Page images
PDF
EPUB

delivered at this session, by the senator or anybody else. I am glad he makes the correction. I am glad he comes forward, and says in terms which are not to be mistaken--and it is to that point, and to vindicate myself, that I rose now-that an enabling act is not necessary.

I return my thanks for that declaration. We have the senator's authority, and it is a potential authority in the country, that no enabling act is necessary. He goes further, and tells us that the act of submission is not essential. Not only does he say now, and I thank him for saying so, I repeat again, in terms so plain that the whole country will understand, that an enabling act was not necessary-but he says that a submission of the constitution to the people was not necessary. That gets us clear of two troublesome propositions in the discussion of the Kansas question. Let us hear no more of this argument, then, anywhere. If the great chieftain gives up the question, I take it for granted that the subalterns will do it of course, and that hereafter we shall hear no more that Kansas does not present herself properly, because there was no enabling act; and we shall hear no more complaint of Kansas that she did not submit her constitution to the people.

The senator tells us to-day that neither the one nor the other was necessary. All we have to inquire now is, as to whether the constitution she is about to present is the work of her people. What the people desire is to be expressed through the ballot-box. The will of the people, what they desire, is to be ascertained through the ballot-box; and, as I now understand the question, if we shall be enabled to show that the people of Kansas, expressing their will through the ballot-box, under the forms of law, have organized this constitution, then we have nothign beyond that to establish. Two points, I want it noted, are now out of the question-no enabling act is necessary, and no submission of the constitution to the people is necessary. All you are to learn is, whether it is the will of the people.

Then the point which I submit to the senator for his reflection is simply this: Has the will of Kansas been ascertained in the mode and manner prescribed by the laws of the land? Has the ballot-box been thrown open? Have the people been allowed to vote freely? If they have, then I claim that they stand on as good a footing before us to-day as does Minnesota. I ignore the proposition, if it shall be made from any quarter, that you shall compel them to vote whether they will or not. I am glad to see the issue narrowing down; I am glad that we are to have no question except the simple one, is this the work of the people of Kansas? We are not to be embarrassed with vague ideas about enabling acts, or about propositions to submit constitutions to the people. All that is out of the way from this time on. All we have to inquire is, as I said before, has this constitution been made by the people of Kansas, and have we ascertained that fact under the forms of the laws of Kansas? I think, when the proper time comes, we shall be enabled to show that, in the mode pointed out by the law, the fact has been ascertained that the people of Kansas do sustain the constitution.

On the 25th March, 1858, Mr. BROWN continued the debate on the admission of Minnesota as follows:

I am very desirous to vote for the admission of Minnesota. We stand agreed, honorably bound, to admit her, and I shall regret exceedingly

if anything be put into this bill which shall forbid me recording my vote in favor of it. I must say, in all sincerity, that I do not like this proposition to give Minnesota three representatives. I understand that you are to take a census of the population as a starting point, and then. that your authority is to apportion your representation according to the population. I do not understand that it is within the province of Congress to guess the population of an old or a new state, and apportion its representation on mere guess-work. If you are going to guess for Minnesota, why not guess for all the states? If you were about to apportion the representation among other states, and I were to come in here as a representative, and say, the "census was incorrectly taken in my state; I tell you that I believe we have one hundred thousand people more than the census shows," are you to depart from the rule prescribed by the Constitution, and not to apportion the representation according to the census, but according to the guess of a representative from a state? and if so, where are you to drift to? But, sir, this does not happen to be guess-work coming from Minnesota; it is guess-work outside of the state, and made up on the loosest possible calculation. One senator tells us the number of votes, and makes a calculation on the supposition that there are six members of a family to every voter, and thus he brings up the population to two hundred and forty thousand. What sort of a way of taking a census is that? Did the framers f the Constitution ever dream of ascertaining the population of a state by any such rule?

Then, sir, when you come to look at the state, what is it? A new state, to which young and enterprising men have gone, leaving the women and children in the older state, as they always do. Six to a family may be a very good estimate for Rhode Island, or Connecticut, or Virginia, but it is an over-estimate for any new country on the face of the earth; because to such countries men go, and the women and children stay at home. You have got no such population there. This is a proposition to give to Minnesota a representation in the other House of Congress to which her population does not entitle her-a proposition. to unhinge the balance of representation between the states, and to give to one state an advantage over the other states. I protest against it. The census shows that Minnesota has a population of a little over one hundred and forty thousand. Making a liberal estimate for the three counties from which no return has been made, she probably has one hundred and fifty thousand. For the first ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty, she is clearly entitled to a representative. South Carolina has a representative for a fraction, and I believe California had one awarded to her for the largest fraction. The fraction in the case of Minnesota is even larger than that, and I am willing to vote her a representative for that fraction; but I will not vote a representative, ex gratia, on a population which she has not got.

Now that I am on this subject, and as I do not care to worry the Senate again, I may say that, while I shall vote for the admission of this state, desire to do it, mean to do it, and will do it-if you do not put something in the bill that absolutely drives me away from it--I want to do it because I wish to keep faith upon the slavery question. Minnesota comes here and asks for admission as a free state. I would yield more than I would in another case, lest I might be suspected of having broken faith on that point. I want to vote for it; I mean to do

it; I will do it, I say again, unless I am driven from it; but, in doing that, I wish now to say, that I am in no manner to be suspected of approving the constitution of Minnesota. If I thought my vote was thus to be construed, I never could record it in favor of the admission of this state. I do not approve her constitution. There is very much in it to which I object.

I object to the very provision which leads to this debate-that a state shall undertake to say in her constitution how many representatives in Congress she will have. She has no right to say any such thing. I object to other features of her constitution. I object to that clause which fixes the qualification of voters; and I undertake to say it is the most extraordinary that ever found its way into any constitution, state or national. Her constitution prescribes different classes of voters. The first is, "white citizens of the United States." They might as well have said white male citizens, for I believe women are citizens. The next class is, "white persons of foreign birth, who shall have declared their intention to become citizens conformably to the laws of the United States on the subject of naturalization." I object to that. Foreigners who have merely declared their intention to become citizens, in my opinion, ought not to be allowed to vote. What is an intention? It is a myth; it is nothing. A man may to-day have a very bona fide intention to become a citizen, but to-morrow he may have no intention ever to become so; and yet on making a mere declaration of such intention, a man is allowed to take part, not only in the elections of this state, but necessarily in the election of a President of the United States. I would permit no man to take part in the elections of this country who did not owe allegiance to the flag. Until he had sworn his allegiance to the government, and would be guilty of treason in case he took up arms against it, he should have no part or lot in the elections, with my consent. What right has a man who to-morrow may take up arms against your government, and yet commit no treason, to go to the ballot-box and take part in your elections? How many thousands, nay, how many hundreds of thousands of foreigners, unnaturalized, hostile to your country, to your government, and to your Constitution, might, under that clause, vote upon a mere declaration of intention? How are you to punish a refusal to carry out an intention? A man may swear to it honestly; he may swear to it corruptly; but whether honestly or corruptly, you can never ascertain. That is a secret locked up in his own heart; a secret which can only be seen by the eye of the all-seeing Power who ruleth above-a secret not seen of men, and, therefore, not to be punished by men.

That is not all. The next class of voters is, " persons of mixed white and Indian blood, who have adopted the customs and habits of civilizaIs not that beautiful? An Indian who has adopted the habits of civilization is to be allowed to vote. I should like to know what amounts to adopting habits of civilization? I suppose if he put on a pair of pantaloons, a pair of spurs, and a shirt collar, he would then be a Georgia major; and if he got drunk, he would approximate to the highest degree of civilization. [Laughter.] Under that clause, there is not a breechless savage in all Minnesota that cannot be led up to the ballot-box and made to vote.

Mr. MASON. Will the senator allow me to make a suggestion?

[blocks in formation]

Mr. MASON. They possibly intended to model it on the old Scotch usage that I remember having read of in one of the ballads for indicating the approach of the Highland men to civilization-when they put on pantaloons and left off cattle stealing. [Laughter.]

Mr. BROWN. I do not know how that is; but the language is, "habits of civilization."

Mr. TOOMBS. I ask my friend from Mississippi, does he at all dispute the right of Minnesota to allow anybody she pleases to vote within her limits?

Mr. BROWN. No, sir.

Mr. TOOMBS. Then cui bono the argument?

Mr. BROWN. I am making it for the same reason that my friend from Ohio [Mr. Pugh] the other day moved his amendment to the Kansas bill-not that I think there is anything in it, but I want to keep down clamor. I do not want to be misunderstood on this subject. I do not want to be understood as in any manner approving these provisions of this constitution when I vote for the admission of Minnesota; and therefore I point them out and comment upon them, and file my protest against them, so as to exclude any such conclusion hereafter. That is my whole object in doing it. I said in the outset, that if I supposed myself responsible for this constitution, or am to be considered as approving it, I could not vote to admit the state. I do not believe that any state, old or new, ought to have any such provisions in its constitution. I feel that I have no power to strike them out; and if I had, my notion of state rights and state sovereignty is, that if Minnesota chose, she could put them back again to-morrow. I cannot control them; I can say, and will say, that I do not approve them. I do not say that I shall vote against this bill, even if you allow Minnesota three representatives; yet I do not well see how I can vote for it then, with my notions of what is right. I hope the Senate will do no such thing. Minnesota the two representatives to which her census entitles her, and then I think there can be no further controversy. If she has any right. to ask another representative on guess-work, I do not know but that I shall ask another for Mississippi. She has been populating very fast, and has a great many more people than she had when the last census was taken. I know that census in many counties was imperfectly taken. Let us stick to the record; to the census, as made under the Constitution. Make your apportionment according to that, and you will always be right, or somewhere in the neighborhood of it.

Give

ADMISSION OF KANSAS.*

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, FEBRUARY 3d AND 4th, 1858, ON THE ADMISSION OF KANSAS UNDER THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.

WELL, Mr. President, I must say to senators that I intend to address myself to this question with as much deliberation as possible. I do not intend to occupy any extraordinary time; but as the evening is drawing on, if any of them choose to go away while I am speaking, and occupy their time elsewhere, I shall take it not at all unkind. What I have to say is not designed to influence the votes of senators, and especially not the votes of Republican senators. Like Ephraim, they are joined to their idols, and I shall let them alone. I may have something to say in the progress of my remarks which ought to have influence on the minds of Democratic senators inclined to differ with me in opinion on this question; but even if they do not choose to remain in the chamber, I shall not take it as at all unkind if they go away.

On a former occasion, I called attention to the fact that, at the beginning of the Kansas controversy, we expressly enacted that Kansas was to be admitted into the Union when she came to form her state constitution, with or without slavery, as her people should determine; that all of us who voted for that proposition thenceforward stood committed to the admission of the state. I asked then, as I ask now,

*On the 23d of December, 1857, Mr. BROWN, in advance of this speech, made the following remarks :

"I rise for the purpose of moving a postponement of this question, and I avail myself of the courtesy of the senator from Delaware to say that when the Senate shall meet again I shall have some views of my own to express on the matters involved in this debate. I desire simply to say now, on a single point, that I stand where I stood at the last session of Congress, and that nothing which transpired in Kansas on Monday last is to change my position. If the election on Monday was a fair one, as I hope it was, in which all parties were allowed freely and without hinderance to take part, and Kansas asks admission as a free state, I stand upon the record in favor of her admission. If, on the other hand, she asks admission as a slave state, I shall expect those who entered into the compact with us during the last session of Congress to abide by their pledges and vote for her admission.

"As I intend to speak on the question, I feel it due to myself to say this in advance of any intelligence from Kansas. Of what may have transpired there on Monday, of course I know nothing, and no one else knows anything; but whatever it may have been, I am prepared to stand by it, if the election has been fair; that is, if a fair opportunity was offered to all parties to vote. If my friends have thought proper to retire voluntarily from the polls and allow the election to go by default, that is their business and it shall not change my policy here. If, on the other hand, the friends of other gentlemen have absented themselves from the polls and allowed the election to go by default, they ought not, in my judgment, to change their policy. What I wish to be understood as distinctly saying is, that so far as those who had the management of the election are concerned, they should have held the scales of justice in equal balance between the parties, and if all who desired to cast their ballots according to law had an opportunity to do so, whether they exercised the right or not, is a question which shall not weigh a feather on my mind.

66

Waiving that point, simply indicating that I have some purpose to express my views on the main question, if no other senator desires to ask the courtesy of the senator from Delaware, I move the further postponement of this question until the 4th day of January, when the Senate will again be in session."

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »