emigration from Europe, amounting to some 400,000 persons, there can be no difficulty in inducing some thirty or forty thousand to take the same direction."

*

"Especially will it prove an advantage to Massachusetts, if she create the new state by her foresight, supply the necessities of its inhabitants, and open in the outset communications between their homes and her ports and factories."

"It determines in the right way the institutions of the unsettled territories, in less time than the discussion of them has required in congress."

*

This movement is justified by those who originated and control the plan, upon the ground that the persons whom they sent to Kansas were free men, who, under the constitution and laws, had a perfect right to emigrate to Kansas or any other territory; that the act of emigration was entirely voluntary on their part; and when they arrived in the territory as actual settlers, they had as good a right as any other citizens to vote at the elections, and participate in the control of the government of the territory. This would undoubtedly be true in a case of ordinary emigration, such as has filled up our new states and territories, where each individual has gone, on his own account, to improve his condition and that of his family. But it is a very different thing where a state creates a vast moneyed corporation for the purpose of controlling the domestic institutions of a distinct political community fifteen hundred miles distant, and sends out the emigrants only as a means of accomplishing its paramount political objects. When a powerful corporation, with a capital of five millions of dollars invested in houses and lands, in merchandise and mills, in cannon and rifles, in powder and lead-in all the implements of art, agriculture, and war, and employing a corresponding number of men, all under the management and control of non-resident directors and stockholders, who are authorized by their charter to vote by proxy to the extent of fifty votes each, enters & distant and sparsely settled territory with the fixed purpose of wielding all its power to control the domestic institutions and political destinies of the territory, it becomes a question of fearful import, how far the operations of the company are compatible with the rights and liberties of the people. Whatever may be the extent or limit of congressional authority over the territories, it is clear that no individual state has the right to pass any law or authorize any act concerning or affecting the territories, which it might not enact in reference to any other state.

When the emigrants sent out by the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, and their affiliated societies, passed through the state of Missouri in large numbers on their way to Kansas, the violence of their language, and the unmistakable indications of their determined hostility to the domestic institutions of that state, created apprehensions that the object of the company was to abolitionize Kansas as a means of prosecuting a relentless warfare upon the institution of slavery within the limits of Missouri. These apprehensions increased and spread with the progress of events, until they became the settled convictions of the people of that portion of the state most exposed to the danger by their proximity to the Kansas border. The natural consequence was, that immediate steps were taken by the people of the western counties of Missouri to stimulate, organize, and carry into effect a system of emigration simi

lar to that of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, for the avowed purpose of counteracting the effects, and protecting themselves and their domestic institutions from the consequences of that company's operations.

The material difference in the character of the two rival and conflicting movements consists in the fact that the one had its origin in an aggressive, and the other in a defensive policy. The one was organized in pursuance of the provisions and claiming to act under the authority of a legislative enactment of a distant state, whose internal prosperity and domestic security did not depend upon the success of the movement; while the other was the spontaneous action of the people living in the immediate vicinity of the theatre of operations, excited by a sense of common danger to the necessity of protecting their own firesides from the apprehended horrors of servile insurrection and intestine war. Both parties, conceiving it to be essential to the success of their respective plans that they should be upon the field of operations prior to the first election in the territory, selected principally young men, persons unencumbered by families, and whose conditions in life enabled them to leave at a moment's warning, and move with great celerity, to go at once, and select and occupy the most eligible sites and favored locations in the territory, to be held by themselves and their associates who should follow them. For the successful prosecution of such a scheme, the Missourians, who lived in the immediate vicinity, possessed peculiar advantages over their rivals from the more remote portions of the Union. Each family could send one of its members across the line to mark out his claim, erect a cabin, and put in a small crop, sufficient to give him as valid a right to be deemed an actual settler and qualified voter as those who were being imported by the emigrant aid societies. In an unoccupied territory, where the lands have not been surveyed, and where there were no marks or lines to indicate the boundaries of sections and quarter-sections, and where no legal title could be had until after the surveys should be made, disputes, quarrels, violence, and bloodshed might have been expected as the natural and inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of emigration, which divided and arrayed the settlers into two great hostile parties, each having an inducement to claim more than was his right, in order to hold it for some new comer of his own party, and at the same time prevent persons belonging to the opposite party from settling in the neighborhood. As a result of this state of things, the great mass of emigrants from the northwest and from other states who went there on their own account, with no other object and influence, by no other motives than to improve their condition and secure good homes for their families, were compelled to array themselves under the banner of one of these hostile parties, in order to insure protection to themselves and their claims against the aggressions and violence of the other.

Your committee have not considered it any part of their duty to examine and review each enactment and provision of the large volume of laws adopted by the legislature of Kansas upon almost every rightful subject of legislation, and affecting nearly every relation and interest in life, with a view either to their approval or disapproval by congress, for the reason that they are local

laws, confined in their operation to the internal concerns of the territory, the control and management of which, by the principles of the federal constitution, as well as by the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska act, are confided to the people of the territory, to be determined by themselves through their representstives in their local legislature, and not by the congress, in which they have no representatives to give or withhold their assent to the laws upon which their rights and liberties may all depend. Under these laws marriages have taken place, children have been born, deaths have occurred, estates have been distributed, contracts have been made, and rights have accrued which it is not competent for congress to divest. If there can be a doubt in respect to the validity of these laws, growing out of the alleged irregularity of the election of the members of the legislature, or the lawfulness of the place where its sessions were held, which it is competent for any tribunal to inquire into with a view to its decision at this day, and after the series of events which have ensued, it must be a judicial question, over which congress can have no control, and which can be determined only by the courts of justice, under the protect tion and sanction of the constitution.

When it was proposed in the last congress to annul the acts of the legisla tive assembly of Minnesota, incorporating certain railroad companies, this committee reported against the proposition, and, instead of annulling the local legislation of the territory, recommended the repeal of that clause of the organic act of Minnesota which reserves to congress the right to disapprove its laws. That recommendation was based on the theory that the people of the territory, being citizens of the United States, were entitled to the privilege of self-gov ernment in obedience to the constitution; and if, in the exercise of this right, they had made wise and just laws, they ought to be permitted to enjoy all the advantages resulting from them; while, on the contrary, if they had made unwise and unjust laws, they should abide the consequences of their own acts until they discovered, acknowledged, and corrected their errors.

It has been alleged that gross misrepresentations have been made in respect to the character of the laws enacted by the legislature of Kansas, calculated, if not designed, to prejudice the public mind at a distance against those who enacted them, and to create the impression that it was the duty of congress to interfere and annul them. In view of the violent and insurrectionary measures which were being taken to resist the laws of the territory, a convention of delegates, representing almost every portion of the territory of Kansas, was held at the city of Leavenworth on the 14th of November, 1855, at which men of all shades of political opinions," whigs, democrats, pro-slavery men, and free state men, all met and harmonized together, and forgot their former differences in the common danger that seemed to threaten the peace, good order, and prosperity of this community." This convention was presided over by the governor of the territory, assisted by a majority of the judges of the supreme court; and the address to the citizens of the United States, among other distinguished names, bears the signatures of the United States district attorney and marshal for the territory.

It is but reasonable to assume that the interpretation which these functionaries have given to the acts of the Kansas legislature in this address will be observed in their official exposition and execution of the same. In reference to the wide-spread perversions and misrepresentations of those laws, this address says:

"The laws passed by the legislature have been most grossly misrepresented, with the view of prejudicing the public against that body, and as an excuse for the revolutionary movements in this territory. The limits of this address will not permit a correction of all these misrepresentations; but we will notice some of them, that have had the most wide-spead circulation.

"It has been charged and widely circulated that the legislature, in order to perpetuate their rule, had passed a law prescribing the qualifications of voters, by which it is declared 'that any one may vote who will swear allegiance to the fugitive slave law, the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and pay one dollar.' Such is declared to be the evidence of citizenship, such the qualification of voters. In reply to this, we say that no such law was ever passed by the legislature. The law prescribing the qualification of voters expressly provides that, to entitle a person to vote, he must be twenty-one years of age, an actual inhabitant of this territory, and of the county or district in which he offers to vote, and shall have paid a territorial tax. There is no law requiring him to pay a dollar-tax as a qualification to vote. He must pay a tax it is true, [and this is by no means an unusual requirement in the states;] but whether this tax is levied on his personal or real property, his money at interest, or is a poll-tax, makes no difference; the payment of any territorial tax entitles the person to vote, provided he has the other qualifications provided by law. The act seems to be carefully drawn with the view of excluding all illegal and foreign votes. The voter must be an inhabitant of the territory, and of the county or district in which he offers to vote, and he must have paid a territorial tax. The judges and clerks are required to be sworn, and to keep duplicate poll-boxes; and ample provision is made for contesting elections, and purging the polls of the illegal votes. It is difficult to see how a more guarded law could be framed, for the purpose of protecting the purity of elections and the sanctity of the ballot-box. The law does not require the voter to swear to support the fugitive slave law, or the Kansas and Nebraska bill, unless he is challenged; in that case, he is required to take an oath to support each of these laws. As to the dollar law, [so called,] it is merely a poll-tax, and has no more connection with the right of suffrage than any other tax levied by the territorial authority, and is to be paid whether the party votes or not. It is a mere temporary measure, having no force beyond this year, and was resorted to as such to supply the territorial treasury with the necessary means to carry on the government.

"It has also been charged against the legislature that they elected all of the officers of the territory for six years. This is without any foundation. They elected no officer for six years; and the only civil officers they retain the election of, that occurs to us at present, are the auditor and treasurer of state, and the district attorneys, who hold their offices for four, and not six years. By the organic act, the commissions issued by the governor to the civil officers of the territory all expired on the adjournment of the legislature. To prevent a failure in the local administration, and from necessity, the legislature made a number of temporary appointments, such as probate judge, and two county commissioners, and a sheriff of each county. The probate judge and county commissioners constitute the tribunal for the transaction of county business, and are invested with the power to appoint justices of the peace, constables, county surveyor, recorder, and clerk, etc. Probate judges, county commissioners, sheriffs, etc., are all temporary appointments, and are made elective by the people at the first annual election in 1857. The legislature could not have avoided making some temporary appointments. No eco

tion could have been held without them. There were no judges, justices of the peace, or other officers to conduct an election of any kind, until appointed by the legislature. It was the exercise of a power which the first legislative assembly in every territory must of necessity exercise, in order to put the local government in motion. We see nothing in this to justify revolution or a resort to force. The law for the protection of slave property has also been much misunderstood. The right to pass such a law is expressly stated by Governor Reeder in his inaugural message, in which he says: 'A territorial legislature may undoubtedly act upon the question to a limited and partial extent, and may temporarily prohibit, tolerate or regulate slavery in the territory, and in an absolute or modified form, with all the force and effect of any other legislative act, binding until repealed by the same power that enacted it.' There is nothing in the act itself, as has been charged, to prevent a free discussion of the subject of slavery. Its bearing on society, its morality or expediency, or whether it would be politic or impolitic to make this a slave state, can be discussed here as freely as in any state in this Union, without infringing any of the provisions of the law. To deny the right of a person to hold slaves under the law in this territory is made penal; but beyond this, there is no restriction to the discussion of the slavery question, in any aspect in which it is capablə of being considered. We do not wish to be understood as approving of all the laws passed by the legislature; on the contrary, we would state that there are some that we do not approve of, and which are condemned by public opinion here, and which will, no doubt, be repealed or modified at the meeting of the next legislature. But this is nothing more than what frequently occurs, both in the legislation of congress and of the va rious state legislatures. The remedy for such evils is to be found in public opinion, to which, sooner or later, in a government like ours, all laws must conform."

A few days after Governor Reeder dissolved his official relation with the legislature, on account of the removal of the seat of government, and while that body was still in session, a meeting was called by "many voters," to assemble at Lawrence on the 14th or 15th of August, 1855, "to take into consideration the propriety of calling a territorial convention, preliminary to the formation of a state government, and other subjects of public interest." At that meeting the following preamble and resolutions were adopted with but one dissenting voice:

"WHEREAS, the people of Kansas territory have been since its settlement, and now are, without any law-making power: therefore,

"Be it resolved, that we, the people of Kansas territory, in mass meeting assembled, irrespective of party distinctions, influenced by a common necessity, and greatly desirous of promoting the common good, do hereby call upon and request all bona fide citizens of Kansas territory, of whatever political views and predilections, to consult together in their respective election districts, and in mass convention or otherwise, elect three delegates for each representative of the legislative assembly, by proclamation of Governor Reeder of date 10th March, 1855; said delegates to assemble in convention at the town of Topeka, on the 19th day of September, 1855, then and there to consider and determine upon all subjects of public interest, and particularly upon that having reference to the speedy formation of a state constitution, with an intention of an immediate application to be admitted as a state into the Union of the United States of America."

This meeting, so far as your committee have been able to ascertain, was the first step in that series of proceedings which resulted in the adoption of a constitution and state government, to be put in operation on the 4th of the present