Qass V -^^ "^ B 
 
 Book ,r4\ 
 

 \. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 MR. FESSENDEN, OF MAINE, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT TRANSMITTING 
 THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Delivered in the United States Senate, Februarv 8, 1858. 
 
 The President's message, transmitting the Le- 
 compton Constitution, being under consideratioQ, 
 and Mr. Douglas having intimated &" desire to 
 take up a resolution oC inquiry relative to certain 
 proceedings in Kansas, which motion was object- 
 ed to and waived — 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN proceeded to address the 
 Senate, as follows : 
 
 Mr. President : 1 was perfectly willing to give 
 way for the purpose of allowing the Senator from 
 Illinois to introduce his motion, in order that the 
 Senate might pass upon the question whether or 
 not any more information was to be afforded to us, 
 officially, than we have already received. I was 
 suspicious that it was not the desire of the ma- 
 jority of the Senate that the resolution of the 
 Senator from Illinois should pass, and that the 
 information sought for should be obtained. I 
 had no idea that its passage would be permitted ; 
 but yet I was willing to make the experiment. 
 If, as a matter of fact, it had appeared to- me 
 probable — if I had supposed there was any rea- 
 son to believe — that an investigation would be 
 had with regard to the allegations that have 
 been maiJe, of fraud in one stage or another of 
 this proreding in Kansas, I should probably have 
 been willing, very willing, to waive any remarks 
 on the general question until that information 
 was obtained. The inquiry, however, that I put 
 to the honorable Senator from Missouri, [Mr. 
 Green,] the other day, as to the intentions of the 
 Committee on Territories, and the answer I re- 
 ceived from him, satisfied me that we should 
 have no other information afforded to this body, 
 officially, than that which we now have ; and, 
 therefore, I see no reason why I, or any other 
 Senator who desires to do so, may not as well 
 proceed to comment on this message of tli*^ 
 President now, as to defer remarks until we 
 have a report on the subject from the tf^mmittee. 
 
 Mr. GREEN. I thought I remarked — I know 
 it was my intention to do so — that the committee 
 nad never considered that point, and that I was 
 not authorized to "poak for the committee ; but 
 
 that, as far as I was concerned, I would under- 
 take to carry out whatever instructions the Sen- 
 ate gave me. 
 
 Mr FESSENDEN. I understood the answer 
 of the Senator to say exactly that ; and strange 
 as it may seem to him, that answer satisfied me 
 of what 1 have just stated, that we should have 
 no more official information on the subject. Other 
 Senators may draw a different conclusion, but 
 such was mine. I was remarking that, under the 
 circumstances, I saw no reason why any Senator 
 might not as well proceed now to comment on 
 this message of the President, and on the various 
 topics connected with it, as to wait until we shall 
 have a formal report from the committee on the 
 suV>ject. 
 
 I think, sir, that the message has been drawn 
 with care and with design. It is an argument 
 presented to the country — intended as an argu- 
 ment which should affect and influence the minds 
 of the people in reference to the great question 
 which is soon to be tried before this body, and 
 decided, so far as we are able to decide it. I 
 deem it, therefore, not unimportant that the 
 views of some gentlemen, to some extent, should 
 be expressed with reference to that message, and 
 that the country should understand that, although 
 the officer highest in position entertains certain 
 opitiions which he has expressed on this subject, 
 others, who are in a less degree, perhaps, the 
 representatives of the people, entertain different 
 opinions, take a different view of the facts, and 
 have something to say with reference to the state- 
 ments that have been made. In the comments 
 which I propose to make, I do not design to go 
 much further than to make a statement of the 
 case, as I understand it. Whether, with theim- 
 I)ressions prevailing on my mind, I shall be able 
 to make a fair statement of it, will be determined 
 by the result. I certitinly shall endeavor to 
 do-so. 
 
 The message which we have received, trans- 
 mitting the Lecompton Constitution to us, is cer- 
 tainly, in some respects, a singular one ; and 
 whatever demerits it may have, there is one 
 thing about it which is observable, and which I 
 
rG^^ 
 
 teust may ia somo manner relieve the diflicnlties 
 which seem to have pressed on the mind of my 
 respected friend from New York, [Mr. Seward.] 
 In his remarlis on the army bill, he deemed it to 
 be a matter of consequence that troops should 
 be raised ia order to quell the disturbances in 
 the Territory of Utah, and seemed to be of the 
 impression that other questions were in such a 
 state of forwardness towards a settlement, that 
 the Government could not need the increase of 
 force for which it asked with reference to any 
 )ther subject than the Territory of Utah. Now 
 the President tells us very distinctly, in his mes- 
 sage, that he has need of troops, and may con- 
 Inue to need them, not only for the Territory of 
 ftah, but also for certain purposes in the Terri- 
 ory of Kansas ; for he says, distinctly, that in 
 :ase the Constitution should be accepted, and 
 vansas become a State, he will then be able to 
 withdraw the troops from Kansas, and use them 
 where they are more needed — distinctly refer- 
 ring to the Territory of Utah. We may infer, 
 then, that if the Lecompton Constitution should 
 not happen to be acceptable to Congress, troops 
 are still to be kept in Kansas for the purposes 
 for which they have been used there heretofore. 
 I cannot believe that the honorable Senator 
 from New York can in any manner justify the 
 keeping of those troops in Kansas, or can in any 
 manner believe there is any necessity for keeping 
 them there, in the existing state of things. 
 
 The President clearly intimates that he will be 
 obliged to keep the troops there if the Lecompton 
 Constitution should not prove acceptable, and 
 Kansas be not admitted with it. That is his con- 
 clusion ; for if, as he says, he can withdraw them 
 in case Kansas becomes a State, it is implied 
 that he cannot withdraw them unless Kansas 
 becomes a State. That is the clear inference. 
 That is smgular, for the reason that, at the pres- 
 ent time, we know the fact that the Territory of 
 Kansas is under the control of what is called a 
 Free State, and what gentlemen choose to call 
 an •Abolition, Legislature. There is no difficulty 
 in Kansas now. Those who are denounced as 
 " rebels," but who are in fact the Free State 
 party of Kansas, and a majority of the people of 
 Kansas, have control of the Government of Kan- 
 sas at the present time. If this Constimtion 
 should not be adopted, and Kansas should not 
 become a State under it, what is the result? 
 That the power is in the hands of the rebels; for 
 rebellion, as it has been called, has things all its 
 own way. 
 
 I see no. necessity on the part of the President 
 to keep troops there for the purpose of aiding in 
 establishing the Government, which is going on 
 so much according to the will of those whom he 
 has been accustomed, and desired, to control by 
 the use of the troops. It is a very singular dec- 
 laration on the part of the President. What? 
 That unless Kansas be admitted as a State under 
 this Constitution, he will be obliged to keep 
 troops there — for what purpose? For the pur- 
 pose of controlling the Free State Government of 
 Kansas ; for the purpose of controlling the ma- 
 jority who now have the Government in their 
 own hands. Is that the game that is to be 
 
 niaynd ? Is Kansas, while it remains a Territo- 
 ry, still to be held under military domination, 
 -imply for the reason that those whom he has 
 heretofore chosen to denounce as rebels are now 
 in the possession of the Government, and will 
 continue so unless Kansas becomes a State un- 
 der this Constitution?. It is a very singular dec- 
 laration to put forth to the country, and yet such 
 i^^ the plain infeience from the message he has 
 communicated to u,-!. 
 
 Sir, I admit that this message is entitled to be 
 treated with respect, for the reason that it comes 
 from an officer who is always to be spoken of 
 with respect, so far as those associated with him 
 in the Government are able to do so. 
 
 Mr. SEWARD. As the honorable Senator is 
 passing to another point, I wish to make an ex- 
 planation. I think the honorable Senator from 
 Maine has probably fallen into some error, by not 
 considering the ett'oct of all 1 have said in regard 
 to the army question. I will state it once more, 
 in order to remove a misripprehension from his 
 mind. I stated, in my last speech on that sub- 
 ject, that I spoke with great diffidence on that 
 point, because I was not half convinced myself. 
 1 Hcrran with that remark. 1 stated that my dif- 
 (iculty arose in not knowing the future in Kansas, 
 ind the future operations in Utah. If I knew 
 .vhat was to be done in regard to Kansas, and if 
 1 knew what was to happen in Utah, I should 
 ^ee my course as clear as others ; but, on exam- 
 ination of the whole subject, I came to the con- 
 clusion that there would be such a state ot things 
 in Kansas as woulii oblige the President to with- 
 draw the troops. That state of things I considered 
 in the first place to be the admission of Kansas 
 as a State during the present session of Congress ; 
 or, in the next place, the leaving of Kansas where 
 she is, without bringing her in as a slave State 
 under the Lecompton Constitution. I had no 
 belief then, and 1 have not now, that an Admin- 
 istration would be so infatuated as to endeavor 
 to keep an army there, though such an inference 
 may be drawn from the President's message. 
 On the other hand, I have my own mode of rea- 
 soning, which brings me to the conclusion that 
 there are to be disasters in Utah which to-day 
 do not appear so distinctly to the vision of other 
 persons, and I was obliged to decide on the queg- 
 tio'i then when I spoke. 
 
 Under these circumstances, and having these 
 opinions, I certainly should give my support to 
 the measure which I proposed, which was the 
 employment of an additional number of men with 
 reference distinctly to their operation in Utah, 
 and their being disbanded when that difficulty 
 \$a3 through. What circumstances may change 
 the case, I do not know. I stated at the same 
 time, most distinctly, that the President would 
 never obtain my vote, nor the vote of any other 
 person, if I had any influence with him, to retain 
 an army in Kansas, the use of which was to main- 
 tain the Lecompton Constitution, or to maintain 
 Federal authority in the Territory, against the 
 will of the people. That is my position now. 
 If that should be the state of the case, (as the 
 Senator thinks it will be,) I shall vote with him. 
 If, on the other hand, the state of the case should 
 
be as I think it will be, then I shall expect the 
 honorable Senator to vote with me, because 
 I believe we have precisely the same views on 
 this point, differing only in the importance we 
 attach to the developments already made. 
 
 Mr. FE3SENDEN. The honorable Senator pred- 
 icates his supposition, then, upon utterly reject- 
 ing the President's assurance of what he meaps 
 to do. The President intimates, quite distinctly, 
 that unless Kansas be admitted as a State, with 
 the Lecompton Constitution, he will be obliged 
 to keep the troops in Kansas. Now, I know the 
 Senator does not mean to vote for the admission 
 of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution, and 
 therefore what is his inference? He must either 
 take it for granted that Kansas is to come in 
 under that Constitution, and that therefore the 
 troops are to be withdrawn, (in which case no 
 more are needed ;) or else that it is not to come 
 in, and if not, that the President does not mean 
 to perform what he has promised in relation to 
 that matter. I take it for granted that Kansas 
 is not to be admitted under this Lecompton Con- 
 stitution, and I also take it for granted that the 
 President then will, if he has army enough, keep 
 troops in Kansas with a design to control the 
 Free State people there, as he has done before. 
 I do not understand with what object the Sena- 
 tor can vote for an increase of the army to relieve 
 him from the necessity (if such a necessity might 
 exist) of withdrawing those troops for the sake 
 of quelling disturbances in Utah The Senator 
 must reconcile it to himself. He undoubtedly 
 acts from the best motives, and is the best judge 
 of his own actions. 
 
 But, sir, I proceed to speak of the message it- 
 self. 1 was remarking that it was entitled to be 
 treated with all the respect due to the eminent 
 position of its author. In times past, we have 
 been accustomed to receive these messages, and 
 to believe the author, in sending them to Congress, 
 intended to perform that part of his constitutional 
 duty which enioins on him " from time to time " to 
 '• give to the Congress information of the state of 
 the Union." A message fVum the President of 
 the United Suites should import absolute verity ; 
 and heretofore, whatever else we may say about 
 them, we have been accustomed to believe tfiat 
 Presidents of the United States, in communica- 
 ting a message to Congress, in undertaking to 
 give information to Gougiess, would at kast tell 
 the truth ; at any rate, that they would not set 
 at defiance known and re,-,ord'.^<l facts, nor make 
 an argement all on one side ; ignoring facts 
 quite notorious with reference to one position, 
 and stating that which was not supported by fact 
 in regard to the other. And yet, sir, with all the 
 respect which I entertain for the officer who oc- 
 cupies so eminent a position, and notvvithstaud- 
 ing all the'impressions 1 have with reference to 
 his constitutional duty when making a comtnu- 
 nication to Congress, I am compelled to say, un- 
 der the circumstances, that tlie i'resideut has 
 been guilty in this message not only of ignoring 
 well-known facts, but of stating as facts matters 
 which he must have known, if he examined the 
 documents, could not be true. What excuse he has 
 for this, before the couatry, it is not for me to say. 
 
 I have to remark next in regard to the tone of 
 this message. The tone of a messiige trom the 
 Chief Magistrate of the Union, to accord with his 
 character and position, should, in my judgment, 
 be dignified, plain, and impartial ; it should not 
 be denunciatory ; yet, from the beginning to the 
 end of this message, we hear from the Chief -Mag- 
 istrate of the United States strong denunciations, 
 in severe language, of what he admits to be a 
 majority of the people of the Territory of Kan- 
 sas ; while he has not one word to say — nothing 
 save excuse and palliation — not even that, but 
 rather approbation, implied approbation — for all 
 that bas taken place there in opposing the efforts 
 of the people of Kansas to obtain a Free State 
 Constitution. I think the language of the mes- 
 sage in that particular is unworthy a man who 
 has been chosen by the suffrages of his fellow - 
 citizens to fill one of the few great places of the 
 world. 
 
 It is a little, singular, too, when we consider 
 his education, that, with reference to this con- 
 troversy, he has no sympathy whatever for the 
 object which the people of Kansas, those whom 
 he admits to be a majority, declare themselves to 
 have in view. He was born and educated iu a 
 free State. He has seen all the advantages oi 
 free institutions. He has seen his native State 
 of Pennsylvania grow to be one of the very first 
 in rank in the Union, and to retain that rank ; to 
 be one of the first in wealth, one of the first in 
 power, stretching out its arms on every side, to- 
 wards commerce, and manufactures, and agri- 
 culture — growing with a rapidity unprecedented, 
 its people enjoying all, not only of the comforts 
 but of the elegances of life, simply from the fact 
 that its people have been left to labor, to carry 
 out the cardinal doctrine on which our institu- 
 tions were founded — that the capital of the coun- 
 try is the labor and employment of the free peo- 
 ple of the country. Notwithstanding all that, 
 and notwithstanding all that he has witnessed 
 of the enormous growth of the free States under 
 free institutions, we have not one word in the 
 message, from the beginning to the end, except 
 denunciation of those who arc attempting to ex- 
 tend the benefit of the same institutions to the 
 Territor}' of Kansas. There is no Fympathy for 
 them. He exults, his tone is that of exultation, 
 when he speaks of the fact that the Territory of 
 Kansas, which he calls a State, although it is not 
 yet a State, is now as much a slave State as 
 Georgia or South Carolina. His tone is that of 
 gratification, that instead of being a free State, 
 like his own, and instead of joining the sisterhood 
 of the great free States of this Union, it has 
 1 placed itself on the very different level of the 
 slave States of this Union, and is bound from 
 this time henceforward, as he thinks, to the car 
 of Slavery. The tone in which he speaks of this 
 is to my mind incomprehensible, and it shows 
 that, for some reason or other, he has chosen to 
 forget the land of his birth and education, with 
 all its manifold advantages and blessings. 
 
 Sir, he treats the question as of no importance 
 to any except the slave States of the Union. It 
 is of trifling importance, he says — not precisely in 
 those words, for I do not undertake to quote his 
 
language — but it is of little importance compar- 
 atively to the few thousands in Kansas ; as if the 
 institutions under which they are to live were of 
 no consequence to them ! Who should be inter- 
 ested but the thousands who are to live there, to 
 receive the benefit or suffer the evils which are 
 to flow from the institutions established there ? 
 It is of consequence to the slave States of 
 the Union, he says. Is it none to the free 
 States ? He does not intimate that it is. It 
 is of no comparative importance, he thinks, be- 
 cause there are but a few thousand people in 
 Kansas, forgetting, as he does, the many thou- 
 sands and hundreds of thousands who may be 
 there in a very short period of time, covering its 
 plains, and tilling its valleys until they smile. It 
 is not enough to say that the question is of very 
 little comparative importance, as connected with 
 them, but it is of great importance to the slave 
 States of the Union. They have much feeling 
 about it ; they are to be consulted about it ; but 
 he does not intimate that the free States, the 
 millions of people who live under Constitutions 
 unlike those which have been forced upon Kan- 
 sas, can feel any interest in a question whether 
 that great Territory is to be opened to them and 
 their descendants, freed from a competition with 
 that kind of labor which, in my judgment, has 
 cursed so large — yes, the largest portion of the 
 area of the States of this Union. Sir, these re- 
 marks, this tone, this want of sympathy, this 
 exultation, this entire forgetfulness of the great 
 and much the largest portion of the people of 
 this country, in the President's message, are to 
 me mysterious, coming from a man born and 
 educated, as the President has been, under in- 
 stitutions like those with which he is so famil- 
 iar. 
 
 Again, the President very clearly intimates 
 that difficulties must arise, in case we refuse to 
 admit Kansas as a State under the Lecompton 
 Constitution. He warns us, in covert but very 
 clear terms, that the people of the slave States 
 will be excited on the subject ; that they will not 
 be willing to submit to it; and that, therefore, 
 with a view to check all the agitation which may 
 arise from the rejection of the Constitution which 
 has thus been submitted, he counsels that, for 
 peace sake, we should adopt it. Sir. I should 
 have expected from the Chief Magi--;trate of this 
 Union, sworn to support the Con^rtitution and 
 execute the laws, that at the time when he stated 
 the danger that there might be excitement, he 
 would have intimated an opinion, a wish, that 
 such excitement should not arise ; that he would 
 have wHrned the people of the slave as well as 
 of the free States, against disobeying the laws of 
 the country. What is l\te proper tribunal, I 
 should like to know, to settle this question ? Is 
 it not Congress ? If Congress chooses to settle 
 the question adversely to the views of the Presi- 
 dent, and say that Kansas shall not be admitted 
 under the L^'compton Constitution, I beg to know 
 why he should not counsel the people of the 
 slave States to submit to the majority, who have 
 the constitutional right to decide, and have de- 
 cided ? Why does he warn us that we must pay 
 regard to these threats of overturning the Con- 
 
 stitution, of dissolving the Union, and avoid agi- 
 tation, because we have been threatened, and 
 not give one word of warning to the people 
 from whom he anticipates it — not tell them that 
 they will be compelled to bow to the will of the 
 majority, that they will be compelled to obey the 
 laws of the land? Why, sir, it is the strangest 
 thing to me, that a Chief Magistrate of the coun- 
 try, holding this position, should not say, as one of 
 his great predecessors said before him, that the 
 Constitution should be preserved ; that the Union 
 should be preserved ; that when the action of 
 Congress was legal, no matter upon what sub- 
 ject, the powerof the Federal Governm.eat should 
 be lironght to bear on any people, or any portion 
 of people, whatever, who undertook to make any 
 agitation which endangered the safety of the 
 Union of these States; but we hear nothing of 
 that from the present President. 
 
 Strange to say, too, he is all- the time talking 
 of law ; he tells us that the people must obey 
 the laws ; that the course of things in Kansas 
 has been leg.il on the one side and illegal on the 
 other ; and he is very ready to read lectures to 
 that people and to us on the subject of obeying 
 the law, while he conveys no intimation to any- 
 body, that if the laws are broken, or attempted 
 to be broken, in one region of country, there will 
 be any interference from him, or even any words 
 of reprobation from him. 
 
 Now, sir, as to the facts stated; let us look a lit- 
 tle at what the President has stated in his message. 
 He has made all the intimations of which I have 
 spoken; but what has he gone on to say? He 
 charges, substantially, that the majority (for he 
 admits it to be a majority by saying more than 
 ouce in his message that the people of Kansas, 
 unless he had prevented them by military force, 
 would have overturned the Government; thus 
 admitting that they had the power as well as the 
 will to subvert the Territorial Governmeut there 
 established) had a design, and have had from 
 the beginning, to subvert the Government by 
 force. Is there any proof of this ? What proof 
 does he adduce? The desire to establish the 
 Toptka Constitution, as it has been called; and 
 on the strength of that fact he even charges 
 Governor Robinson with having, in the very 
 first sentence of the message which he commu- 
 nicated to the Topeka Legislature, expressed the 
 same design ; when, if you come to look at it, 
 (I will not trouble the Senate with reading it,) 
 there is not a cingle word, not a single idea, not 
 a single intimation, in that clause of Governor 
 Robinson's message which has been referred to 
 by the President, intimating any design or wish 
 of the kind. I deny, here, the whole foundation 
 of the President's charge and argument on that 
 point. There never has been a design to estab- 
 lish the Topeka Constitution by force. No sucli 
 design has ever been avowed, and no such de- 
 sign has ever been attempted to be carried into 
 execution. 
 
 I know very well that the honorable Senator 
 from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] in the speech which 
 he made at the beginning of this session, stated 
 that, if he had not believed it was the intention 
 of the people of Kansas to carry Ihut Constitu- 
 
tion into effect by force, and establish a State 
 Government under it by force, he would not have 
 been disposed to interfere, for they had undoubt- 
 edly as good a right to petition, in that form, iis 
 another portion of the people had to petition in 
 another form ; but I should he gl.id to have gen- 
 tlemen point me to the proof, in any jiart of the 
 proceedings in the TerrUor} of Kiinsas, showing 
 that that people ever duaigned or expressed the 
 intention to establish that Cou.-titulion and a 
 State Government, under it by force. The very 
 first step they took disproves it. They sent it 
 here to Oongn'ss, and petiiioned to be admitted 
 under it as aS'.ate. They chose a Legislature ; 
 and that LegTslaiure met, but passed no laws ; 
 it adj'junied. It avowed, then, that its design 
 was noL a foiciile one — not to establish a State 
 Governrnf-nt by force; but to est;iblish it by the 
 weight ot opinion in the Territory, under an ap- 
 plication to Congress to be admitted under it ; 
 and yet this has ijeen alluded to over and over 
 again, more than once on this floor, aiid by the 
 President himself and by other olhcials, as estab- 
 lishing the fict, that (here was rebellion existing 
 in Kansas. Sir, the adoption of that Topeka 
 Constitution, and the choice of State officers un- 
 der it, and all they ever did, no more go to make 
 out rebellion against the constituted Government, 
 than would a town meeting called to pass res- 
 olutions on the same snbjet't. 
 
 What is rebellion? It is a desire and an at- 
 tempt to overturn a Government by force. Re- 
 bellion doe ; not consist in words ; you must have 
 forcible acts. It is not enough to express abhor- 
 rence of a Government ; it is not enough to ex- 
 press detestation of the officers who carry on the 
 operations of Government ; it is not enough to 
 call town meetings ; it is not enough to frame 
 a Constitution and submit it to the people ibr 
 adoption ; it is no' enough even to pass laws un- 
 der it, so long as there is no design to put them 
 forcibly in execution. The people of Kansas have 
 done no more than this. On that ground. Sena- 
 tors on this Hoor, and others, elsewhere, have re- 
 peatedly cl'.arged, and the President echoes the 
 cry, that here is rebellion existing in Kansas ; 
 and the people are denounced as rebels against 
 the constituted authorities. Leaving out of the 
 case the f ict that the Territorial Government was 
 a usurping Government in the beginning, (as it 
 was,) and granting it to be a h'gal one, ''.1! I aver 
 that there has been nothing done in reference to 
 the Topeka Consatntioa, from the beginning to 
 the end, on which any man who values his 0{)in- 
 ion as a constitutional hi wyer could predicate the 
 idea of rebellion. I said so the othei day, and 
 I say it again ; and the charge is not proved 
 by long, labored, quotations from letters of Gov- 
 ernor Walker. Governor Walker seems to be 
 very good authority with the President on one 
 point, and no authority vrhatever with him on 
 other points. When Governor Walker tells him 
 that a great majority of the people of Kansas are 
 opposed to this Constitution, he does not believe 
 him, for he does not refer to the fact. When 
 Governor Wiilker tells him there was fraud in 
 the arrangement made in reference to the State 
 officers, that should be corrected, be does not be- 
 
 lieve a word of it, nor do gentlemen here. When 
 Governor Walker tells him of the great frauds 
 that were committed at various precincts which 
 have beeu spoken of by the Senator from Massa- 
 chusetts [Wr. Wilson] and others, he does not 
 believe a word of it. But he does refer to Gov- 
 e-uor W;!lker's letters, and makes many extracts 
 from them, to t-stablish the (act of rebellion; but 
 they pioduce no s n!, convictions — they prove 
 nothing of the kini Take them from the be- 
 ginning i,) ih'j end. and they make out no forcible 
 resisiauvc. They are nothing but statements ; 
 there is no fact on which to ])redicate them. The 
 country migiit understand, from the statements 
 thus made in detail, that the President really be- 
 lieved there wa.s a d.nigerous rebellion in Kansas, 
 and that unless he interfered with the troops of 
 the United States, the Government would be over- 
 turned ! 
 
 It has been remaiked by my honorable friend 
 from Massachusetts, [Mi. W1L.S0N,] that it will be 
 observed that these letters of Governor Walker 
 were written immediately after his arrival in the 
 Territory. Who was Governor Walker? A friend 
 of the Adminittraiion, a leading Democrat, a 
 Southern man, with all his pvejudices excited 
 afiainst the Free Stute people of Kansas, all his 
 ftelings and wishes in favor of adding to the 
 strength of the slave States, by making Kansas 
 also a slave State. He went there with these im- 
 pressions ; he carried them with him ; he began 
 his administration v\ilh them; he carried them, 
 1 am happy to ^ay, not to the end. On arriving 
 there, whuin dues he meet? His associates are 
 the very persons who have been practicing these 
 iniquities in Kansas. His suspicions are awa- 
 kened, his mind is excited, and he looks upon all 
 -these demonstrations as actually constituting a 
 rebellious disposition on the part of the people 
 of Kansas I 
 
 What are the proofs that he gives? They 
 amount to nothing. As I remarked on a former 
 occasion, one is that the people of Lawrence un- 
 dertook to form a city government for municipal 
 purposes. They had a right to do so; they'did 
 so; and they put that government in operation, 
 not to be enforced on those who were unwilling, 
 but to be enforced with the consent of those who 
 agreed that it should be done, under the very 
 strong necessities of the case. He looked upon 
 it as rebellion ; he denounced it as rebellion ; and 
 they denounced him in their turn. He did not un- 
 dertake to prevent thi m, and did not prevent them. 
 
 Again, another reason was the formation of a 
 milirary organization. For what avowed pur- 
 poses ? For the [)urpo5e of protecting the polls — 
 a legal purpose, a constitutional purpose—a right 
 which arose fiom the constitutional right of the 
 people to bear arms for their own protection, 
 which cannot be taken away from them. Gov- 
 ernor Walker said he believed that such was not 
 the design ! Has there been any evidence that it 
 was not the design? It was the design avowed, 
 the only one; and yet this is all the proof we 
 have, coming from these statements, to establish 
 the charge made by the President of the United 
 States, that there was rebellion in Kansas which 
 called for the use of the military power. 
 
6 
 
 Sir. there are some thing3 which the President 
 forgot to state — he, forgot to state that the Gov- 
 ernment of Kansas was a usurping Government. 
 Did he not iinowthal fact? The lionorable Sen- 
 ator Irom Illinois, in his speech, which we all 
 remember, excused the President, or attempted 
 to excuse him, for not knowing and understand- 
 ing what was the absulute meaning and intent 
 of the organic act of Kansas, or a certain portion 
 of it, on the ground that he was absent from the 
 country at the time of its passage. He was ab- 
 sent from the country at the time some of the 
 events happened, of which I am speaking Does 
 any gentleman here undertake to deny that the 
 first Legislature was forced i; the people of 
 Kansas by a foreign invasion? The proof is in 
 the record — it is in the record taken by the House 
 of Representatives. Was not the President famil- 
 iar with that? Ought he not, as a statesman, to 
 have been familiar with lb n? Can he give any 
 excuse for not knowing it? Is it enough for the 
 President of the United Stat- s to come into oi3ice, 
 and say he does not know some of the leading 
 facts which have taken place within a very short 
 period before his election and inauguration ? No, 
 sir, it is no excuse; and the President of the Uni- 
 ted States ought not to, and shall not, avail him- 
 self of it before the people of the country. He does 
 not appear to know the other facts which I have 
 etated, with reference to the disclaimer of the 
 people who framed the Topeka Constitution, from 
 the beginning, of any intention to subvert by 
 force the established Government of that Terri- 
 tory. 
 
 His next allegation is a very singular one, and 
 it calls for more particular notice. He avers 
 that the sense of the people was taken on the 
 question whether they would have a Convention 
 or not; and he holds them accountable, there- 
 fore, for not voting on that question. Mark you, 
 he is now communicating information to Con- 
 gress. This is one of the items which he commu- 
 nicates, that the sense of the people of Kansas 
 was taken on the question of a Convention 1 
 What opportunity did they have to express that 
 sense? Could they express their sense on a 
 Convention under the force of the test oath that 
 was applied to them? Is it not matter of noto- 
 riety, is it not upon the book, is it not matter of 
 record, that, coupled with the right to vote on 
 the question of calling a Convention, was pre- 
 scribed an oath to be taken by every person who 
 should ofler himself as a voter on that occasion? 
 What was that oath ? It was stated by the Sen- 
 ator from Missouri the other day. It was an 
 oath to support the Constitution of the United 
 States ; to support the organic act of the Terri- 
 tory ; and, beyond that, to support the fugitive 
 slave law. Now, sir, who in any country — I will 
 not say in any free country, but who in any 
 country — ever before heard of a test oath as a 
 prerequisite to the right to vote? I have heard 
 of an oath administered at the polls to show a 
 person's qualification — that he comes under the 
 description of persons who are allowed to vote — 
 but I believe this is the first time in the history 
 of any country where the people are allowed to 
 exercise the right of suffrage at all, in which an 
 
 oath has been prescribed by way of test to sup- 
 port certain measures of Government and certain 
 laws, 'as a prerequisite to theiright of suffrage. 
 
 Is it not well known — does not, the whole coun- 
 try understand — that throughout the free States 
 there is the greatest abhorrence of the fugitive 
 slave law ; that in many of those States th.it act 
 has been held to be unconstitutional ; that a large 
 portion of the people not only consider it uncon- 
 stitutional, but a much larger portion consider 
 it oppressive and uuju.^t, and derogatory to their 
 rights ? Is not that well understood? And yet, 
 when people from the free States with these 
 feelings and impressions present themselves in 
 Kansas, and show that they are qualified under 
 the organic act of Kansas and the laws of the 
 Territory to exercise the right of suflfrjige as per- 
 sons, they find that the so-called Legislature 
 which ordered the calling ol a Convention have 
 prescribed that no man shall vote, if challenged, 
 unless betakes an oath to support that very law, 
 which they knew perfectly well could not be 
 taken without a violation of the conscience and 
 honor of those who presented themselves. 
 
 Is this takiag the sense of the people of Kan- 
 sas? Is this tbe mode in which the President 
 would allow the people of Kansas to express 
 fairly their views on the point, whether a Con- 
 vention should be called or not? This was the 
 only mode presented to the people of Kansas, 
 and this is held out by the President to the peo- 
 ple of the country as sufficient to entitle them 
 fairly to express their opinions on the subject 
 thus submitted to them. That is information 
 communicated to the country ! 
 
 I pray Senators who hear me, as they are al- 
 ready familiar with it, and .those who are here- 
 after to consider it, to remember the fact, that 
 the President further states, for our information, 
 that the act passed for the election of delegates 
 was fair in its provisions Why does he not take 
 the testimony of Governor Walker and Mr. Stan- 
 ton en that subject? What fairness was there 
 Iq it? It provided for a census and apportion- 
 ment. As has been stated, in that census and 
 apporiionment, one-half the people of the Terri- 
 tory were excluded. 
 
 Mr. COLLAMER. That objection applies not 
 to the law, bnt to the execution of the law. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I know that. He states, 
 however, that they had a fair opportunity to act. 
 I am speaking of the result, and inquiring whether 
 there was any such fair opportunity as to entitle 
 him to consider the people of Kansas bound by 
 the result which followed ? I may have expressed 
 myself incorrectly, and lam obliged to my friend 
 for suggesting that this evil was not in the law. 
 The law may have been fair on the outside. That 
 is the argument; that all these laws have been 
 fair, and a fair opportunity has been presented ! 
 My question is with reference to the opportunity ; 
 what kind of opportunity was presented to the 
 people of Kansas to settle that question? Al- 
 though a census and apportionment were provi- 
 ded for, it is perfectly notorious — and we have 
 testimony by which the President is bound, be- 
 cause it is the testimony of his own officials, of 
 Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton ; we 
 
1 
 
 have their testimony to the fact — that one-half 
 the Territory of Kansas was entirely neglected 
 and unprovided for. 1 will not say one-half the 
 people, because, perhaps, the counties thus omit- 
 ted might not have been so populous as the rest; 
 but the President undertakes to say, sneeringly, 
 that it is no onjection that a lew scattered people 
 in the remote couulies did not vote. Sir, it has 
 been shown that a very large and important 
 portion of the Territory was not included in the 
 census; and we know, moreover, as a fact which 
 caup.ot be contradicted, and has not been, that 
 even in the counties where the census was taken, 
 a large number of the people were omitted ; they 
 were not registered ; there was comparatively a 
 very small number registered ; in fact, not one- 
 half the peoplfe of the Territory. That matter 
 was so conducted as not to present to the ma- 
 jority of the people of the Territory an opportu- 
 nity of being heard ^^'U the election of delegates ; 
 and yet the President undertakes to say to 'the 
 Senate, and to the House of Representatives, and 
 to th-e world, in this manifesto which he has put 
 fiirili, that here was a fair opportunity presented 
 fur ilie people of that Territory to select delegates 
 of their own peculiar shades of opinion to carry 
 out their own will and desire ! It is a very curi- 
 ous kind of information he communicates. I sta- 
 ted that, in many respects, he had forgotten facts 
 notorious, and in other things he had stated as 
 facts tilings notoriously untrue; and I think I am 
 borne out by the record in the assertions I have 
 thus made. Why should he speak of the com- 
 paratively few voters omitted? Did he know 
 how many there were? Has there been any 
 census taken of those voters in the Territory? 
 Not at ali. Whence does he derive his informa- 
 tion? It is a statement without book; an asser- 
 tion without authority; au allegation without 
 proof. What right has he to come before the 
 country, and thus make an assertion which is not 
 upheld by any evidence from any quarter? 
 
 He makes another allegation, which is well 
 worthy the serious notice of the country. It is 
 in a very few words, and I will read it : 
 
 "Tlie question olSlavery was submiued to an election 
 of Uie people ot'Kaiisas, on ihe 21st of Dectmber last, in 
 obedience to tin* taaudate of ihe Constitution. Here, H^ain, 
 a fair opportunity was presented to the adherents o' ili.i 
 Topeka Consiitulirn, if they were the majority, to decide 
 this e^citinijquestion 'in their own way,' and thus restore 
 peace to the di>lracted Territory; but they again refused 
 to ex'rci = e tht ir rii^ht of popular sovereignty, and again 
 suffered the eleetioii to pass l)y dsfault. ' 
 
 Fair opportunity to decide the question of Sla- 
 very 1 Why, sir, the President makes this alle- 
 gation on the whole facts before him — with the 
 Constitutions before him, which were submitted 
 to the people. Calmlj'- and deliberately, in au 
 argument presented to the people of this country, 
 he comes before them and says, in his official 
 character, as communicating information relative 
 to the state of the Union, that the question of 
 Slavery was fairly submitted to the people of Kan- 
 sas on the 21st of December. Did not the Pres- 
 ident know that it was but a choice between two 
 slave Constitutions — two Constitutions, both of 
 which recognised and established Slavery in that 
 Territory ? The facts are familiar to ali of us in 
 
 the Senate. I hope they are equally familiar to 
 the country. One of those Constitutions author- 
 ized Slavery in the ordinary form, providing that 
 slaves might be brought into the Territory and 
 held there, but it allowed the people to change 
 that Constitution and that provision ; the other 
 prohibited the introduction of slaves into the 
 Territory, but it provided for the perpetuity of 
 the Slavery that already existed there. Those 
 there were to remain slaves, and their children 
 were to remain slaves to the remotest ages, and 
 the people were prohibited from changing that 
 provision at all. 
 
 Is it not the height of assumption — I will not 
 use a stronger word with reference to the Presi- 
 dent of I'he United States — to put upon paper, and 
 send here, and before the country, the broad as- 
 sertion that the question of Slavery was submit- 
 ted to the people of Kansas ? Sir, that question 
 never has been. submitted to the people of Kan- 
 sas. Nothing has been submitted to that people 
 but a choice between two slave Constitutions, 
 and, for my life, I am unable to tell which was 
 the worst of the two. Will any gentleman un- 
 dertake to demonstrate to me the contrary ? Is 
 there any possibility of disputing the assertion, 
 and did he not know it ? Had he not read those 
 Constitutions ? Had not his attention been call- 
 ed to them ? Does he never read a newspaper 7 
 Is he not aware of what is transpiring before the 
 country every day, and is admitted as a fact be- 
 fore and by the people of the country ? It is a 
 matter of astonishment to me, that a man occu- 
 pying that eminent position, spealjing to the 
 country in a State paper, speaking in the face of 
 papers which are to go upon the record, and by 
 which his truth, or his neglect of it, may be ad- 
 judged, could hazard his fame on an assertion 
 so utterly destitute of foundation, so entirely op- 
 posed to fact, as this assertion. 
 
 He follows it up by the remark that they bad 
 a fair opportunity to settle the question of Sla- 
 very. They could only vote, not to reject both 
 these Constitutions, or one or the other, but they 
 could vote to choose between the two, provided 
 they would previously take an oath that they 
 would support the Constitution which might 
 have the majority of the votes. A man opposed 
 to Slavery, believing it to be wrong, believing it 
 to be unwise, believing it to be a curse to the 
 people among whom it exists, is presented with 
 two Constitutions, and told that he may vote for 
 one of them, provided he will take an oath to 
 support that which he believes in his secret soul 
 to be wicked, and at any rate he believes to be 
 di.'sastrous to Ihe community in which it is estab- 
 lished ; and this is submitted on the word of the 
 President, oh these facts, as a presentation fairly 
 of the question of Slavery to them, not only with 
 reference to the question presented, but to the 
 mode in which they were to act upon and deter- 
 mine it. I think it requires a wonderful degree 
 of cotirage in any man, especially a man holding 
 the position which the President of the United 
 States holds, to make an assertion thus unfound- 
 ed in fact. 
 
 But, sir, he offers us some remedies ; he offers 
 the people of Kansas remedies. He tells us that, 
 
8 
 
 aftor all, if the' "li not like the Constitution, 
 ihi-ie Is no uiiliLiilty in getting rid of it; that is 
 to say, that the Oonsiitution may be changed. 
 Does lie not know, do we not know, is there a 
 man among us wUo does not understand, that 
 when tliat Oonstituiion is once fastened on the 
 people of ICaiisas, it is next to impossible to get 
 rid of it for a series of years, although a majori- 
 ty may exist against t, except by violence ? What 
 have we witnessed ? We have seen the votes of 
 two thousand five hundred people — for Secretary 
 Stanton says that is about the number — or, at 
 most, three thousand people — in favur of Slavery, 
 outweigh and override the votes of ten thousand, 
 or tvvelve thousand, or. fifteen thousand people; 
 I do not know how many, but four, or five, or 
 8ix times as many. We have seen this result 
 over and over again, produced by the act of their 
 officials. How easy is it for unscrupulous men 
 to control the polls, having the authority which 
 has been exercised by those men there here- 
 tofore, and is exercised now ! If Mr. John 
 Calhoun and his associates can get majori- 
 ties as he has obtained them recently, how easy 
 will it be for them, when in possession of ail 
 the forms of law of which the honorable Sen- 
 ator from Georgia [Mr. Toombs] has spoken, and 
 in possession of the Government, to control it 
 still! 
 
 Let as look at the operation of it for a moment. 
 A Legislature is to be elected. The judges of 
 the election have control of the polls ; the indi- 
 viduals desirous of jiroducing a certain result 
 have control of the election ; they record the 
 votes; they return the votes; they make any 
 number of them, as they have made any number 
 of them. What chance is there, then, to obtain 
 a Legislature which will Gubmit the question of 
 a change of the Constitution to the people ? And 
 if it is submitted to the people, with the same 
 men having control of the polls who had it be- 
 fore, or men actuated by the same principles, 
 what opportunity presents itself for a fair vote of 
 the people on it? The only remedy is revolu- 
 tion ; and the President knew it when he sug- 
 gested the idea of c'lianglTig the Constin;Tition as 
 a remedy. The only remedy is the last resort to 
 arms and physical force ; and what chance would 
 the people of Kansas have then? The Governor 
 or the Legislature calls upon the Chief Magis- 
 trate of the nation, and states to him that there 
 is domestic insurrection in Kansas. The troops 
 of the United States, of which my friend from 
 New York is so ready to vote an increase, are 
 under the control of the President, and at his 
 command are marched to Kansas for the purpose 
 of suppressing that insurrection. What is the 
 result? What opportunity, 1 ask again, would 
 the people of Kansas have under those circum- 
 stances to rid themselves, by a change of their 
 Constitution, of that which had been thus forced 
 upon them ? None. 
 
 But the President makes another very singular 
 BOggestion, one which shows his great regard 
 for law, and his great knowledge of the princi- 
 ples of law. He suggests, as a remedy to the 
 people of Kansas, that after they have come into 
 the Union as a State, thev will then have the 
 
 power to punish those who have committed these 
 frauds. It is very much like shutting the stable 
 door after the steed is stolen, if you can do it: 
 but this is the first time I have ever heard it 
 suggested by the Chief Magistrate of the nation, 
 that an ex post facto law could be passed, and 
 persons punished for committing frauds for which 
 there was no punishment at the time they were 
 committed. What, sir, here are frauds commit- 
 ted in the Territory of Kansas, and the President 
 tells us that it is very easy to get along with 
 them, because, after you are admitted as a State, 
 you may punish the persons who have commit- 
 ted these frauds! I should like to know of my 
 honorable friend from Louisiana, [Mr. Benja- 
 min,] with all his acutentss and knowledge of 
 legal and constitutional principles, in what mode 
 he would set about to do it? If you could do 
 it, it would afford but a very poor satisfaction, 
 alter the whole evil for which the frauds were 
 committed had been consummated. 
 
 The whole argument of the President is founded 
 on the idea that all the proc( edings in Kansas 
 have been legal on the one side and illegal on 
 the other. I propose to examine that position. 
 If you read the message of the President care- 
 fully, you will see that that is the outline of the 
 whole. It was the argument of the honorable 
 Senator from Georgia, [Mr. Toomijs,] the other 
 day, that here was legality on the one side and 
 illegality on the other; and that, having these 
 two to choose between, of course he must sustain 
 that which was legal. How does the President 
 undertake to establish it? In the first place, he 
 asserts that the organic law establishing the 
 Territory was in itself an enabling act. I sup- 
 pose that I might as well leave this point to the 
 examination of the honorable Senator from Illi- 
 nois, [Mr. Douglas.] He will deal with it, I 
 have no doubt, when the time comes ; but I 
 think he must have been as much surprised as I 
 was, when he found the President asserting, in 
 plain and unmistakable language, that there was 
 no need of an enabling act from Congress, be- 
 cause the Kansas organic law itself provided 
 one. The idtJi 'a new. I never beard it sug- 
 gested until it was hinU'd at by the Iioiun'able 
 Senator from Missouri on a previous occasion, 
 and he did not seem to make much of it; but 
 the President has taken it up. I should like to 
 know of any Senator here, whether the idea, as 
 thus presented, is not one that conaes upon him 
 by surprise, on the authority from which it ema- 
 nates on this occasion. 
 
 Now, I wish to read this clause of the message 
 for another i)urpose, because there is something 
 remarkable about it : 
 
 "That tliis law recognised tlie right of ihe ptople of the 
 T iriiory, wilhoul any eiiabliiiK act from Congress, lo 
 form a St^itc Constitiilion. is too t learfor arf^iiment. For 
 Congress ' to leave ihe people of the Territory per eetly 
 free,' in f<aiiiing their Consiiution, 'to form ai.il resuiate 
 iheir domesiic inslilutions in tteir own «ay suliji-cl only 
 to rhe Constitution of 'he United States 'and li'en lo say 
 that they should not lie permiiled to proeeed and frame a 
 Consiitulioii in llieirownwav, without an express authori- 
 ty from Congiess, appears lo be almost a coniradiciion in 
 terms." 
 
 Be it rernarked that, in order to establish this 
 position, the President is obliged to interpolate 
 
9 
 
 words into ttiat clause of the organic act, which 
 are not lound in it originally. Those words are : 
 "in framing their Constitution." There are no 
 such words in the act. Undoubtedly, if that 
 clause had provided that the people might, in 
 framing their Constitution, have arranged their 
 institutions to suit themselves, the idea might be 
 supported; but the words are not in the original 
 provision. He assumes that they are. He mukes 
 the interpolation, and then draws his own infer- 
 ence from that interpolation thus introduced into 
 the organic act. 
 
 Mr. lUlOWN. If the Senator from Maine will 
 allow me, I* will, iu that connection, show that 
 the author of the Kansas bill puts precisely the 
 same interpretation on it which the President 
 does. In the report made to Congress on the 12th 
 of March, 1856, by the Senator from Illinois, I 
 find this language: 
 
 "Is not the organization of a Territory eminemly iieees- 
 sary and proper, as a means ofeaaliliug the people ihere- 
 01 lo form and mould ttieir local anddomostie iniuretlOll?-^ 
 ajul establish a Sta'e Govenuneia under the authority ol 
 til" i^onstilulion, preparatory to its admisesioii into the 
 Union ? '■ 
 
 I read from page 4 of the report, in which it is 
 stated to be eminently proper and necessary for 
 two purposes : first, to enable them to regulate 
 and mould their institutions to suit themselves ; 
 and, second, to form a Constitution, preparatory 
 to their admission into the Union. If the author 
 of the bill put that interpretation on it in a re- 
 port made to Congress, I see no great harm in the 
 President putting the same construction on it. 1 
 think it was the true interpretation. 
 
 Mr. FESSEXDEN. It makes no difference to 
 me what construction the Senator from Illinois 
 put on that act at any time. I do not, however, 
 agree with the Senator from Mississippi, that the 
 language he has read carries any such idea with 
 it; but I shall leave it to the Senator from Illi- 
 nois, if he chooses, to settle that question with 
 the Senator from Mississippi, and with the Pres- 
 ident. What 1 nave to do is to comment on what 
 the President says. I say that it is a new idea, 
 never before suggested in my hearing, (and I be- 
 lieve I have heard this controversy from the be- 
 ginning,) that the organic law was to be construed 
 as an enabling act, until it comes authoritatively, 
 for the first time, from the President of the United 
 States. 
 
 I do not blame him in one sense ; it was neces- 
 sary to his argument ; without it, that argument 
 fails ; but, in another sense, I do blame him 
 for it, and that is this: in undertaking to quote 
 the language of a clause in a law of Congress, I 
 think he should not interpolate words into it 
 which are not there, and hold out the ide^i that 
 those words actually exist, or are clearly and dis- 
 tinctly implied, when there is nothing in the act 
 itself to authorize anything of that description. 
 Let me read this clause. It has been read some 
 thousands of times before, but perhaps it cannot 
 be read too often — I mean the clause follov/ing : 
 
 "I' behis? the true intent and meaninu of this net, rot to 
 lesisls.le'Slavery inio any Territory or rilaic, nor tj nx- 
 elude it ihereirom, but to leave the people thereol'" — 
 
 Here the President inserts " in framing their 
 
 Constitution," but " in framing their Constitu- 
 tion " is not there — 
 
 — ■■perfectly free to form and reTulnf^ their domeslio in- 
 -titutions in their own way, suhjecl only to iht Coiis^litu- 
 tion of tlie United States." 
 
 It is very plain that it was not intended that 
 this should be an enabling act ; because, if it 
 had been so intended, it would have been so spe- 
 cifically stated. The words " in framing their 
 Constitution " would have been inserted. At 
 any rate, some particular portion of that act 
 would have been found, in which tb<- ». "thority 
 was specifically given to the people o' K.tasas to 
 frame a Constitution under it, and im.tv that 
 Constitution to ask admission into ttie I nion ; 
 but nothing of that kind is found. Is it possible, 
 can anybody believe, that the Congress of the 
 United States, in framing a law to organize a 
 Territory, and intending by that law to confer on 
 the people of the Territory the power to frame a 
 Constitution, and under that Constitution to come 
 into the Union, would have left it to be inferred 
 from Language wllicb, in fact, conveys no such 
 idea? The idea is preposterous. Again, we all 
 know that noibing of the kind was ever sug- 
 gested iu any deb.ite that took place on that 
 occasion. Nobody supposed that under that 
 organic act there was authority conferred to 
 frame a State Constitution, preparatory to ad- 
 mission into the Union. There is nothing in the 
 terms of the provision which I have read, noth- 
 ing in the terms of the act anywhere, v.hich 
 could lead to the conclusion that any such au- 
 thority v*as either given or intended to be given 
 in any manner whatever. 
 
 I should like to ask any man, and the President 
 of the United States particularly, who contends 
 that this is an enabling act, of what bei^efit in that 
 clause are the words, "subject only to the Consti- 
 tution of the United States," if the clsiuse wii^ in- 
 tended to say, and only to say, to the people of the 
 Territory of Kansas, "you are at liberty, when 
 you frame a Constitution, preparatory tor admis- 
 sion into the Union, if you choose, to frame your 
 domestic institutions in your own way ? " Of what 
 benefit, let me ask, is it, to add at the end of the 
 sentence, " provided you do not in any manner 
 contravene the provisions of the Constitution o\ 
 the United States ?" Must not the State Consti • 
 tution, when framed, come before us? Must il 
 not be presented to us for our action, and if ther-j 
 is a provision iu it contrary to the Constitution 
 of the United States, have we not power to rejeoi 
 it? The very fact that the words " subject onl_v 
 to the Constitution of the United States " aro 
 left in the act, goes to prove most conclusivelv, 
 beyond all dispute, that the object was not t« 
 confer on the people of Kansas that authoritv 
 when they were forming their Constitution, hu\ 
 to confer on them that authority to be exercise^' 
 while they were a Territory, and with reference 
 to their Territorial institutions alone. The peopl'' 
 of a Territory may very well be thus limit© I 
 while they remain a Territory. While they are- 
 acting under their organic law, framing institu- 
 tions to leguhiio themselves at that time, con- 
 fining themselves to that, it may be very goo I 
 sense to say, that while you are thus a Terri ■ 
 
10 
 
 tory, you sball frame no in^tilulions that are 
 coQtrary lo tlie Uonstituuou of the United States; 
 but if it was couferring oa them the authority to 
 form a Con3titatiou, of what use is it to say — 
 are not the words throvs^u away, as perfectly in- 
 operative — "subject lo the Constitution of the 
 United States ?" that is, you may make a Con- 
 stitution, bat it must be such a Constitution as 
 does not contravene the Constitution of the 
 United [States. That very clause shows that it 
 was not intended as an enabling^ act. 
 
 It was not considered to be an enabling act. 
 I should like to ask the honorable Senator from 
 Georgia, if he considered it an enabling act, why 
 he so soon afterwards introduced a bill iuto this 
 body, which was passed by the Senate, to enable 
 the people of Kansas to form a State Constitu- 
 tion? Was that ccmstruction put on it at the 
 celebrated meeting at the house of the Senator 
 from lUiuois, when that enal)ling act was agreed 
 Uf)oa, to be reported to Congress, and to be carried 
 through Congress, if possible ? Was it supposed 
 that tlie organic act itself contained an enabling 
 act, rendering that unnecessary, and that under 
 it the people of the Territory of Kansas might 
 go forward and form a State Constitution, i)re- 
 paratory to being admitted into the Union ? It 
 was not the construction placed on it by the 
 Democratic party, by the iriends of the bill ; and 
 the honorable Senator from Georgia thinks the 
 friends of the bill are those who alone are com- 
 petent to understand ami construe it, and that 
 Eobody else can understand it properly'. I point 
 his attention, therefore, to his own construction, 
 and I ask him if he considered that clause of 
 the organic act on which I have been comment- 
 ing, and on which the President commented, and 
 iuto which he interpolated the words of which I 
 have spoken, as an enabling act, authorizing the 
 people of Kansas to frame a State Constitution? 
 
 Mr. TOOMBS. I will answer the question with 
 pleasure. I did not then, do not now, and never 
 have so considered it. Nor do I consider an ena- 
 bling act necessary. I think it oftentimes a con- 
 Tenient mode. I act with or without it, accord- 
 ing to the circumstances of the case. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I am very happy to get 
 that admission from the Senator from Georgia. 
 It is made with his customary frankness and 
 clearness. Having admitted it, I propose to ask 
 him another question. If it was not an_ enabling 
 act, where does he get the legality of all these 
 proceedings of the Legislature of Kansas? If 
 they had no authority conferred on them by Con- 
 gress to call a Convention for the purpose of 
 framing a Constitution, prejjaratory to the admis- 
 sion of that Territory into the Union as a State, 
 where does the legality of their action come 
 from? 
 
 Mr. TOOMBS. The Territorial Legislature. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. What authority had they? 
 They had no such authority conferred on them. 
 They might call a convention to petition ; they 
 could not make it binding. Unless Congress 
 confers the authority on a particular Legislature 
 to do that very act, what authority has that 
 Legislature more than another? Wliat can they 
 do but petition ? What can they do but recom- 
 
 mend? The authority is not given them; they 
 must derive it from somebody. True, they have 
 power "to legislate ; but this is not a proper sub- 
 ject of legislation, unless the authority is confer- 
 red on them to make it binding. My answer to 
 the whole of the President's argument on that 
 point, and to the argument of the Senator from 
 Georgia on that point, is, that if this is not an 
 enabling act, (which the Senator from Georgia 
 admits it is not,) then there is no more legality 
 in the act of the Legislature of Kansas, in calling 
 a Convention, than there is in the act of the 
 people of Kansas calling the Topeka ponvention. 
 They can do it in the one form or the other, pro- 
 vided they do it peaceably; and yet on that the 
 whole argument is predicated. The President, 
 or the person who drew this message, whoever 
 he may have been, saw the difficulty. It was a 
 part of his object to show and to convince the 
 country that here was legality on one side and 
 illegality on the otheV; and therefore he inter- 
 polates the words of which I have spoken into 
 this provision of the organic law, and says, after 
 that interpolation, that the organic law is itself 
 an enabling act. If correct in that, he is cor- 
 rect in his conclusion. The Senator from Geor- 
 gia says he is not correct. I agree with the Sen- 
 ator from Georgia, and therefore, as I think, the 
 conclusion does not follow. There is no legal- 
 ity in it; that is to say, there is no binding 
 legality. 
 
 What right had the Legislature to act conclu- 
 sively on that, subject — to say, "We appoint a 
 [dace of meeting at such a time ; the people of 
 Kansas may come and vote at such a time ; and 
 we prescribe a test oath to those who may choose 
 to vote on the question of calling a Convention ? " 
 Who gave them authority to make that test oath, 
 and a]iply it to the peojile of Kansas ? Where 
 did they get it? It is precisely as much rebel- 
 lion as was the formation of the Topeka Consti- 
 tution, against the constituted Government, 
 although done by the Legislature. This Legis- 
 lature — having no such authority conferred on 
 them, not having the right to call a Convention 
 given them by the original organic law — under- 
 take to say that at such a day, and such an hour 
 of the day, the people of Kansas shall vote on 
 the question of whether a Convention shall be 
 called to make a Constitution, and only such per- 
 sons as take a particular kind of oath shall be 
 allowed to vote. Where did they get the author- 
 ity to make any such rule? From the organic 
 law? No, says the Senator from Georgia; no, 
 say I ; and no, must every man say who is not at 
 liberty to do as the President has — and that is, to 
 interpolate into that clause the words, "in fra- 
 ming their Constitution,'' and thus to make out 
 the argument. The whole foundation of his 
 argument fails; and therefore his allegation, that 
 here has been legality on one side and illegality 
 on the other, fails. I aver that the Topeka Con- 
 stitution is as legal as that — as legal in its form, 
 as legal in its inception, as legal in all the steps 
 that have been taken with regard to it, in every 
 particular; as much within the purview of the 
 power of the people under that clause in the 
 organic law, as the action of the Legislature. 
 
11 
 
 I deny the legjality of the first Legislature, as I 
 stated ; and I deny, too, the assertion of the hon- 
 orable Senator from Georgia, that It has ever been 
 admitted or recognised by Congress. I say it 
 has never been recognised in any shape or form. 
 The Senatoi appealed to the fact that at the las^t 
 session of Congress, in the general appropriation 
 bill, we made a provision for the payment of the 
 Legislature of Kansas. Congress, at the previous 
 session, refused to make that appropriation. 
 When we made it at the last se.^sion of Congress, 
 it applied only to a future Legislature. It applied 
 to the one now in existence. It could not go into 
 operationflntiltheheginningof the fiscal year, last 
 July, going forward to next July. The first Legis- 
 lature had become defunct; it had ceased to per- 
 form its functions ; a new one was to be elected, 
 and, that fact being knovvn, Congress made pro- 
 vision for its payment — not for the last one; that 
 has not been made to this da^' ; and under a law 
 of Congress, which the chairman of the Commit- 
 tee on Finance well understands, the President 
 cannot apply money thus appropriated for the 
 service of the current year, from last July until 
 the next July, to the payment of a preceding 
 debt for a Legislature whose term of office had 
 expired. 
 
 But admitting the legality of the Legislature, 
 usurping though it was, and admitting also that 
 it had been recognised by Congress, nothing fol- 
 lows, except that its action was advisory. So was 
 the action of the Topeka Legislature. The peo- 
 ple were not bound by one more than the other ; 
 one was not more rebellious than the other; one 
 had as much force as the other, because the sub- 
 stratum, the authorilj- from Congress to the Legis- 
 lature to call a Convention, and prescribe rules for 
 that Convention, was wanting. 
 
 If I am right in this position, the only question 
 that remains is, does it fairly represent the peo- 
 ple of Kansas? Does the vote, taken under these 
 circumstances at that particular period of time, 
 represent the will of the people of Kansas, fairly 
 expressed ? I have commented on that It is a 
 question of fact, and it is a question of fact for 
 us to settle; and we are uot precluded by the as- 
 sertion that here is legality on one side and ille- 
 gality on the other. Have the people of Kansas, 
 by any act of theirs, under any circumstances, at 
 any time, manifested clearly to the Congress of 
 the United States their desire that the Lecomp- 
 ton Constitution should be accepted, and that 
 they should come into the Union as a State un- 
 der it? That is the question submitted to us as 
 the tribunal to decide it. What have we against 
 it? What have we to reply ? To what facts can 
 we appeal, as an answer to any allegation that it 
 was so ? We have in the first place the admitted 
 unfairness and dishonesty of the whole proceed- 
 ings from the beginning. I have adverted to 
 them, and thej^ are matter of history. If it was 
 supposed that they would fairly represent the will 
 of the people of Kansas, (and it was designed 
 they should,) why not submit the whole Constitu- 
 tion fairly to them ? Why present to them two 
 slave Constitutions, and bid them take their choice 
 between those two ? Why accompany those two 
 with an oath to support one or the other, both 
 
 being abhorrent to a large portion of the people 
 of Kansas 7 Why place the question in that 
 form? If it was the will of the people, if they 
 had auj^ idea that a majority of the people of 
 Kansas would sustain it, why not submit the 
 question fairly to the people of Kansas, without 
 any of those restrictions? It is not a sufficient 
 answer to satisfy my mind, to say that all legal 
 forms have been complied with. Why was it not 
 done ? 
 
 Anotlicr answer i^ made in the thunder tones 
 ot the last vote of the people of Kansas, when, 
 the question being submitted tothemby the Legis- 
 lature now existing in that Territory, they threw 
 a majority of over ten thousand votes against that 
 Constitution! Is that no answer? Sball we not 
 receive it as proof? 
 
 The honorable Senator from Georgia, on this 
 particular matter, said, in answer to tlie iu'.juiry 
 which I now make, why the present Legi>litture 
 might not repeal the Convention law, or might 
 not order a new vote to be taken on the Consti- 
 tution, to ascertain what is the will of ihe people 
 of Kansas, that its power was exhausted What 
 power was exhausted? Where do they get F.oy 
 power on the subject? He admits that ihey had 
 no power from the Congress of the Unitcil States. 
 There was no enabling act; no power to ftnme 
 a Constitution had been conferred on them, from 
 any quarter whatever ; and yet he says the power 
 was exhausted. The power that they u.-sumed 
 was exhausted ; but, if it is in the powfr of a 
 legal Legislature of Kansas to call a Con\<'i^tion, 
 and have the action of the people on a p!)rtioQ 
 of the Constitution, is it not in the j-ow-r of 
 another Legislature of the same, Territory nf Kan- 
 sas to call a meeting of the people, in 6\i>- lorm, 
 to pass upon another question connected with 
 the same subject, and the whole subject '! If he 
 had shown us where the power was ui rived 
 from, if he had shown that the Cougres;- nl tbo 
 United States had ever conferred any |n>iver on 
 the Legislature of Kansas to act on ilmt ques- 
 tion, it would be one thing; but denyii.g iliat, 
 and admitting that no such authority whs luu- 
 ferred, he yet says, in answer to a question put 
 by the honorable Senator from Wiscon^i!l. [Mj-. 
 DooLiTTLE,] the power was exhausted. I shuuld 
 like to have him, or some other Senator, sliow 
 me. and show the country, whence was the der- 
 ivation of this power ; and to answer the ques- 
 tion derisively, if they had none conferred on 
 them, how they could exhaust that which they 
 never possessed? and why the existincr Legisla- 
 ture has not the same right and authority to nut 
 the question to the people of Kansas, that the 
 previous Legislature had ? 
 
 The President and the honorable Senator from 
 Georgia agree on one point, and that is, as to 
 who are the people ; and I agree with them. The 
 people, in the language of this law, and as we 
 understand it with reference to suffrage, are tho.^e 
 people who are legally qu.ilified to vote. Such 
 questions, I also agree with them, are not to be 
 settled in mass meeting and without form, but 
 are to be settled in due form by those who ha\e 
 the authority to exercise the right of suffrage. 
 But this statement, which was argued at such 
 
12 
 
 leiiR'ii. and ^liich noboflj would ever think of 
 de^iyiij^, uvoicis tbe true (juestioa at issue. The 
 quesuiori at issue is, whether a fair opportunity i 
 hao been accorded to tliis very people to exercise 
 the rii/hi of suffrage on this question ; and that j 
 the President and the Senator from Georgia, who j 
 tindertakes to defend the message, have not dis- 
 cussed at so much length. Ihey assume itji 
 they take it for granted ; we deny it. What is j 
 the argument to sustain it? Simply that, in as- i 
 certiiining the will of the ])eop]e,.,in the form j 
 prescribed, at the time prescribed, with refer-! 
 ence to the Lecompton Constitution, all the] 
 forra-j of law prescribed by the Legislature have] 
 been rompUed with. I dislike, exceedingly, to 
 hear, as the sole answer to such allegations, that 
 the thing was formally done. 
 
 The honorable Sen.i.tor from Georgia is an 
 eminc'ut lawyer, and he knows that to be no an- 
 awe?- in courts of law. It is no answer lo an al- 
 legation of fraud, to say that the forms have been 
 complied with; and, as a matter of history, v,'e 
 kco^i^' that there is no more dangerous mode of 
 attacking the liberties of a people, than under 
 the tonus of law. It has been well remarked 
 that, for hundreds of years, Home was a tyran- 
 ny, exercising at the same time the forms of re- 
 publican iaslitutioDS. Tyrants always keep up 
 the forms as long as they are able, wlien defraud- 
 ing the people of their rights, because in that 
 m.mner they are able to prevent, perhaps^ that 
 outbreak which would follow a resort to abso- 
 lute physical force. Charles the First lost his 
 head for tyrannizing under the forms of law; 
 James, his son, lost his throne for the same rea- 
 son ; and our anceitofs wrested this country 
 ffGni (rre^t Britain for attempting to tyrannize 
 over them under the forms of law. Yet this is 
 the only answer that is made — ''here is a legal 
 form.' The Legislature thus forced on the peo- 
 ple of Kansas assumed to appoint a time for a 
 Convention to provide a mode of voting; and 
 that Convention assumed to make a Constitution. 
 They assumed to put it to the peoi)le ; they pre- 
 scribed their own forms, and followed out their 
 own manner of doing it j and now, when we 
 .:oine forward and say, that from the beginning 
 to the end they designed to defraud and did 
 defraud the people of Kansas, the answer is, 
 " We cannot go into that subject, for it was all 
 done under legal form.'' My reply is a very 
 simple one : that fraud vitiates everything. 
 
 What were these forms? Let us enumerate 
 them in distinct order, so that they may be un- 
 derstood by the people. A Legislature was forced 
 ou the people of Kansas, in due form, by a Mis- 
 souri invasion. Does the honorable Senator from 
 Missouri (I do not see him in his seat) want 
 proof of that ? The proof is found in the records 
 of the committee of the House of Representa- 
 tives that investigated the subject, ^'obody has 
 undertaken to deny it. The Legislature acted 
 ■without legal right, as I have demonstrated, but 
 in due form, in appointing a Convention, but 
 they prescribed a test oath, which rendered it 
 nnav.iiling. My honorable friend from Vermont, 
 who sits beside me, [Mr. Cor,LAMEU,] informs me 
 \taA I am mistak&n on that point, and he says 
 
 the test oath has been repealed. A portion of it 
 might have been repealed, but the whole of it 
 was not. 
 
 Mr. COLLAMEPt. That portion requiring an 
 oath to support the fugitive slave law had been 
 repealed. 
 
 -Mr. rKSSENDEX. That was part of the test 
 oath. That may have rendered it more odious ; 
 but still the objection lies to tlie principle, that 
 no Government in the world, such as ours, act- 
 ing under a repul)lican form, has a right to 
 establish any test oath at all, with reference to 
 the exercise of the right of suffrage; or go any 
 further than adopt such measures as are neces- 
 sary to show that a man is qualified to vote. 
 Tliatwas the next step. 
 
 A census was taken, in due form, not inclu- 
 dingone-haJf ofthe people of the Territory. Ne.xt, 
 the members of the (Jonventiou forfeited their 
 pledges. What were those pledges? If we may 
 trust to what has been cited here, and not con- 
 tradicted, a large proportion of the members of 
 the Convention pledged themselves to submit the 
 whole Constitution to the people. These pledges 
 were broken ; and I heard a very singular excuse 
 given for this the other day, by the honorable 
 Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. Brown,] who said 
 that their constituents had released them from 
 their pledges — that they had been released by the 
 people to whom they had given them. I should 
 like to know how or in what form that release 
 v/ag given. They held themselves out to tbe 
 people, on paper, pledging their honor that, it 
 elected delegates to the Convention, they would 
 submit the Constitution to the people. They 
 refused to do so — they forfeited their word after 
 they were elected. Having been elected, they re- 
 fused to perform their promise. It is charged 
 on them, and the excuse is, that those to whom 
 they made the promise released them from the 
 obligation of keeping it, I should like to ask 
 the honorable Senator from Virginia, [Mr. Ma- 
 son,] with his high sense of honor, (and I believe 
 it is higher with no man,) whether he could be 
 excused from an obligation thus given in wri- 
 ting, by any individuals who might come to him, 
 and say, " We do not hold you to it; party pur- 
 poses require a little different disposition." Hon- , 
 orable men never would make such an excuse 
 for breaking their word of honor thus given. So 
 long as there was a single voter who threw his 
 vote for me, or might have thrown his vote for 
 me, on my written word or my spoken word that 
 I would act in a particular manner, I should 
 deem myself base if I could retain the office thus 
 bestowed on me, and at the same time refuse to 
 redeem the pledge that I had made. 
 
 The next step that was taken under the forms 
 of law was to present two slave Constitutions, 
 (as I have before stated,) and tell the people of 
 Kansas they might take their choice between 
 them, provided they would swear to support the 
 one which might get the majority of votes. 
 
 The last step in this proceeding, under the 
 forms of law, was to return six or seven thousand 
 votes as cast on the Constitution on the 21st of 
 December, when it is satisfactorily shown that 
 no more than two or three thousand were thrown. 
 
13 
 
 Does any Senator ask me where I get myiiuthor- 
 ilyf'or this? I get it from the same authority to 
 ■which the Presideut appeals to show that there 
 was rebellion in Kansas — Govei-nor Walker and 
 Secretary Stanton. They say it, and nobody 
 undertakes to dispute it. 
 
 Now, all these forms having: been complied 
 with, pledges having been fovfl-ited, the question 
 not submitted, and a cheat in the vote, we are 
 told that legality is all on one^ide, and iilegalii.y 
 on the other, and we are bound to take the re- 
 sult; in other words, that this is a legvil ratifica- 
 tion.' That is the principle laid down, and it 
 anaounts to tliis : that because it h;ig never been 
 submitted, therefore it Ims lieen Icgnlly adopt- 
 ed — a logical conclusion to which I am entirely 
 unable to give my assent. 
 
 What is the repl\' which is made to the alle- 
 gation of fraud? The houoriible Senator from 
 Georgia makes it. Wis reply is, that it must be 
 investigated in the proper place. What is the 
 proper place? Is not this the tribunal? Where 
 is the question to be settled, if not here? Are 
 not we the tribunal to settle the question whether 
 Kansas shall be admitted as a State under this 
 Constitution? Are not we the tribunal to settle 
 whether the matter has been fairly submitted to 
 the people of Kansas, and whether they have 
 adopted the Constitution ? It comes before us 
 for action. If a better tribunal than this can be 
 found to settle the question dclinitely, I wish the 
 honorable Senator had pointed it out. 
 
 The votes on the Constitution are returned to 
 Mr. John Calhoun. He is the man who forfeited 
 his pledge ; he is the man who broke his word ; 
 he is the man who promised to submit this Con- 
 stitution to the people of Kansa.s, and refused to 
 do so. The votes are to be returned to him ; he 
 declares them ; he claims no power to go behind 
 the returns ; and he is the person to make a con- 
 clusive return on this subject. When we wish 
 to inquire into the truth of these allegations, 
 and judge whether this Constitution does fairly 
 express the will of the people of Kansas, is it 
 enough to reply, " the question has been settled 
 by Mr. Calhoun, and he is the proper tribunal ; 
 and the Congress of the United States, in deciding 
 whether or not Kansas is to come into the Union 
 as a State, has no right to inquire whether a fraud 
 has been committed or not, or whether the will 
 of the people of Kansas has been expressed or 
 not?" I reply again, that the Senator from 
 Georgia, for he is an eminent lawyer, well knows 
 the principle that fraud vitiates everything, no 
 matter what. It vitiates the record of a court of 
 law. It sets aside a judgment. This is claimed 
 as a judgment ol the people of Kansas; a judg- 
 ment that is conclusive by virtue of the decision 
 that has been made there by a person who is a 
 party to the whole thing. It is claimed as a 
 judgment. We ask to go behind it, and inquire 
 into it. It is said we are precluded. On what 
 principle? Not on the principle of law, for if 
 fraud will vitiate the record of a court, and ena- 
 ble any proper tribunal to inquire into it, I wish 
 to know why fraud will not vitiate an election, 
 as has always been held from the foundation of 
 the Government to the present time, when that 
 
 election is brought before the very tribunal which 
 is appointed by the Constitution to settle the 
 question ? 
 
 -My concln?ion, then, Mr. President, on all this 
 matter, is, simply, that the President of the Uni- 
 ted States, in sending this communication to us, 
 his written argument, has deliberately chosen to 
 omit the most important facts in the case, as well 
 known to him, or which should have been as well 
 known to him, as any man ; for he cannot plead 
 ignorance. Th'-j' are facts apparent on the rec- 
 ord — palpable, plain, unmistakable. He has 
 omitted to state them, and he has stated others 
 which are disproved by the record accompany- 
 ing the message. It has been shown over and 
 over again, beyond all power of contradiction, 
 and I take it few men can be found with hardi- 
 hood to deny it, that the vote of December 21st, 
 on the Constitution, does no't express the will of 
 ihe majority of the people of Kansas. The at- 
 tempt is merely to estoj) us, and to say that, by 
 virtue of the success of these fraudulent prac- 
 tices, the people of Kansas have no right to in- 
 quire into the matter. Sir, I deny the principle. 
 It exists neither in law, nor in equity, nor in leg- 
 islation, nor anywhere where truth and justice 
 prevail. Therefore, whai I have to say in reffr- 
 ence to that matter is, that considering the ques- 
 tion in that point of view, this Constitution pre- 
 sents itself to my mind as an outrage, deliberately 
 planned, followed up remorselessly, and perhaps, 
 from the indications we have had, designed to t>e 
 carried throtigh and imposed oit the people of 
 Kansas. All I have to say. is, that it will meet 
 with my resistance, feeble as it may be, here, so 
 long as I am authorized to act on it, under the 
 forms of the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Sir, I have considered this question so far 
 wholly with reference to the simple point wheth- 
 er, in the exercise of what is called popular sov- 
 ereignty in Kansas, there has been any adoption 
 by the people of that Territory of the Constitu- 
 tion thus presented. That is only one branch of 
 the remarks which I intended to present to the 
 Senate, and the Senate will pardon me if, on 
 this occasion, I go a little further, and treat of 
 what I believe to be still more important, at any 
 rate, as important, and, as affecting my mind as 
 materially, with reference to the whole subject. 
 I have presented the question on the ground of 
 popular sovereignty. The party to which I be- 
 long have rejected the idea of popular sovereignty 
 in the Territories, from the beginning. We do 
 not reject the idea that the people have a right 
 to rule. We admit it in our principles and our 
 practice; but we have rejected the idea that 
 Congress had a right to change the whole form 
 in which it had been accustomed to exercise 
 authority over the Territories of the United 
 States, and lay those Territories open to Slavery 
 when they were free, under the name of giving 
 the people the right to prescribe their own in- 
 stitutions in their own way. Since this doctrine 
 of popular sovereignty has been forced on us — 
 since it has been adopted, to a certain extent — 
 we have been compelled to yield to it. We 
 were in hopes, that even in the exercise of that 
 principle, of the right which it was said the 
 
14 
 
 people had to fran^p their own institution:?, Kan- 
 sas would be a free Htiite. We sympathized 
 v/ith it,, iu the hope tliat it would be available. 
 We took it as the shipwreclied mariner talies the 
 first plank ou vrhich he can lay his band in order 
 to escape death. The boon was apparently held 
 out, if it was a boon, to the peo[)le— the right to 
 settle Avhat their institutions should be by their 
 owu popular yote. We rejected it when offered, 
 because we believed it was a breaking down of 
 the landmarks which Congress had adopted with 
 reference to the Territories, and establishing a 
 principle thwt would carry civil war and Slavery 
 iuto the Territories. Our predictions ia that 
 particular have been verified. 
 
 Why have we rejected it; why have we repu- 
 diated it in regard to the Territory of Kansas ? — 
 because iu the remarks which 1 have to make I 
 confine myself to that. I answer for myself when 
 I say that I repudiated it because, to me, the cir- 
 cumstances under which it was introduced were 
 such as to lead to the conclusion that, in ray 
 mind, it would make no ditfL-rence even if the 
 whole people of Kansas had adopted a Constitu- 
 tion which recognised Slavery I expressed my 
 sentiments on that subject on a former occasion 
 very distinctly ; and if I may be excused for doing 
 so, although I am ordinarily averse to attempting 
 to repeat myself, I wish to refer to what I said 
 when the Kansas-Nebraska bill was under con- 
 sideration, as the ground which I hold at the 
 present time. 1 said then : 
 
 "If seiitlem'iii (■-xpect lo quiet all lliPse comrover ieshy 
 a^'opiiiii; wiidt my coiist!iut-nts uo-a' c(jii,-~ii!er, and very 
 Wfii consider, an act of gross wroinr. under wl'juevcr 
 P';c't*'nce it m ly l)e, wheihcr on the firround ol' the uncon- 
 Biiludojialiiy of the former a,;t, or any oilier, af er having' 
 re-ltd so lonif satisfi-d wiih it. je" me tell iliem that t!ii>. 
 in in>' judgment, is the bexini ing of their (roubles I can 
 ans^ver f r one individual. I have avowed inv o vn op- 
 piisitio.i to Slavery, and I am as strong ia it as my liieiul 
 fnmOhin, [Mr Wade] I wish to say. acain, 'hnl [ do 
 not m-an that I have any of the particular feelin": on the 
 !jul>jeet which gentlemen have called ' sickly sentinient- 
 slily ' but if this mater is lo he pushed beyond what ihe 
 Constiluuou originally intended i ; if. tor poli ical rnir- 
 poses, and with a political de-iyn anJ effect— hecause 
 i- is a political de-ign and effect— we are to i.e driven to 
 the wall by legislation here, letmet.ll ^entlem^i that 
 Ihi.s is not the hist they will hear ofihe quesiio i. I'erri- 
 tories are not States, and ifthis re.s-triciioii is ripealed 
 ■with regard to that Territory- it is not ytt in Ihe Uiion, 
 and yo I may be prepared to understand that, with the 
 ass'.ntof tlie free Stales, in my .iud'.,Mnent. it never will 
 come into the Union, excpt widi exclusion of slave 
 ly:— Appendix to Congressional Globe, vol 29, p. 322 
 
 9 111 
 
 I took the ground then, that if the Missouri 
 restriction were repealed, and this Territory, 
 which had been dedicated to Freedom, thrown 
 open to the incursions of Slavery, for the purpose, 
 as I believed then, and believe now, of making a 
 slave State of it, it was not the last of my op- 
 position ; that if it presented itself in my day 
 ■with a Constitution allowing Slavery, I should 
 oppose its admission as a State. I am willing to 
 go further now, and. say that, viewing it as I did 
 at the time, and as I do now, to be an outrage, 
 ' to be a breach of compact, to be a repeal of that 
 restriction for the purpose of making slave States 
 out of Territory which was before dedicated to 
 Freedom, I hold myself at liberty to contest it, 
 now and at all times hereafter. Establish Slavery 
 in that State, if you please, by force or fraud, for 
 
 nothing but ff rce or fraud can do it; and the 
 result with regard to myself is, that on that sub- 
 j.nT, T hold the liborty to agitate, I shall hold tho 
 l.beity to agitate, and T will agitate, so long as 
 n single hoi)e remains that Slavery may be driven 
 from the Territory thtis stolen, robbed, from Free- 
 (Ir'ni. I have no hesitation on that point; I am 
 ()t(ts;cily willing lo avow it now and before tlie 
 (■(.itiiitrv. While I say now, as I have said before, 
 that with rcgaid to the slave States of this 
 Union, I would nA, if I could, interfere with their 
 institutions ; while I hold that under the Con- 
 stitution of the United States we have no right 
 to interfere with them directly, and that under 
 the. laws of morality we have no right to do in- 
 directly that which we have no right to do direct- 
 ly; and whi'e f ara willing they should enjoy 
 :ill the benefit they can get from their institution, 
 nndi«tttrbed by me, here, henceforth, and forever, 
 as long as they may choose to embrace it; with 
 regard to this Territory, which has once been 
 dedicated to Freedom by a solemn compact, and 
 which has been stolen from Freedom by the 
 rcfieal of ihe Missouri compromise, and where 
 rilnvery has now been forced on the people by a 
 series of outrages such as the world never saw — 
 a man can hardly imagine the gross character of 
 these outrages — I hold myself free from all ob- 
 ligation. Foice it there if you will; force in this 
 Consiitution if you please; but I hold myself 
 absolved, so far as the Territory 'S concerned, 
 from all obligation to receive it. 
 
 I was commenting on the idea of what was 
 called popular sovereignty, and was al)out to say 
 that I considered it at the time, and now consider 
 it, a mere pretext. It was a mere e.^cuse for the 
 repeal of the Missouri restriction. It Avas de- 
 signed, in my judgment, and I stated it deliber- 
 ately, for the purpose of making Kansas a slave 
 State. This was denied ; it was denied indig- 
 nantly on this floor. I have been myself rebuked 
 for undertaking to question' the motives with 
 which the act was done. Sir, I appeal to the re- 
 corded speech of the honorable Senator from 
 South Carolina, [.Mr. PIvan's,] who stated, in sub- 
 stance, subsequent to the passage of the act, that 
 it was designed to make Kansas a slave State. 
 I appeal to the speech made by a Northern man, 
 I regret to say a Representative from Pennsyl- 
 vania, in the other House, who said, substan- 
 tially, that it was designed to give Kansas to 
 Slavery, as a sort of offset to wh.it we obtained 
 in California, south of the line of 36° 30'. I 
 appeal, moreover, as proof conclusive, to the 
 facts which took place at the time ; to the nature 
 of the bill; to the want of necessity for the 
 passage of any such act for any other purpose ; 
 and to the peculiar provisions of the bill, which 
 so hemmed in Kansas, and hedged it about with 
 slave territory, that, apparently, it was impossi- 
 ble for the pcojile of the free States to make 
 their entrance into it. 
 
 What else could have been meant by the repeal 
 of the Missouri restriction? I know some gen- 
 tlemen said, " it is a matter of feeling with us ; 
 we do not think anything will come of it." It 
 was answered with the manifest reply, "will you 
 set the country in a blaze from one end to the 
 
15 
 
 other, merely upon a point of honor ; for a thing 
 that you do not intend or ■wish to avail your- 
 selves of?" If it could be rendered more mani- 
 fest by anything that could bo appealed to, it 
 was proved by eveiy after transaction with ref- 
 erence to the matter; it was proved by the forci- 
 ble invasion ; it was proved bj^ that series of 
 outrages to which I have referred ; and now, at 
 this day, nobody undertakes to deny what we 
 then charged. 
 
 I say. therefore, that this popular sovereignty 
 idea was a pretence. It was held up to the people 
 for a short time, as, in. fact, the main thing to be 
 accomplished by the bill. The honorable Sen- 
 ator from Georgia, the other day, undertook to 
 say, here in his place, that he waa familiar with 
 that provision, and that it was not introduced 
 for any such purpose, but simply for the purpose 
 of excluding a conclusion ; that is to say, that 
 there were some gentlemen who held there was 
 danger, if you repealed the compromise, that the 
 old French and Spanish laws would be reinstated, 
 and that Slavery thereby' would be established in 
 Kansas, and that this clause was put in merely 
 for the purpose ot negativing that conclusion. 
 That is not so, becauss, if you appeal to the bill 
 itself, the very next provision settles that matter, 
 namely : 
 
 '• Provided, That nothing herein contained shall b"^ con- 
 strued lo revive or put in loree uny 'aw or r.m,Ia;i.>ii 
 ■which may have exi It-d prior lo the act c the Cili iMarch, 
 Ib'SO. eii her proieciiiig,estat)U.-l>ing,prohibiuiig, or alioli th- 
 ing Slavtry.'' 
 
 That is the clause which affects the question to 
 ■which the Senator from Georgia alluded. 
 
 It is proved by another fact. The honorable 
 Senator from Illinois, in his speech which he made 
 on the night the bill was passed, the last night, 
 the memorable night, declared that this clause 
 (which was not an amendment, but came in as 
 one of the changes of the committee who reported 
 the bill, and was moved by him) was the main 
 feature of the bill, and the removal of the Mis- 
 souri restriction was only an incident. I dare say 
 the Senator remembers it. He said that the great 
 object of the compromises of 1850, as they were 
 called, the leading idea of the compromises of 
 1850, for which he contended, was to give the 
 people the power of deciding what their institu- 
 tions should be in the Territories ; and he went so 
 far on that occasion as to contend that they should 
 be allowed not only to establish but to exclude 
 Slavery ; that is to say, that no provision should 
 exist which would not give the people of the Ter- 
 ritory both powers. I have his speech before me. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. I did not intend to interrupt 
 the gentleman from Maine ; but he said a moment 
 ago that the object of that bill was to make a slave 
 State of Kansas, and that nobody denies ii. 1 
 miist say to him, that I interpose my positive de- 
 nial. It was not the object to make it a sla/e 
 State ; it was not the object to make it a iree 
 State; but it was the object to leave the people 
 of Kansas perfectly free to do as they pleased in 
 the management of all their domestic institu- 
 tions, Slavery included. I do not desire to say 
 anv more than that at this time. 
 
 ilr. FESSENDEN. We use language in debate 
 
 which the Senator is aware is perfectly under- 
 stood; but, if taken literally, goes perhajis fur- 
 ther than it should. When I say that nobody 
 denies it, I do not mean that everybody admits 
 it. I mean to say, simply, that the matter is pal- 
 pable, from after circumstances as well as from 
 what, took place at the time ; and from the ab- 
 sence of any other reasonable motive, and from 
 what has taken place since, in the progress of af- 
 fairs toward making it a slave Territorj-, no rea- 
 sonable, unprejudiced mind, not connected with 
 the transaction, can deny, on any good, logical 
 ground, that such was the object with which the 
 Missouri compromise line was repealed. 
 
 But, sir, I was replying to the idea that this 
 clause was intended, as was suggested by the 
 honorable Senator from Georgia, as a mere ex- 
 clusion of a conclusion. The fraraer of that bill, 
 in his speech on that occasion, said that the idea 
 of popular sovereignty was the principal thing 
 aimed at in the bill ; and that the removal of 
 the Missouri restriction, instead of being the 
 principal thing, as contended by the Senator 
 from Georgia, was merely an incident necessary 
 in order to etfect the object of conferring popu- 
 lar sovereignty. That is the idea. I stated that 
 it was a pretence. I so considered it. We so 
 considered it. We so considered it on our side 
 of the House, and so stated it. But I now go 
 further, and say that what I then considered to 
 be a pretence for the repeal of the Missouri com- 
 promise, I now consider to have been a delusioa 
 and a snare ; and I am willing to give my reasons 
 for this opinion as briefly as I can. 
 
 It was held out to the country as the main 
 feature of that bill, that a great boon was to be 
 conferred on the people of the Territories ; that 
 whereas, by the operation of the Missouri re- 
 striction, they had been er.cluded from the power 
 of deciding what their own domestic institutions 
 should be, by the repeal of that restriction this 
 power was conferred on them. L pon whom? 
 What was understood at the time? That it was 
 conferred on the people of the Territories, 
 as the people of the Territories, and acting 
 with regard to their own Territorial institu- 
 tutions. That idea was boldly proclaimed by 
 the Senator from Illinois. That idea was pro- 
 claimed as boldly by Southern gentlemen on this 
 floor, on the occasion of the Kansas debate. It 
 was denied by nobody, if I recollect, except the 
 honorable Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. BiiowN,] 
 and a hint of dissent was given by an honorable 
 Senator from Virginia : but, with these exceptions, 
 according to my recollection, no one here denied 
 it. Southern men and Northern men all agreed 
 that, by the repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
 it was intended to confer on the people of the 
 Territories, as people of the Territories, the power 
 and right to settle their own institutions in their 
 own way ; to say whether they would have Sla- 
 very or not. It was so presented to the people 
 on the stump, in the years 1854 and 1855, through- 
 out all the 5sorthern States. 
 
 Mr. BENJAMIN. If the Senator from Maine 
 will permit me, I M'ill make a remark here. I 
 intend hereafter to make a more formal answer 
 to his argument ; but on the proposi-Jon he is 
 
IG 
 
 now stating, I beg leave to call the gentleman's 
 uiind lo ihe laci., lliat when ihat particular sub- 
 ject in the diicussiou of the Kansas bill was 
 undef consideration, it was distinctly stated that 
 the supporters of that bill, North and South, en- 
 tertained ditferent views as to the rights of the 
 people of a Territory to exclude slaves from a 
 Territory ; and for that reason the clause was 
 added to the section of the bill which gives 
 power to the people of tlie Territory, "subject 
 only to the Constitution of the United States," 
 the intent being to leave that particular power 
 subject to construction by the courts of justice. 
 "We carried out that intent by providing, in 
 another clause of the bilh, for an appeal to the 
 Supreme Court of tlie United States on every 
 question touching Slavery, whether the amount 
 iu contest was two ttiousand dollars or not. The 
 gentlemen from the South who supported the bill 
 contended that it was not in the power of Con- 
 gress to confer on the people of a Territory the 
 right to exclude 'slaves, because our right to 
 carry our property into the Territories was guar- 
 antied by the Constitution. Gentlemen trom the 
 Nortli denied it; and on that particular question 
 this very clause was inserted into the bill, of a 
 grant of power subject only to the provisions of 
 the Constitution of the United States, referring- 
 to that contested question which, by common 
 consent, wa5 to be L'ubmitted to the Supreme 
 Court, and lias been decided, in the Dred Scott 
 case, iu conformity with the views then enter- 
 tained by gCiitlemen from the South. 
 
 Mr. FKSSKNDEN. I remember that contro- 
 versy very well, and I know that something of 
 that sort was said, but the matter was not ques- 
 tioned as a matter of argument. Gentlemen did 
 not seem disposed to discuss it. Nobody, as I 
 said before, started the idea, then so monstrous, 
 then so new, now established, as the Senator 
 says, (if he considers it established,) by the opin- 
 ion of the Supreme Court; nobody dwelt upon 
 it. That clause means nothing more; it is sub- 
 stantially in all the Territorial bills ; not in the 
 same language, but to the same extent; that is 
 to say, that they shall have all power of legisla- 
 tion in the Territory, subject to the provisions of 
 the Constftution of the United States ; but it 
 was not contended then, in argument, that the 
 Constitution of the United States, by its own 
 force, carried Sla-ery into the Territories, and 
 protected it there. It was hinted that a different 
 opinion prevailed ; but the gentleman from North 
 Carolina [Mr. Badgeii] disavowed it. The gen- 
 tleman from Maryland, [Mr. Pkatt,] if I remem- 
 ber aright, offered an amendment, which he sub- 
 sequently withdrew, giving expressly to the 
 people of the Territories power to exclude or 
 admit Slavery, at pleasure. The language of the 
 act, as my friend from Ohio [Mr. Wade] says, 
 carries the same idea with it. 
 
 But the point to which I was directing my at- 
 tention was simply this : that at that time it was 
 not pretended but that the people of the Territo- 
 ries had power, or were intended to have power, 
 under that clause, to legislate upon the whole 
 subject — subject, however, as of course every- 
 thing of that kind must be decided to be, to the 
 
 Constitution of the United States. I am speak- 
 ing of what the idea was then ; and I was en- 
 deavoring to illustrate my position, that it was 
 intended as a snare and a delusion. Why? It 
 was so presented here: it was 'so presented in 
 the country ; it was so argued through tho 
 free States. Was it the designof gentlemen who 
 placed it^n that condition to have two grounds 
 on which they might sustain the Democratic 
 party — South, on the point that there was no 
 consi.itutional power; North, on the point that 
 there was constituthjnal power — and ihusyibrate 
 in the scaie, on the one side or the other, accord- 
 ing as they might catch votes, as they assumed 
 this or that doctrine'/ Was that the calm, set- 
 tled iutention of that bill V It makes out my po- 
 sition of its design to establish Slavery there, 
 much more strongly thiiu any aigument I have 
 i.ied. 
 
 Iiut what is the result, after it was thus argued ? 
 When the Cincinnati Convention met, M'e had an 
 entire change of doctrine. The Cincinnati Con- 
 veation intimated a ditferent opinion; and tho 
 Democracy of the North, which had talked so 
 much about popular sovereignty before, which 
 universally in the Senate had claimed that the 
 people of the Territories had the right, as Terri- 
 tories, to settle the question of Slavery in their 
 own way ; the Democracy of the North, when 
 they met in Cincinnati, yielded to the doctrine 
 promulgated there, that it was only to be settled 
 when they came to form a State Constitution, 
 because that is the clear inference from the plat- 
 form there adopted. 
 
 Vou have gone still further, and now assume 
 the doctrine that the Constitution by its own 
 force not only carries Slavery into the Territories, 
 but protects it in the Territories until t^ State 
 Constitution is formed. Is liiat the doctrine? 
 Is that what is now assumed by the Supreme 
 Court? Suppose it to be so, I should like to 
 know what new power was given to the people 
 of the Territories by this famous clause in the 
 Kansas bill granting popular sovereignty. Did 
 they not havk' that power before? Was it neces- 
 sary to repeal the Jlissouri compromise in order 
 to give the people of the Territory of Kansas a 
 right' to proiiibit or establish Slavery, by their 
 State Constitutioa, as they saw fit? The Mis- 
 souri compromise provided nothing further than 
 that Slaveiy should not be carried into territory 
 north of 3G° 3(y. Suppose, without the act, the 
 people of Kansas, when they came to form a 
 State Constitution, should have provided that 
 Slavery might exist in that State, legalized and 
 authorized it, and sent that Constitution to Con- 
 gress, and it was admitted ; would not that have 
 been a repeal of the Jlissouri compromise? 
 What was gained, then, in any form, I should 
 like to ask, by this famous provision introduced 
 into this bill, and which has been called a stump 
 speech ? 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. I will answer the Senator 
 from Maine. Tliere was on the statute book an 
 act prohibiting the introduction of slaves there 
 "forever;-' not confined to the Territory only, 
 but extending forever; and it is useless to dis- 
 guise the fact that there was a large political 
 
17 
 
 party in this country who claimed that "forever" 
 was to apply to a State as well as a Territory, 
 and hence ihey resolved that they would never 
 admit another slave State into this Union, wheth- 
 er the people wanted it, or not. 
 
 Mr. FESSKNDEiX. How nsolved it? 
 
 Mr. D(3UGLAS. Resolved in county meetings, 
 in Congressional Conventions, in State Conven- 
 tions, against any more slaveholding States, 
 whether the people of the proposed State de- 
 sired Slavery or not. The Democratic party 
 took the ground that the people of each Territo- 
 ry, while a Territory, should be left free, \vithoiit 
 any Congressional intervention, to fix their in- 
 stitutions to suit themselves, subject only to the 
 Constitution of the United States ; and that, 
 when they came into the Union, they should 
 come in with just such a Constitution as they 
 desired, subject only to the same restriction. 
 Here was an act on the statute book which pur- 
 ported to invade both these rights. The Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill repealed that prohibition or re- 
 striction of .Slavery, leaving the people perfectly 
 free to do as they pleased, both while a Territory 
 and wlien they formed a State Constitution, sub- 
 ject only to the limitations of the Constitution of 
 the United States. I repeat, therefore, the object 
 of that bill was to remove all restrictions, and 
 make the jirinciple general, universal, that the 
 people should fix all their institutions. Slavery 
 not excepted, both while a Territory and a State, 
 subject only to the limitations of the Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 The Senator now comes forward and says that 
 since that time the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, in the Dred Scott case, has decided that 
 the Missouri restriction was unconstitutional, 
 and that, therefore. Congress could not delegate 
 to a Territorial Legislature the power to pro- 
 hibit Slavery ; and hence, he says, this act con- 
 ferred no new rights on the people of the Ter- 
 ritory. His argument goes too far. If that 
 be the true construction, it shows that the 
 only effect of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was to 
 take an unconstitutional and void statute from 
 the statute book. 
 
 You assume the correctness of the Dred Scott 
 decision for the purpose of your argument. I do 
 not blame you for assuming that, for it is a de- 
 cision by the highest judicial tribunal on earth, 
 the tribunal authorized by the Constitution of 
 the United States to decide it. They have de- 
 cided it, and we are bound by the decision, what- 
 ever may have been our individual opinions i)re- 
 viously. That decision establishes the fact that 
 the Missouri restriction was unconstitutional and 
 Toid ; the fact that Congress cannot prohibit 
 Slavery in a Territory ; the fact that the dogma 
 of the Wilraot Proviso was void, and would have 
 been a nullity if it had been imposed on the Ter- 
 ritories. If that be so, was it not wise to re- 
 move that void legislation which remained on 
 the statute book only as a snare, or as a scare- 
 crow, and which ought not to be there, because 
 it was in violation of the Constitution of our 
 country ? I ask, was it not wise to remove it, 
 and to say plainly, in clear and explicit language, 
 that our true intent was to leave the people of a 
 
 Territory, while a Territory, and also when they 
 become a State, perfectly free to make their laws 
 and establish their institutions upon all ques- 
 tions, Slavery not excepted, to suit themselves, 
 subject only to the limitations of the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States? 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. The honorable Senator, 
 probably on account of my unfortunate mode of 
 expression, did not exactly comprehend what I 
 meant to say. I am very glad, however, to hear 
 him now give the old original construction to 
 this provision of which we have been speaking. 
 He saj'S now that the intention was to confer on 
 the people of the Territories, while Territories, 
 the power to settle all questions, including Sla- 
 very, in their own way, subject to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. 
 
 Mr. DOUGLAS. Of course. If the Constitu- 
 tion prohibited the exercise of that power, you 
 could not confer it. If the Constitution of the 
 United States prohibited you from passing the 
 Missouri restriction, you had no right to pass it. 
 If the Constitution allowed you to give the peo- 
 ple of the Territory the right to prohibit Slavery 
 while a Territory, this act conferred the power. 
 In other words, the Kansas-Nebraska act con- 
 ferred all the power which it was possible, by 
 any legislation or any human effort, to give to 
 the people of a Territory under the Constitution 
 of the United States on the subject of Slavery. 
 We could give no more, for we gave all we had — 
 all that the Constitution did not prohibit. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I am not quarrelling about 
 that at all. I was saying that this was a delu- 
 sion and a snare. Why ? Because it did pre- 
 cisely what the honorable Senator says it did. 
 It professed to hold out to the people of the Ter- 
 ritories that they had a right which they could 
 exercise to exclude Slavery, if they saw fit, or to 
 admit it, if they saw fit, subject to the Constitu- 
 tion. It was so stated and so argued to the 
 country. 
 
 Mr. BENJAMIN. I dislike very much to in- 
 terfere with the course of argument of the Sena- 
 tor from Maine ; but it is a historical truth, which 
 cannot now be shaken, that during the discus- 
 sion of that bill, and during the preliminary 
 meetings of its friends, which were made public, 
 the fact was divulged, that its supporters differed 
 in relation to that constitutional power; that 
 some from the North contended that the people 
 of the Territory had the power, if we gave it to 
 them ; that Congress had the power to give to 
 them authority to exclude slaves from the Terri- 
 tory, whilst a Territory ; and that, on the other 
 hand, the representatives of the people of the 
 South determinedly resisted that pretension, and 
 said, from the beginning, they would never agree 
 to any act which in any manner might imply the 
 concession of a right in Congress, or in the peo- 
 ple of a Territory under Congress, to exclude 
 them with their property from territory which 
 was common soil, belonging to the people of the 
 whole United States. 
 
 The fact I have just stated cannot be contest- 
 ed, for the reason that there is a special clause 
 in the bill providing for the submission of that 
 very question to the Supreme Court of the Uni- 
 
18 
 
 ted States. Senators from the North, -who took 
 the opposite view of the question, said, " very- 
 well ; we differ on this constitutional question, 
 but there is a tribunal in this country which can 
 settle all these disputed points of jurisdiction 
 without Ihe necessity of resorting to force or 
 bloodshed ; let that supreme tribunal decide, and 
 we will su.bmit." The people of the South never 
 asked for anything else ; never sought any other 
 solution of the question. Now, it is obvious that 
 since the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States in the Dred Scott case, it is de- 
 cided that from the origin all this agitation of 
 the Slavery question has been directed against 
 the constitutional rights of the South ; and that 
 both Wilmot provisoes and the Missouri com- 
 promise lines were unconstitutional. An attempt 
 is made to go back on the interpretation of the 
 Kansas act, and then, when that fails, lo ques- 
 tion the authority of that tribunal whose right 
 to decide in the last resort has never before been 
 questioned in this country. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDExY. Mr. President, I am not 
 aware of any such provision in the Kansas-Ne- 
 braska act, in regard to referring this question to 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, as the 
 Senator has referred to. If there is any such 
 provision, he can find it. I know it was proposed, 
 but it was not admitted at the time. But whether 
 there is such a clause or not, would make no 
 difference. Congress can confer no power upon 
 the courts of the Uuited States, except under the 
 Constitution. If they would have it »nnder the 
 provisions of the Constitution, very well ; if they 
 would not have it, it cannot be conferred by 
 Congress. 
 
 But I do not wish to be drawn off from the 
 point I was arguing. I do not undertake to say 
 that there were not gentlemen at the South, then 
 members of the Senate, who held, or might have 
 supposed and might have intimated, an opinion 
 that there was no power on the part of the people 
 of the Territories to exclude Slavery, until they 
 came to form a State Constitution. That might 
 have been so. What I was arguing was, that 
 the idea held out to the country at the time was 
 that the people of the Territories had the control 
 of the subject, and would continue to have it 
 while a Territory. I say it was so presented to 
 the people in 1854 and 1855, at the polls, through- 
 out the free States. I do not know how it was 
 presented throughout the Southern States. I 
 know that gentlemen on this floor, Senators from 
 Southern States, avowed the doctrine that the 
 people would have power to act on it as they 
 <,hose, to exclude Slavery or admit Slavery. 
 
 The point I was making, however, was one 
 totally distinct from that; and it was, that no 
 sooner had the people been induced to believe 
 that such was the intention, no sooner had this 
 pretence been made available, for the purpose of 
 reconciling the people of the free States to the 
 repeal of the Missouri restriction, than the Cin- 
 cinnati Convention met and repudiated the whole 
 doctrine of territorial popular sovereignty. What- 
 ever the Senator from Illinois may now say with 
 regard to his construction of that clause, what 
 it meant in the beginning, the Democratic Con- 
 
 vention of this country, in nominating a Presi- 
 dent, especially repudiated that doctrine before 
 any decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
 Slates, and averred substantially that the people 
 of a Territory had no right whatever to exclude 
 Slavery until they came to form a State Consti- 
 tution. 
 
 Now, the Senator from Illinois has not even 
 attempted to answer the question which I put to 
 him, which was this: if the doctrine of the Cin- 
 cinnati Convention is true — not the doctrine of 
 this bill, as he asserts, but if the doctrine of the 
 Cincinnati Convention is true — that the only 
 power which the people of the Territories have 
 to interfere with Slavery is when they form a 
 State Constitution, what was gained by that 
 celebrated provision thus inserted in the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill? I say the people had it before. 
 Suppose the Missouri restriction had continued 
 up to the present day, providing that Slavery 
 should not exist north of a certain line, 36° 30''; 
 and at the present day, while that restriction was 
 in operation, the people of Kansas should assem- 
 ble and adopt a State Constitution, by which 
 they should authorize the introduction and sale 
 of slaves, and then should send that Constitution 
 to us, and we should admit them on that Consti- 
 tution : should we not repeal the Missouri re- 
 striction pro tanto 9 Certainly we should. I say, 
 then, that under this resolution of the Cincinnati 
 Convention, which was the creed of the Demo- 
 cratic party. North and South, no power what- 
 ever was conferred on the people of the Territo- 
 ries in regard to that particular matter of popu- 
 lar sovereignty. They had none that did not 
 exist before. No boon was conferred. 
 
 Therefore, I say that I believed it was not onlj 
 a pretence at the time, but it was a fraud and a^ 
 snare ; and when the people of the free States 
 were deluded into the idea that by the repeal of 
 the Missouri compromise line they were to have 
 the power given to the people of the Territories 
 to establish or reject Slavery, as they pleased, 
 the snare was, that the Democratic party was to 
 put it to them next, that they should not have 
 the power to admit or reject Slavery, as they 
 pleased, except when they came to form a State 
 Consti|tution, and Slavery had overrun them ; and 
 that when, by such proceedings as the present, 
 they have been bound hand and foot, and cast 
 into the burning fiery furnace of Slavery, then 
 they might have the privilege of doing — what? 
 Simply what they could do before — form a Con- 
 stitution to suit themselves ; send it to Congress ; 
 and if Congress adopted it, then repeal the Mis- 
 souri restriction. It went nothing further than 
 tliat, and that was the point I made ; and to that 
 point no answer has been given. 
 
 I was endeavoring to illustrate the idea th.at 
 there was an intention in this matter — an inten- 
 tion demonstrated from the absence of all possi- 
 ble motive except to force Slavery into the Terri- 
 tory — from the nature of the provisions sur- 
 rounding the Territory with slave States ; from 
 the proceedings that have taken place since in 
 the Territory ; and from the principle which 
 was adopted as a cardinal point in the creed of 
 the great Democratic party, viz : that the people 
 
19 
 
 should not have the power to reject or exchide 
 Shivery until they came to form a State Consti- 
 tution, and, in the mean time, that everybody 
 from the slave States might carry slaves there 
 when and how they pleased, to be there recog- 
 nised and protected by the Constitution of the 
 United States. Sir, had that doctrine been an- 
 nounced at the time the clause was inserted, had 
 it been expressed in words, that we intended to 
 leave the people perfectly free, only when thev 
 form a State Constitution, to establish or reject 
 Slavery, as they please, would it not have been 
 laughed to scorn, as conferring no new advantage 
 on the people of the Territories — nothing that 
 they had not before ? Certainly it would. ' 
 
 The Senator from Georgia said this measure 
 had been before the jjopulur forum, and the pop- 
 ular forum had decided in its favor. How has it 
 decided ? It hjis decided under these pretences, 
 these delusions, these frauds, practiced upon it 
 with regard to what was the absolute meaning 
 of that clause. What privilege was conferred on 
 the people by it ? No other than that which I 
 have spoken of ; and it is idle to talk of the 
 matter having been settled by the great tribu' al 
 of public opinion. There has been no such opin- 
 ion expressed, because there have been no points 
 except the two I have mentioned, before the 
 people, one of which was abandoned when it 
 had served its purpose, and the other carried in 
 such a manner as to force Slavery on the people 
 of Kansas, without any power left in the people 
 to act on the subject, directly or indirectly. 
 
 I desire, before concluding, to advert to one 
 other position which was taken by the Senator 
 from Georgia, and which has been alluded to 
 again to-day — that this matter has been settled by 
 the judicial forum. It is said that it has been car- 
 ried to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 and settled there. Does the honorable Senator 
 from Louisiana, as a lawyer, undertake to tell rae 
 that the question has been settled by a judicial de- 
 cision in that court ? Did that question ever arise 
 and present itself to the mind of the court with 
 reference to any necessity of the case? To what 
 extent does the honorable Senator, or any body 
 else who is a lawyer, undertake to say that the 
 decision of the court is binding? It is binding so 
 far, and so far alone, as it can issue its mandate. 
 Its opinion is of force only upon the question 
 which settles the cause. Am I bound to recognise 
 opinions that may be advanced by any set of 
 judges, in any court, simply because, after they 
 have decided a cause, they undertake to give 
 their opinions ? They may be bad men, they 
 may be weak men, but their mandate in the 
 cause before them must be obeyed ; and I will 
 go as far and as readily as any man to obey the 
 mandate of any court to which I am bound to 
 render obedience ; and I am bound to render 
 obedience to the Supreme Court of the United 
 States ; but when they undertake to settle ques- 
 tions not before them, I tell them those questions 
 are for me as well as for them. When they un- 
 dertake to give opinions on collateral matters 
 which are not involved in their decision, and 
 which they are not called upon to decide, I tell 
 them they are men, like myself and others, and 
 
 their opinions are of no value, except so far as 
 they enforce them by sufficient and substantial 
 reasons ; and if they give bad reasons or bad 
 logic, I would treat them as I should anybody else 
 who would try to convince my judgment in sucti a 
 way. I have good authority on tbis point ; and 
 it is authority that I present for the special ben- 
 efit of those who are disposed to read us lectures 
 lately on the subject of bowing to the opinion of 
 the court. I have a law book in my hand, from 
 which I wish to read one '"r two passages. The 
 Supreme Court of one of the States of this Union, 
 in giving the opinion which I hold in my hand, 
 in speaking of the action of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, says : 
 
 'The disregard of this court to the known will of the 
 makers of ihe < oiisiitution, a* to the rule of cor'st uction, 
 i^ equally exhilii'ed in a number of o'hfr cases ; especial- 
 ly in ihe c-'ses of Cohen vs. Virginia, and Worcester and 
 Butler vs. Georgia, in which it held that a Plate miaht be 
 sued, nolwiihstaiiding the clear manifes-talion of the will 
 of {he makers of the Constitution, in the smi ndmeni of it 
 to which I have heretofore refTred. tha' the Constitution 
 was not to be so construei as tomak-". a S'ate sueable. 
 
 '• But are not the decisions of the Supreme Court of the 
 United Slates to ifovern this, ps to the rule cf ;nstruing 
 the Constitution? They are not, any more than the decis- 
 ions of that court are to be governed by the decisons of 
 this. 
 
 "The Supreme Court of the United S'ates has no juris- 
 dic'io over this court, or over any department of tha 
 Government of this Slate." 
 
 I wish to read another passage showing the 
 opinions entertained by the learned court which 
 gave the decision before me : 
 
 " But say that I atn wrong in this opinion ; s'i'l, I deny 
 that the decisions of th^^ Supreme Court referred to are 
 precedent* to eovern tl'is court 
 
 " Th<ise decisi jus were mer • partisan deci-ions— to be 
 overruled in the court which made ihem as soon as a 
 majoriiy of t'le mi^mhers of th ■ court sh'.uld be of diffi rent 
 noliiics from the poliiics of the memlieis who marie the 
 decisions. The doctrine that a neo sion of ilie Supreme 
 Court of the U it d Stales is lO di ■tat'- a man's politics to 
 hm. is a doctrine avowed by a le w in this country. 
 .Such a d"ictrine would be an easy means of p'"petuating 
 a dynasty of )^riiiciples, however false and wicktd. All 
 iha' would have to be done, would i>e to st <rt with men 
 of tl.ose principles. Their decisions wou'd do ihe rest. 
 Whatever ihey ssid the Constitution mtant, the people 
 wou'd have to vote ii to mean. Parlies, on conslilutionai 
 questio s, could not arise. 
 
 '• But »re these mere poiilical decisions, and made by 
 partisan judges?' 
 
 Then the court go on to review the history of 
 the judges of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, beginning with Judge Marshall, to show 
 that they are mere partisans. There is another 
 little extract I should like to read, 
 
 Mr. STUART. What court is it, from the 
 opinion of which the Senator is reading ? 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I will give my authority 
 after I have read what the court say : 
 
 '■ Now. partisan decisions may do to bind the rolitical 
 parly which the makers of ihem happen to belong to. 
 They certainly bind no oiher party. And this has Deen 
 III'' uniform praclii'e of all parties in thi- country. The 
 Supreme Court said a bank is consiiiutiont I ; yei, bank 
 charters have been vetoed by ihree several Presidents: 
 Miiriison. Jackson, Tyler." 
 
 The same Court say they received a mandate 
 from the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 but treated it with contempt. Sir, that is the 
 opinion of the Supreme Court of Georgia, deliv- 
 ered in the case of Padelford & Co. vn. the city 
 of Savannah, in the fourteenth volume of Georgia 
 Reports, page 438, 
 
20 
 
 If these are mere party decisions, let us under- 
 stand it. It P'^ems that when the decisions are 
 ouf Wi:y by ttie Supreme Court of the United 
 Statets gentlemen of the South say, "the judcres 
 are partisan judges ; tbey cannot settle constitu- 
 tional questions for us ; those ar-e political mat- 
 ters.' When, however, they undertake extra- 
 judicially to give opinions not called for by the 
 point before them; to lay down doctrines at 
 variance with the whole history and preceden's 
 of the country from its very foundation, to over- 
 turn the decisions of their own predecessors, 
 greater men than ever they can hope to be, and to 
 rtversc all the decisions of the legislative depart- 
 ment of the Government, on questions of a polit- 
 ical character and description, on their own mere 
 8ay-fo, we are told all this is law. 
 / Sir, I was perfectly atvare, from the course of 
 ; proceeding, what this decision would be. When 
 I saw the dictum, or the dogma, if you please to 
 call it so, laid down in the Cincinnati Platform, 
 that there was no power in the people of a Ter- 
 ritory to exclude Slavery, and when I saw that 
 that question had been brought to the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, and that the Supreme 
 Court, after hearing the argument, had adjourned 
 from one day before the election of President 
 over to another day after the election of Presi- 
 dent, I knew what the strength of the Slavery 
 party was; and I felt what the decision was to 
 be ; and I felt, as well, and I do not hchitate to 
 say it here, that had the result of that election 
 been otherwise, and had not the party triumphed 
 on the dogma which they had thus introduced, 
 we should never have heard of a doctrine so 
 utterly at variance with all truth ; so utterly d.'S- 
 titute of all legal logic ; so founded tin error, and 
 unsupported by anything like argument, as is 
 -the opinion of the Supreme Court. 
 
 I should like, if I had time, to attempt to dem- 
 onstrate the fallacy of that opinion. 1 have ex- 
 amined the view of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States on the question of the power of 
 the Constitution to carry Slavery into free terri- 
 tory belong'ing to the United States, and I tell 
 you that I believe any tolerably respectable law- 
 yer in the United States can show, beyond all 
 question, to any fair and unprejudiced mind, that 
 the decision has nothing to st;ind upon except 
 assumption, and bad logic from the assumptions 
 made. The main proposition on which that de- 
 cision is founded; the corner-stone of it, without 
 which it is nothing, without which it fails en- 
 tirely to satisfy the mind of any man, is this: 
 that the Constitution of the United States recog- 
 nises property in slaves, and protects it as such. 
 I deny it. It neither recognises slaves as prop- 
 erty, nor does it protect slaves as property. 
 
 Fortunately for my assertion, the Supreme 
 Court, in making that the very corner-stone of 
 their decision, without which the whole fills, 
 state the clauses on which they ground these as- 
 sertions. On what do they found the assertion 
 that the Constitution recognises Slavery as prop- 
 erty ? On the provision of the Constitution by 
 which Congress is prohibited from passing a law 
 to prevent the African slave trade for twenty 
 years ; and therefore they say the Constitution 
 
 recognises slaves as property. Will not anybody 
 see thai this constitutional provision, if it works 
 one way, must work the other ? If, by allowing 
 the slave trade for twenty years, we recognise 
 slaves as property, when we say that at the end 
 of twenty years we will cease to allow it, or may 
 cease to do so, is not that denyng them to be 
 property after that period elapses? Suppose I 
 yield to the court all the force they demand, and 
 admit that here is a distinct recognition that this 
 is property, because we recognise that the Afri- 
 can slave trade may exist for twenty years; yet, 
 when we say that after that period has elapsed 
 that protection shall no longer exist, do we not 
 say that after that period of time it no longer is 
 property, nnd ceases to be at the expiration of 
 twenty years ? Certainly, if the argument will 
 work the one way, it must work the other. If 
 you derive the power under the Constitution, be- 
 cause for twenty years it is property, jou lose it 
 vrhen the twenty years elapse, by the same meth- 
 od of argument, 
 
 Mr. MASON. That is nn assumption. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. That is my argument, and 
 it is my answer to the assumption of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. If it is an assump- 
 tion on my part, it is certainly an assumption on 
 theirs. But I lea^■e it to every fair man, on every 
 principle of logic. It depends on that, does it? 
 That died twenty years after the Constitution 
 wtnt into operation. Did not the recognition 
 die with it ? Does the Constitution recognise it 
 after the twenty years have elapsed ? The pow- 
 er is gone. So far as you draw any recognition 
 from that clause, it ceased with the expiration of 
 the period. 
 
 Again, the court say it is protected as proper- 
 ty by the provisions that persons held to service, 
 escaping from one State into another, shall be 
 delivered up. Are they not spoken of as •' per- 
 sons ? " Are they spoken of as property ? Is 
 there anything said about their being property? 
 Does not that provision of the Constitution apply 
 just as well to white apprentices, held under the 
 laws of the different States for a term of years, 
 as it does to slaves? Will you pretend that, by 
 the Constitution of the United States, white per- 
 sons, held as apprentices for a term of years, are 
 property? Certainly', no such position can be 
 maintained. Your argument, if it works at all, 
 must go the whole length, and j'ou must find 
 that the word " person " means property, and 
 may be regularly and legally construed as prop- 
 erty. I have not time now to pursue this topic. 
 
 Then, sir, to sum up the substance of my argu- 
 ment, I wish to say again, that what I consider' 
 this original scheme to have been was to assert 
 popular sovereignty in the first place with a view 
 of rendering the repeal of the Missouri compro- 
 mise in some way palatable ; then to deny it, and 
 avow the establishment of Slavery ; then to legal- 
 ize this by a decision of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, and claim that it had become estab- 
 lished. I sincerely believe that decision of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States was a part 
 of the programme. It was to be had, if having 
 it would avail ; but if not, it would nevei have 
 been had. 
 
21 
 
 Mr. President, the natural result ot all this 
 should htivu been foreseen. The honorable Sen- 
 ator Iri'Tn Illinois, at this day, interposes bis 
 strong iirm lo stay the tide of iSlavery which is 
 setting over Kansas Territory contrary to the ex- 
 press will of her people. He claims to do so, 
 not from any sympathy he has with the general 
 subject, but simply for the purpose of carrying 
 out what he says is the original intent and mean- 
 ing of his favorite bill. From what I have said, 
 I think it is perfectly obvious that he might have 
 foreseen what the result would be. He has gone 
 on, according lo the dictates of his own con- 
 science ; first breaking down the barrier which 
 kept Slavery out of Kansas ; ne,\t protecting and 
 defending every outrage that has been perpetrated 
 in Kansas with a view to force Slavery on that 
 people, up to the time of this last great outrage, 
 when it was attempted to place a Constitution, 
 in the shape it was, before the people, and then 
 send it to Congress ; and now he stays his hand 
 here. Why, sir, with what a vain hope ! Docs 
 the honorable Senator think he can take the 
 prey from the tiger, and not himself be torn 7 
 When was Slavery ever known to stay its march 
 over a free country, unless forced to do so ; and 
 when it had seized it when was it ever known 
 to let go its hold ? It is a part of the system to 
 pay nothing at all for involuntary servitude ; 
 and if the service is voluntary, experience has 
 shown that it must be unlimited, unquestioning, 
 etei'nal. To hesitate is to lose all ; to stop, is to 
 die. The experience of greater men than the 
 Senator from Illinois, and of many smaller ones, 
 might have taught him that lesson. 
 
 Sir, I say that he and the friends who stood 
 by him, in repealing the Missouri compromise 
 at the time it was repealed, should have known 
 what the result was to be, should have known 
 that as the design was to force Slavery into Kan- 
 sas, so Slavery would never leave Kansas unless 
 it was driven out by force. They should have 
 understood what the result was to be ; and it is 
 not enough for them to say now, that they do 
 not, and did not understand it. Well might they 
 quote the language of the greatest poet of this 
 century, and say : 
 
 " The thr.riis which I have reaped are of the tree 
 I pltiiittd ; they have torn me, and I ble-d. 
 I should have known wha'. fruit would spring from such 
 a seed." 
 
 But, sir, what is to be the remedy for all this? 
 What is promised us? The President tells us 
 we are to have peace when this Constitution is 
 adopted, and Kansas comes into the Union as a 
 slave State. He speaks contrary to all philoso- 
 phy. Have we ever had any peace for the last 
 four years on this question ? Has this country 
 been a peaceful country during that time ? The 
 initiation was only then ; and when this matter 
 was initiated, when the Missouri compromise 
 was repealed, did you not witness in this coun- 
 try an excitement which would not die ? And yet 
 we are told now, consummate the iniquity, carry 
 out the cheat, repudiate popular sovereignty, get 
 a decision from a Slavery court that the Con- 
 stitution (shame to it, if so) not only recognises, 
 but protects Slavery on free soil, force Slavery 
 
 on the people of Kansas, by presenting them two 
 Constitutions and telling them to choose one of 
 them, for they shall go no further, and then we 
 shall have peace! 
 
 Sir, let me tell the President of the United 
 States, and all others, that the opposition to 
 Slavery in this country is now a sentiment, an 
 idea — not to Slavery as it exists in the States, 
 not a desire to interfere with your institutions 
 anywhere; but a determination, if possible, to 
 arrest its progress over the free territories of this 
 country, because it is believed to be a curse. 
 Altb.ough that sentiment was covered up in the 
 ashes ot the compromise of 1850, buried so deep 
 that it seemed as if-it would never again spring 
 into life, you yourself exhumed it ; you added 
 fuel to tlie sparks that were buried; you kindled 
 that sentiment into a flame; you have been heap- 
 ing combustible material on it from that day to 
 the present, until at last you are in a fair way to 
 make it a conflagration. Upon you be the con- 
 sequence, if it be so. It is not for the President 
 to cry "Peace!" at, the consummation of an out- 
 rage, when the very beginning of it excited the 
 dctcftation of the community in which he was 
 born and bred. 
 
 But, sir, we go further than that. That is to 
 bo the consequence on the one side. What is to 
 be on the other? We are told that we are to 
 have a crisis, and the Union is to be dissolved. 
 I expressed iny opinion on that topic four years 
 ago. "We have had resolutions in the newspa- 
 pers from the State of Alabama, that if Kansas 
 shall not be admitted tinder the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution, it would be time to look about and see 
 how this Union could hold together. We have 
 had it started in one or two other of the States 
 ot the South. We have had it from the honora- 
 ble Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. Brown,] and 
 from other Senators. They tell us that then will 
 be a crisis; the moment the people of this coun- 
 try get divided into parties, North and South, on 
 a question that is important to them, and the 
 people of the North triumph at the polls under 
 the Constitution, then the timp has arrived, the 
 crisis has come, when the Union is to be dis- 
 solved ! Sir, if I did not think it was to be a 
 Tery serious matter in some respects, I could 
 laugh at this idea. At any rate, it reminds me 
 of a story familiar to all of you, probably, though 
 I never saw it until yesterday. 
 
 This disposition, which gentlemen have on all 
 occasions, to get up a crisis whenever anything 
 looks against their peculiar view of a subject, 
 and to inform us that the time has arrived, with 
 the idea that people can be frightened from their 
 propriety, is illustrated by a story which I saw in 
 the newspapers, something like this: A celebra- 
 ted general in the last war is said, in one of the 
 battles on the advance to the city of Mexico, to 
 have rode up to Captain Duncan, who was in 
 charge of a battery, and, with a very grave and 
 sober face, told him : '' Captain Duncan, hre ; 
 the crisis has arrived." Duncan turned to his 
 men, with matche.'^ all lighted and ready, and 
 gave the order to hre. An old ariiller_v man 
 walked up to him, and sai i : '■ Captain, I do not 
 see any enemy within range of our guns; what 
 
22 
 
 shall we fire at?" "Fire at the crisis,'' was the 
 response; •' did you not hear the General say the 
 crisis has come? Fire at that." [Laughter.] 
 So it is with gentlemen, I think, in reference to 
 this matter. They are always charged and ready 
 to fire at the crisis. 1 believe it has arrived half 
 a dozen times within my recollection. 
 
 What I wish to say on that point is, that I 
 look on it with great seriousness, but without a 
 particle of apprehension. We in the free States 
 have rights under the Constitution of the United 
 States, and we have determination enough to 
 enforce and sustain them. We are not to be 
 driven from the position wfe have assumed by 
 any threats of a disruption of the Union. We 
 have no particular pretentious exclamations to 
 utter with regard to our great attachment to it. 
 Let that attachment be proved by our works. 
 We will stand by the Union of this country so 
 long as it is worth standing by; and let me say 
 to gentlemen, that the moment the time arrives 
 when it is to be used as an argument to us, 
 "you muot jield- on a question which you con- 
 sider vital to your iiUerest and your rights, or we 
 shall take measures to dissolve the Union," my 
 answe* is, that if we do yield, the Union has 
 ceased to have any value for me. So long as I 
 stand upon American soil, a freeman, with equal 
 rights with others, and power to enforce them 
 according to my ability, unrestricted, unrestrain- 
 ed, and unterrified, too, this Union is valuable 
 to me; 'but when the hour comes when that 
 privilege no longer exists, when I hold my rights 
 by the tenure of yielding to weak fears, I am 
 willing to see any consequences follow, so far as 
 I am concerned, or so far as my people are con- 
 cerned. Let not gentlemen indulge themselves 
 with the hope that nil these resolutions passed 
 by Southern Legislatures about dissolving the 
 Union, and all these mass meetings held for the 
 same purpose, and all intimations thrown out 
 here to the same eilcct, are to produce any pos- 
 sible result, so far as the determination of Free 
 State men is concerned on this question. 
 
 The Senator from Mississippi spoke of compro- 
 mises that had been made, and said he wanted 
 no more compromises. Sir, I want no more com- 
 promises on this matter. There is no room for 
 compromises. I agree with him that there have 
 been compromises enough. As addressed to a 
 Northern man, (if the Senate will allow me to 
 quote poetry again, and I shall not trouble them 
 much in that way,) it means this, and this 
 only: 
 
 " Northward it haih this sense alone, 
 Ti at \ou, your cojiscience blinding, 
 SKoul bow your foyPs nose lo the stone. 
 When Slave.ry feels like grinding '' 
 
 Sir, I wish to be ground no more under such 
 compromises. The question that is presented to 
 the people of this country is a simple question : 
 Shall Slavery, with all its blighting and all its 
 political power, be extended over the free Terri- 
 tories of the Union? Not by my consent. Never 
 will I compromise upon one single point, so far 
 as I am individually concerned, that will allow 
 what I consider to be a death blow to all the 
 free princioles of our institutions to be extended 
 
 over orie solitary foe', of fr.e soil beneath the 
 circuit of the sun. 
 
 Subsequently, on the same day, in reply to 
 Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, Mr. FESSENDBN said: 
 
 My physical ability is not very great at any- 
 time, and what I have is well nigh exhausted by 
 the 1( ngth of time during which I have been ob- 
 liged to trespass on the Senate. In what I have 
 lo reply, therefore, to the Senator from Missis- 
 sippi, I must necessarily confine myself to a very 
 brief period. I may take occasion hereafter to 
 review what the Senator has now said, in detail. 
 And although I have wearied the patience of the 
 Senate very much to-day, I suppose it will not 
 preclude me from wearying it as much at another 
 lime, if I see fit to do so. I am, therefore, not 
 particularly alarmed by the threat of the Sena- 
 tor that he will proceed, .it some future occasion, 
 to treat of what has been said on this side of 
 the Chamber to-day, and in which I suppose he 
 referred to me, as 1 have said the principal part 
 of it. 
 
 But I rise for the purpose of saying that I do 
 not recognise his autJaority, in the style which he 
 chooses to assume, to lecture me on the senti- 
 ments that I choose to advance before the Sen- 
 ate. In the first place, I have not attacked the 
 institution ot Slavery in the States where it is 
 established — I have preached no crusade against 
 it. I have expressly disavowed the intention to 
 interfere with it, not because I have any fear of 
 avowing such sentiments, (if I entertained them,) 
 nor because I should hesitate to do so in the 
 presence of the honorable Senator from Missis- 
 sippi. Sir, when the day comes that I shall shrink 
 from stating in this Senate and before the coun- 
 try every sentiment that I entertain — every feel- 
 ing of my heart — with reference to these matters 
 which so miach agitate this country, under the 
 fear of man. or what man can say or man can 
 do ; whenever such considerations shall induce 
 me to hesitate, I will not stay in this body a 
 single hour. I should disgrace the noble State 
 from which I come, and which trusts me here, if 
 I hesitated to speak my opinions as well upon 
 this subject as any other. I will not use the 
 offensive phrase which has been used here some- 
 times with reference to the demeanor of gentle- 
 men towards this side of the Chamber, when we 
 express our opinions on this subject; but I will 
 say to the Senator from Mississippi, most dis- 
 tinctly, and to every other Senator, that while 
 I intend to treat them with all that respect and 
 courtesy which are due from me to them, as 
 having the same rights here, and occupying the 
 same position, they must accord to me the right 
 to speak the sentiments which I entertain, un- 
 awed by any comment or any consequences that 
 may be intimated from any quarter whatever. 
 
 The Senator chooses to place me in the atti- 
 tude of advocating disunion sentiments. I have 
 not sung pffians to the Union or the Constitution. 
 I do not pretend that my life has been so illus- 
 trated by distinguished services to the country 
 as the honorable Senator from Mississippi seems 
 to suppose his has been. I accord to him all 
 the glory and the merit which he may claim for 
 
23 
 
 himself. I attack not him. I respect his char- 
 acter and respect his services ; but, sir, I wish 
 him to understand distinctly, that whatever may 
 be his superiority over me in those particulars, 
 or in any other particulars, on this spot we are 
 his peers. I am the equal of any man in my 
 rights on this floor, and I will exort those rights 
 wherever I choose, within the rules of order, let 
 the consequences be what they may in regard 
 to me ; and if the time comes when I cannot 
 make my hand keep my head, then anybody is 
 welcome to take it. Sir, I have avowed no dis- 
 union sentiments on this floor, neither here nor 
 elsewhere. Can the honorable Senator from Mis- 
 sissippi say as much ? 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. Yes. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEX. I am glad to hear it, then. 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. Yes. I have long sought for a 
 respectable man who would allege the contrary. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I make no allegation. I 
 asked if he could say as much. I am glad to 
 hear him say so, because I must say to him that 
 the newspapers have represented him as making 
 a speech in Mississippi, in which he said he came 
 into General Pierce's Cabinet a disunion man. 
 If he never made it, very well. 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. I will thank you to produce that 
 newspaper. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I cannot produce it, but 
 I can produce an extract from it in another pa- 
 per. 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. An extract, then, that falsifies 
 the text. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I am very glad to hear the 
 Senator say so. I made no accusation. I put 
 the question to him. If he denies it, very well. 
 I only say, that with all the force and energy 
 with which he denies it. so do I. The accusa- 
 tion never has been made against me before. 
 On what ground does the Senator now put it? 
 On the ground that I assert that I am opposed 
 to the extension of Slavery over free territory, 
 and have asserted that the repeal of the Missouri 
 compromise, and the events which have followed 
 it, have been an outrage on the rights of the free 
 States and on the Territory of Kansas, and that 
 I will continue to agitate that subject, so far as 
 that Territory is concerned, so long as I have 
 the power to agitate upon it with any effect. Is 
 that disunion? Does that prove his allegation? 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. Does the Senator ask me for an 
 answer ? 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. Certainly ; if the Senator 
 feels disposed to give one. 
 
 Mr. DAVIS. If you ask me for an answer, it 
 is easy. I said your position was fruitful of 
 such a result. T did not say you avowed the 
 object — nothing of the sort; but the reverse. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN. I am very happy, then, to 
 be corrected in that particular. I understood 
 the Senator to charge me distinctly with disunion 
 sentiments, as undermining the Constitution of 
 the United States. 
 
 Mr. DAVLS. As sentiments that had that 
 effect. 
 
 Mr. FESSENDEN That is a matter of opin- 
 ion, on which 1 have a right to entertain my view 
 as well as the Senator his. That I am under- 
 
 mining the institutions of the country by attack- 
 ing the Supreme Court of the United States! I 
 attack not their decision, for they have made 
 none ; it is their opinion. My belief is, my posi- 
 tion is, that that very opinion, if carried into 
 practice, undermines the institutions of this 
 country. Sir, the institutions of this country 
 stood firm ; they stood upon the doctrines of 
 Freedom, not of Slavery. When the Supreme 
 Court of the United States lay down the doc- 
 trine that the Constitution of the United States 
 recognises Slavery, I do not deny it. The posi- 
 tion I assumed was, that the Constitution of the 
 United States does not recognise slaves as prop- 
 erty ; does not protect them as property. It rec- 
 ognises Slavery as an institution existing in the 
 States ; it provides for certain contingencies ; 
 those contingencies I neither repudiate nor deny, 
 nor attempt to cavil at ; but I do deny the posi- 
 tion which is assumed by the Supreme Court ci" 
 the United States, applied to property as recog- 
 nised by the Constitution beyond the limits of 
 those States. 
 
 I assume, as I have always assumed, that in 
 the Territories no State has any right. There is 
 no such thing as the right of States in a Terri- 
 tory. The rights, if they exist, are the rights of 
 the peo))!e of the States — personal rights ; and 
 when an individual, a citizen of a State, leaves 
 that State with a design to go to another, and 
 passes V'eyond its limits, he loses every right 
 which he had as a citizen of that State, for he 
 ceases to be its citizen. It being a personal 
 right, if you wish to put it on that ground, and 
 wish to divide this Territory according to the 
 interest the people have in it, in proportion to 
 numbers, now much, I ask, would the slavehold- 
 ers of the Union be entitled to? How much 
 would the half a million of slaveholders, with 
 their wives and children, be entitled to out of 
 the Territories of the United States, when put 
 against the more than twenty millions of free 
 people, who have the same rights with them- 
 selves ? And yet the doctrine is taught here, 
 that because in some of the States of the Union 
 .Slavery exists, therefore we are to take the num- 
 ber of States, and on the ground of State rights 
 claim that the territory is to be equally divided, 
 with equal privileges. 
 
 Sir, it is a personal privilege. So far as you 
 may be a slaveholder, and desire to go to the 
 Territories, you nave all the privilege which be- 
 longs to you as an individual. If the Constitu- 
 tion enables and authorizes you to carry slaves 
 there, take them there and try it. I deny the 
 fact. It never was so held until very recently, 
 when individuals of the Supreme Court gave 
 that opinion. When Mr. Calhoun broached the 
 doctrine in the Senate of the United States, it 
 was received with derision, and it died. It hardly 
 had an existence long enough to have it said 
 that it lived ; and when Mr. Calhoun, at a later 
 day, said, as he did say, that if the Supreme 
 Court should decide that the doctrine was not a 
 true one, that decision would be entitled to no re- 
 spect, to no observance, pray, was not he uttering 
 sentiments undermining the Constitution of the 
 United States and our institutions? He said 
 
24 
 
 U en, ill H 8!i|ipofed case, what I say now. He 
 tiiitl tiuii. it liie tJupreme Court established the 
 (toctriue that the Constitution did not carry 
 Slavery into the Territories, that opinion of theirs 
 would be entitled to no respect. I say they have 
 decideii according to his wish, and that decision 
 is .entitled to no respect; lor it is opposed to all 
 the precedents of this Government, and opposed 
 to all the doctrines which lie at the foundation 
 of our institutions, and opposed to the previous 
 decisions of that court. 
 
 Now, the Senator says we are aggressive. 
 Pray, who began the aggression ? Was not this 
 country at peace after the compromise of 1850? 
 Was not the country quiet? Who reopened the 
 agitation? \\ ho introduced the torch of discord 
 among the people of these States ? Those who 
 advocated the repeal of the Missouri restriction. 
 You oi)ened it at a time of prot'ound peace, not 
 we; and we warned you then, that if you insist- 
 ed on it, these flames would be kiudled again, 
 and God only knew hov/ long they would burn. 
 That aggression has been going on in Kansas 
 from that day to the present. It has not ceased 
 even now ; and this issue is presented here in 
 such a shape that the Senator from Illinois is 
 compelled, from a sense of justice and duty, and 
 regard to his own honor, to oppose the further 
 perpetration of the outrages that have taken 
 place there. 
 
 You say that you make no aggressions on us ; 
 you attack none of our interests. Lo.A fit the 
 attack made on them at this very session. The 
 fishing interest is an important m-.itter in this 
 country, protected by the Government of the 
 Uniteii States. Has there been no attack on that? 
 Has not the honorable Senator from Georgia giv- 
 en notice of a bill to repeal all the navigation 
 laws of the United States ? Has he not put that 
 
 question oefore a committee? Is that no attack 
 on the interests of the North ? I am speaking of 
 their interests. I do not feel disposed to argue 
 that matter now, but I regard it as only the be- 
 ginning. I know not how far it will go. I did 
 not allude to it iu the speech which 1 made; 
 but if the Senator asks me for proof of any de- 
 sire on the part of the Southern people to attack 
 the interests ot the North, all I have to say is, 
 look at your policy. You have broken down 
 our manufactures as far as you could. Some of 
 you are now seeking to break down our com- 
 merce, and you ask us what you have uone, and 
 when will we cease our aggressions? Sir, we 
 have been on the defensive from the beginning. 
 We were on t!ie defensive in 1854, when the 
 .Missouri compromise line was repealed. We 
 have been on the defensive ever since; we stand 
 on it to-day. If tiie consequences are injurious 
 to you, blame yourselves for that; we have had 
 no hand in them ; we warned you from the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 Mr. President, 1 did not think I could be drawn 
 out to the extent to which I have been, but I 
 felt It my duly to repel the imputation that I 
 thought was made on me by the honorable Sen- 
 ator from Mississippi. What my sentiments may 
 lead to, I do not know. They are such senti- 
 ments as 1 honestly entertain, such as I have an 
 undoubted right to express, and I do not feel 
 rallied upon to resign my seat here, although the 
 Imuorable Senator from Mississippi intimates 
 that the opinions which I have advanced must 
 be the product eitlier of malice orof ignorance — 
 and I would nilher be accused of the latter than 
 the former. I beg him and the Senate to un- 
 derstand that I believe I know enough to express 
 clearly the sentiments I do entertain, and to up- 
 hold my right to express them. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTEPvS. 
 1858.