering angel" to the Republic,when South Carolina, in the cloak of darkness which she hugs,"lies howling."

The senator from Illinois [Mr.Douglas] naturally joins ​the senator from South Carolina in this warfare, and gives to itthe superior intensity of his nature. He thinks that theNational Government has not completely proved its power, as ithas never hanged a traitor; but, if the occasion requires, hebopes there will be no hesitation; and this threat is directed atKansas, and even at the friends of Kansas throughout the coun-try. Again occurs the parallel with the struggles of our Fath-ers; and I borrow the language of Patrick Henry, when, to thecry from the senator of "treason," "treason," I reply, "If thisbe treason, make the most of it." Sir, it is easy to call names;but I beg to tell the senator that if the word "traitor" is inany way applicable to those who refuse submission to a tyrannical Usurpation, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, then mustsome new word, of deeper color, be invented, to designate thosemad spirits who would endanger and degrade the Republic,while they betray all the cherished sentiments of the Fathers,and the spirit of the constitution, in order to give new spreadto Slavery. Let the senator proceed. It will not be the firsttime in history that a scaffold erected for punishment has becomea pedestal of honor. Out of death comes life; and the "traitor," whom he blindly executes, will live immortal in the cause.

Among these hostile senators, there is yet another, with allthe prejudices of the senator from South Carolina, but withouthis generous impulses, who, on account of his character beforethe country, and the rancor of his opposition, deserves to benamed. I mean the senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason],who, as the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, has associatedhimself with a special act of inhumanity and tyranny. Of himI shall say little, for he has said little in this debate, thoughwithin that little was compressed the bitterness of a life absorbed ​in the support of Slavery. He holds the commission of Virginia; but he does not represent that early Virginia, so dear toour hearts, which gave to us the pen of Jefferson, by which theequality of men was declared, and the sword of Washington, bywhich Independence was secured; but he represents that otherVirginia, from which Washington and Jefferson now avert theirfaces, where human beings are bred as cattle for the shambles,and where a dungeon rewards the pious matron who teacheslittle children to relieve their bondage by reading the Book ofLife. It is proper that such a senator, representing such aState, should rail against Free Kansas.

But this is not all. The precedent is still more clinching.Thus far I have followed exclusively the public documents laidbefore Congress, and illustrated by the debates of that body;but well-authenticated facts, not of record here, make the casestronger still. It is sometimes said that the proceedings inKansas are defective, because they originated in a party. Thisis not true; but, even if it were true, then would they still findsupport in the example of Michigan, where all the proceedings,stretching through successive years, began and ended in party.The proposed State Government was pressed by the Democratsas a party test; and all who did not embark in it weredenounced. Of the Legislative Council, which called the firstConstitutional Convention in 1835, all were Democrats; and inthe Convention itself, composed of eighty-seven members, onlyseven were Whigs. The Convention of 1836, which gave thefinal assent, originated in a Democratic Convention on the 29thOctober, in the County of Wayne, composed of one hundredand twenty-four delegates, all Democrats, who proceeded toresolve-

"That the delegates of theDemocratic party of Wayne, solemnly impressed with the spreading evils and dangers which a refusal to go into the Union has brought upon the people of Michigan, earnestly recommend meetings to be immediately convened by their fellow-citizens in every County of the State, with a view to the expression of their senti- ​ments in favor of the election and call of another Convention, in time to secure our admission into the Union before the first of January next."

Shortly afterwards, a committee of five, appointed by thisConvention, all leading Democrats, issued a circular, "underthe authority of the delegates of the County of Wayne," recommending that the voters throughout Michigan should meet andelect delegates to a Convention to give the necessary assent tothe act of Congress. In pursuance of this call, the Conventionmet; and, as it originated in an exclusively party recommendation, so it was of an exclusively party character. And it wasthe action of this Convention that was submitted to Congress,and, after discussion in both bodies, on solemn votes, approved.

But the precedent of Michigan has another feature, which isentitled to the gravest attention, especially at this moment,when citizens engaged in the effort to establish a State Government in Kansas are openly arrested on the charge of treason, andwe are startled by tidings of the maddest efforts to press this procedure of preposterous Tyranny. No such madness prevailedunder Andrew Jackson; although, during the long pendency ofthe Michigan proceedings, for more than fourteen months, theTerritorial Government was entirely ousted, and the State Government organized in all its departments. One hundred andthirty different legislative acts were passed, providing for elections, imposing taxes, erecting corporations, and establishingcourts of justice, including a Supreme Court and a Court ofChancery. All process was issued in the name of the people ofthe State of Michigan. And yet no attempt was made to question the legal validity of these proceedings, whether legislativeor judicial. Least of all did any menial Governor, dressed ina little brief authority, play the fantastic tricks which we nowwitness in Kansas; nor did any person, wearing the robes ofjustice, shock high Heaven with the mockery of injustice nowenacted by emissaries of the President in that Territory. No,sir; nothing of this kind then occurred. Andrew Jackson wasPresident.

​Senators such as these are the natural enemies of Kansas;and I introduce them with reluctance, simply that the countrymay understand the character of the hostility which must beovercome. Arrayed with them, of course, are all who unite,under any pretext or apology, in the propagandism of HumanSlavery. To such, indeed, the time-honored safeguards of popular rights can be a name only, and nothing more. What aretrial by jury, habeas corpus, the ballot-box, the right of petition, the liberty of Kansas, your liberty, sir, or mine, to onewho lends himself not merely to the support at home, but tothe propagandism abroad, of that preposterous wrong, whichdenies even the right of a man to himself? Such a cause canbe maintained only by a practical subversion of all rights. Itis, therefore, merely according to reason that its partisans shoulduphold the Usurpation in Kansas.

To overthrow this Usurpation is now the special, importunate duty of Congress, admitting of no hesitation or postponement. To this end, it must lift itself from the cabals of candidates, the machinations of party, and the low level of vulgarstrife. It must turn from that Slave Oligarchy which nowcontrols the Republic, and refuse to be its tool. Let its powerbe stretched forth towards this distant Territory, not to bind,but to unbind; not for the oppression of the weak, but for thesubversion of the tyrannical; not for the prop and maintenanceof a revolting Usurpation, but for the confirmation of Liberty.

Let it now take its stand between the living and dead, andcause this plague to be stayed. All this it can do; and if theinterests of Slavery did not oppose, all this it would do at once,in reverent regard for justice, law, and order, driving far awayall the alarms of war; nor would it dare to brave the shameand punishment of this Great Refusal. But the Slave Powerdares anything; and it can be conquered only by the united ​masses of the People. From Congress to the People, Iappeal.

Already Public Opinion gathers unwonted forces to scourgethe aggressors. In the press, in daily conversation, wherevertwo or three are gathered together, there the indignant utter-ance finds vent. And trade, by unerring indications, atteststhe growing energy. Public credit in Missouri droops. Thesix per cents of that State, which at par should be one hundredand two, have sunk to eighty-four and one fourth—thus atonce completing the evidence of Crime, and attesting its punishment. Business is now turning from the Assassins andThugs, that infest the Missouri River on the way to Kansas, toseek some safer avenue. And this, though not unimportant initself, is typical of greater changes. The political credit of themen who uphold the Usurpation droops even more than thestocks; and the People are turning from all those throughwhom the Assassins and Thugs have derived their disgracefulimmunity.

It was said of old, "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's Landmark.And all the people shall say, Amen." (Deut. 27: 17.)Cursed, it is said, in the city, and in the field; cursed in basket and store;cursed when thou comest in, and cursed when thou goest out.These are terrible imprecations; but, if ever any Landmark were sacred, it was that bywhich an immense territory was guarded forever against.Slavery and if ever such imprecations could justly descendupon any one, they must descend now upon all who, not content with the removal of this sacred Landmark, have since,with criminal complicity, fostered the incursions of the greatWrong against which it was intended to guard. But I utterno imprecations. These are not my words; nor is it my partto add to or subtract from them. But, thanks be to God! theyfind a response in the hearts of an aroused People, making themturn from every man, whether President, or Senator, or Representative, who has been engaged in this Crime,—especially ​from those who, eradled in free institutions, are without theapology of education or social prejudice,—until of all suchthose other words of the prophet shall be fulfilled—"I willset my face against that man, and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people."—(Ezekiel 14: 8.) Turning thus from the authors of thisCrime, the People will unite once more with the Fathers of theRepublic, in a just condemnation of Slavery,—determinedespecially that it shall find no home in the National Territories,—while the Slave Power, in which the Crime had its beginning, and by which it is now sustained, will be swept into thecharnel-house of defunct Tyrannies.

In this contest, Kansas bravely stands forth—the striplingleader, clad in the panoply of American institutions. In calmlymeeting and adopting a frame of Government, her people havewith intuitive promptitude performed the duties of Freemen;and when I consider the difficulties by which she was beset, Ifind dignity in her attitude.In offering herself for admission into the Union as aFree State,she presents a single issue for the People to decide. And since the Slave Power now stakes on this issue all its ill-gotten supremacy, the People, while vindicating Kansas, will at the same time overthrowthis Tyranny. Thus does the contest which she now begins.involve not only Liberty for herself, but for the whole country.God be praised, that she did not bend ignobly beneath the yoke!Far away on the prairies, she is now battling for the Libertyof all, against the President, who misrepresents all. Everywhere among those who are not insensible to Right the generous struggle meets a generous response. From innumerablethrobbing hearts go forth the very words of encouragementwhich, in the sorrowful days of our Fathers, were sent byVirginia, speaking by the pen of Richard Henry Lee, toMassachusetts, in the person of her popular tribune, SamuelAdams:

​

"I hope the good people of Boston will not lose their spirits undertheir present heavy oppression, for they will certainly be supported bythe other Colonies; and the cause for which they suffer is so glorious, andso deeply interesting to the present and future generations, that allAmerica will owe, in a great measure, their political salvation to thepresent virtue of Massachusetts Bay."—American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, p. 446.

In all this sympathy there is strength. But in the cause itselfthere is angelic power. Unseen of men, the great spirits ofHistory combat by the side of the people of Kansas, breathing adivine courage. Above all towers the majestic form of Washington, once more, as on the bloody field, bidding them toremember those rights of Human Nature for which the War ofIndependence was waged. Such a cause, thus sustained, isinvincible.

The contest, which, beginning in Kansas, has reached us, willsoon be transferred to a broader stage, where every citizen willbe not only spectator, but actor; and to their judgment I confidently appeal. To the People, now on the eve of exercisingthe electoral franchise, in choosing a Chief Magistrate of theRepublic, I appeal, to vindicate the electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box of the Union, with multitudinousmight, protect the ballot-box in that Territory. Let the voterseverywhere, while rejoicing in their own rights, help to guardthe equal rights of distant fellow-citizens; that the shrines ofpopular institutions, now desecrated, may be sanctified anew;that the ballot-box, now plundered, may be restored; and thatthe cry, "I am an American citizen," may not be sent forth invain against outrage of every kind. In just regard for freelabor in that Territory, which it is sought to blast by unwelcome association with slave labor; in Christian sympathy withthe slave, whom it is proposed to task and to sell there; instern condemnation of the Crime which has been consummatedon that beautiful soil; in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subju​gated to a tyrannical Usurpation; in dutiful respect for the early Fathers, whose aspirations are now ignobly thwarted; in the name of the Constitution, which has been outraged—of theLaws trampled down—of Justice banished—of Humanity degraded—of Peace destroyed—of Freedom crushed to earth; and in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Freedom, I make this last appeal.

References