dent, on the 30th January, 1858, received the Lecompton Constitution, with a request from the President of the Convention that it might be submitted to the consideration of Congress. This was done by the message of the 2d February, 1858, from which we have already made several extracts. In this the President recommended the admission of Kansas as a State under the Lecompton Constitution. He says: "The people of Kansas have, then, in their own way,' and in strict accordance with the organic act, framed a constitution and State Government; have submitted the all-important question of slavery to the people, and have elected a governor, a member to represent them in Congress, members of the State Legislature, and other State officers. They now ask admission into the Union under this constitution, which is republican in its form. It is for Congress to decide whether they will admit or reject the State which has thus been created. For my own part, I am decidedly in favor of its admission, and thus terminating the Kansas question. This will carry out the great principle of non-intervention recognized and sanctioned by the organic act, which declares in express language in favor of 'non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States or Territories,' leaving 'the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' In this manner, by localizing the question of slavery and confining it to the people whom it immediately concerned, every patriot anxiously expected that this question would be banished from the halls of Congress, where it has always exerted a baneful influence throughout the whole country."

"If Congress, for the sake of those men who refused to vote for delegates to the convention when they might have excluded slavery from the constitution, and who afterwards refused to vote on the 21st December last, when they might, as they claim, have stricken slavery from the constitution, should now reject the State because slavery remains in the constitution, it is manifest that the agitation on this dangerous subject will be renewed in a more alarming form than it has ever yet assumed."

"As a question of expediency, after the right [of admission] has been maintained, it may be wise to reflect upon the benefits

to Kansas and to the whole country which would result from its immediate admission into the Union, as well as the disasters which may follow its rejection. Domestic peace will be the happy consequence of its admission, and that fine Territory, which has hitherto been torn by dissensions, will rapidly increase in population and wealth, and speedily realize the blessings and the comforts which follow in the train of agricultural and mechanical industry. The people will then be sovereign, and can regulate their own affairs in their own way. If a majority of them desire to abolish domestic slavery within the State, there is no other possible mode by which this can be effected so speedily as by prompt admission. The will of the majority is supreme and irresistible when expressed in an orderly and lawful manner. They can make and unmake constitutions at pleasure. It would be absurd to say that they can impose fetters upon their own power which they cannot afterwards remove. If they could do this, they might tie their own hands for a hundred as well as for ten years. These are fundamental principles of American freedom, and are recognized, I believe, in some form or other, by every State constitution; and if Congress, in the act of admission, should think proper to recognize them, I can perceive no objection to such a course. This has been done emphatically in the constitution of Kansas. It declares in the bill of rights that 'all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit, and therefore they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think proper.' The great State of New York is at this moment governed under a constitution framed and established in direct opposition to the mode prescribed by the previous constitution. If, therefore, the provision changing the Kansas constitution after the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, could by possibility be construed into a prohibition to make such a change previous to that period, this prohibition would be wholly unavailing. The Legislature already elected may, at its very first session, submit the question to a vote of the people whether they will or will not have a convention to amend their

constitution, and adopt all necessary means for giving effect to the popular will."

Every patriot in the country had indulged the hope that the Kansas and Nebraska Act would put a final end to the slavery agitation, at least in Congress, which had for more than twenty years convulsed the country and endangered the Union. This act involved great and fundamental principles, and if fairly carried into effect will settle the question. Should the agitation be again revived, should the people of the sister States be again estranged from each other with more than their former bitterness, this will arise from a cause, so far as the interests of Kansas are concerned, more trifling and insignificant than has ever stirred the elements of a great people into commotion. To the people of Kansas, the only practical difference between admission or rejection depends simply upon the fact whether they can themselves more speedily change the present constitution if it does not accord with the will of the majority, or frame a second constitution to be submitted to Congress hereafter. Even if this were a question of mere expediency, and not of right, the small difference of time, one way or the other, is of not the least importance, when contrasted with the evils which must necessarily result to the whole country from a revival of the slavery agitation.

"In considering this question, it should never be forgotten that, in proportion to its insignificance, let the decision be what it may, so far as it may affect the few thousand inhabitants of Kansas who have from the beginning resisted the constitution and the laws, for this very reason the rejection of the constitution will be so much the more keenly felt by the people of fourteen of the States of this Union, where slavery is recognized under the Constitution of the United States.

"Again: The speedy admission of Kansas into the Union would restore peace and quiet to the whole country. Already the affairs of this Territory have engrossed an undue proportion of public attention. They have sadly affected the friendly relations of the people of the States with each other, and alarmed the fears of patriots for the safety of the Union. Kansas once admitted into the Union, the excitement becomes localized, and

will soon die away for want of outside aliment. Then every difficulty will be settled at the ballot box."

"I have thus performed my duty on this important question, under a deep sense of responsibility to God and my country. My public life will terminate within a brief period; and I have no other object of earthly ambition than to leave my country in a peaceful and prosperous condition, and to live in the affections and respect of my countrymen. The dark and ominous clouds which now appear to be impending over the Union, I conscientiously believe may be dissipated with honor to every portion of it by the admission of Kansas during the present session of Congress; whereas, if she should be rejected, I greatly fear these clouds will become darker and more ominous than any which have ever yet threatened the Constitution and the Union.".

This Message gave rise to a long, exciting, and occasionally violent debate in both Houses of Congress, between the AntiSlavery members and their opponents, which lasted for nearly three months. In the course of it slavery was denounced in every form which could exasperate the Southern people and render it odious to the people of the North; whilst, on the other hand, many of the speeches of Southern members displayed characteristic violence. Thus two sessions of Congress in succession had been in a great degree occupied with the same inflammatory topics, in discussing the affairs of Kansas.

The debate was finally concluded by the passage of the "Act for the admission of the State of Kansas into the Union," of the 4th May, 1858.* This act, which had been reported by a Committee of Conference of both Houses, was passed in the Senate by a vote of 31 to 22, and in the House by a vote of 112 to 103. This was strictly a party vote in both Houses, with the exception of Mr. Douglas, in the Senate, who voted with the minority, and a few so-called Anti-Lecompton Democrats who voted with the minority in the House. This act explicitly recognizes the validity of the proceedings in Kansas which had given birth to the Lecompton Constitution. The preamble recites that

* 11 U. S. Laws, p. 269.

+ Con. Globe, 1857-28, pp. 1899 and 1905.

"Whereas, The people of the Territory of Kansas did, by a Convention of Delegates assembled at Lecompton, on the seventh day of November, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, for that purpose, form for themselves a Constitution and State Government, which Constitution is republican," etc.; and it then proceeds to enact, "That the State of Kansas be, and is hereby, admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, but upon this fundamental condition precedent," etc:

The necessity for this condition precedent arose from the fact that the ordinance of the Convention accompanying the constitution, claimed for the State a cession of the public lands more than six times the quantity which had been granted to other States when entering the Union.* The estimated amount was more than twenty-three million five hundred thousand acres. To such an exaction Congress could not yield. In lieu of this ordinance, therefore, they proposed to submit to a vote of the people of Kansas a proposition reducing the number of acres to be ceded, to that which had been granted to other States. Should this proposition be accepted by the people, then the fact was to be announced by the proclamation of the President; and "thereafter, and without any further proceedings on the part of Congress, the admission of the State of Kansas into the Union, upon an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, shall be complete and absolute."

Such was the condition precedent, which was never fulfilled, because the people by their votes on the 2d of August, 1858, rejected the proposition of Congress, and therefore Kansas was not admitted into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. Notwithstanding this, the recognition by Congress of the regularity of the proceedings in forming the Lecompton Constitution did much good, at least for a season. It diverted the attention. of the people from fighting to voting, a most salutary change. The President, in referring to this subject in his next annual Message of December 6, 1858, uses the following language: "When we compare the condition of the country at the present

*Con. Globe, 1857-'8, p. 1766.