Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

“But the people of Florida respectfully insist that their
right to be admitted into the Federal Union as a State is not
dependent upon the fact of their having a population equal
to such ratio. Their right to admission, it is conceived,
is guarantied by the express pledge in the sixth article of
the treaty [with Spain] before quoted; and if any rule as to
the number of population is to govern, it should be that in
existence at the time of the cession, which was thirty-five
thousand.[100] They submit, however, that any ratio of
representation, dependent on legislative action, based solely
on convenience and expediency, shifting and vacillating as the
opinion of a majority of Congress may make it, now greater than
at a previous apportionment, but which a future Congress may
prescribe to be less, cannot be one of the _constitutional_
‘PRINCIPLES’ referred to in the treaty, consistency with
which, by its terms, is required. It is, in truth, but a mere
regulation, not founded on principle. No specific number
of population is required by any recognized principle as
necessary in the establishment of a free Government.… It is
in no wise ‘_inconsistent with the principles of the Federal
Constitution_’ that the population of a State should be less
than the ratio of Congressional representation. The very case
is provided for in the Constitution. With such deficient
population, she would be entitled to one Representative. If
any event should cause a decrease of the population of one
of the States even to a number below the _minimum_ ratio of
representation prescribed by the Constitution, she would
still remain a member of the Confederacy, and be entitled to
such Representative. It is respectfully urged, that a rule or
principle which would not justify the _expulsion_ of a State
with a deficient population, on the ground of inconsistency
with the Constitution, should not exclude or prohibit
_admission_.”[101]

Thus, Sir, do the people of Florida plead for the people of Kansas.

Distrusting the objection from inadequacy of population, it is said that _the proceedings for the formation of a new State are fatally defective in form_. It is not asserted that a previous enabling Act of Congress is indispensable; for there are notorious precedents the other way: among which are Kentucky, in 1791; Tennessee, in 1796; Maine, in 1820; and Arkansas and Michigan, in 1836. But it is urged that in no instance has a State been admitted whose Constitution was formed without such enabling Act, or without authority of the Territorial Legislature. This is not true; for California came into the Union with a Constitution formed not only without any previous enabling Act, but also without any sanction from a Territorial Legislature. The proceedings which ended in this Constitution were initiated by the military Governor there, acting under the exigency of the hour. This instance may not be identical in all respects with that of Kansas; but it displaces completely one of the assumptions which Kansas now encounters, and it completely shows the disposition to relax all rule, under the exigency of the occasion, in order to do substantial justice.

There is a memorable instance, which contains in itself every element of irregularity which you denounce in the proceedings of Kansas. Michigan, now cherished with such pride as a sister State, achieved admission into the Union in persistent defiance of all rule. Do you ask for precedents? Here is a precedent for the largest latitude, which you who profess deference to precedent cannot disown. Mark now the stages of this case. The first proceedings of Michigan were without any previous enabling Act of Congress; and she presented herself at your door with a Constitution thus formed, and with Senators chosen under that Constitution, precisely as Kansas does. This was in December, 1835, while Andrew Jackson was President. The leaders of the Democracy at that time scouted all objection for alleged defects of form, employing language strictly applicable to Kansas. There is nothing new under the sun; and the very objection of the President, that the application of Kansas proceeds from “persons acting against authorities duly constituted by Act of Congress,”[102] was hurled against the application of Michigan, in debate on this floor. This was the language of Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana:--

“But the people of Michigan, in presenting their Senate and
House of Representatives as the legislative power existing
there, _showed that they had trampled upon and violated the
laws of the United States establishing a Territorial Government
in Michigan_. These laws were, or ought to be, in full force
there; but, by the character and position assumed, they had set
up a Government antagonist to that of the United States.”[103]

To this impeachment Mr. Benton replied in these effective words:--

“Conventions were original acts of the people. They depended
upon inherent and inalienable rights. The people of any
State may at any time meet in Convention, without a law of
their Legislature, and without any provision, or against any
provision, in their Constitution, and may alter or abolish the
whole frame of Government as they please. The sovereign power
to govern themselves was in the majority, and they could not be
divested of it.”[104]

Mr. Buchanan vied with Mr. Benton in vindicating the new State.

“The precedent in the case of Tennessee … has completely
silenced all opposition in regard to the necessity of a
previous Act of Congress to enable the people of Michigan to
form a State Constitution. It now seems to be conceded that our
subsequent approbation is equivalent to our previous action.
This can no longer be doubted. _We have the unquestionable
power of waiving any irregularities in the mode of framing the
Constitution, had any such existed._”[105]

“He did hope that by this bill all objections would be
removed,--and that this State, so ready to rush into our
arms, would not be repulsed, _because of the absence of some
formalities which perhaps were very proper, but certainly not
indispensable_.”[106]

After an animated contest in the Senate, the bill for the admission of Michigan, _on her assent to certain conditions_, was passed, by 23 yeas to 8 nays. You find weight, as well as numbers, on the side of the new State. Among the yeas were Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, Silas Wright, of New York, and William R. King, of Alabama.[107] Subsequently, on motion of Mr. Buchanan, the gentlemen sent as Senators and Representative by the new State received the regular compensation for attendance throughout the very session in which their seats had been so acrimoniously contested.[108]

In the House of Representatives the application was equally successful. The Committee on the Judiciary, in an elaborate report, reviewed the objections, and, among other things, said:--

“That the people of Michigan have without due authority formed
a State Government; but, nevertheless, _that Congress has
power to waive any objection which might on that account be
entertained_ to the ratification of the Constitution which they
have adopted, and to admit their Senators and Representatives
to take their seats in the Congress of the United States.”[109]

The House sustained this view by a vote of 153 yeas to 45 nays. In this large majority, by which the title of Michigan was then recognized, will be found the name of Franklin Pierce, at that time a Representative from New Hampshire.

But the case was not ended. The fiercest trial and the greatest irregularity remained. The Act providing for the admission of the new State contained a modification of its boundaries, and proceeded to require, as _a fundamental condition_, that these should “receive the assent of a Convention of delegates elected by the people of the said State, for the sole purpose of giving the assent herein required.”[110] Such a Convention, duly elected under call from the Legislature, met in pursuance of law, and, after consideration, declined to come into the Union on the condition proposed. The action of this Convention was not universally satisfactory; and in order to effect admission into the Union, another Convention was called, _professedly_ by the people in their sovereign capacity, without authority from State or Territorial Legislature,--nay, Sir, borrowing the language of the present President, “against authorities duly constituted by Act of Congress,” at least as much as the recent Convention in Kansas. The irregularity of this Convention was increased by the circumstance that two of the oldest counties of the State, comprising a population of some 25,000 souls, refused to take part in it, even to the extent of not opening the polls for the election of delegates, claiming that it was held without warrant of law, and in defiance of the legal Convention. This popular Convention, though wanting popular support coextensive with the State, yet proceeded, by formal act, to give the assent of the people of Michigan to the fundamental condition proposed by Congress.

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

“This latter Convention was not held or elected by virtue of
any Act of the Territorial or State Legislature. It originated
from the People themselves, and was chosen by them in pursuance
of resolutions adopted in primary assemblies held in the
respective counties.”[111]

And the President then declares, that, had these proceedings come to him during the recess of Congress, he should have felt it his duty, on being satisfied that they emanated from a Convention of delegates elected _in point of fact by the People of the State_, to issue his proclamation for the admission of the State.

The Committee on the Judiciary in the Senate, of which Felix Grundy was Chairman, after inquiry, recognized the competency of the popular Convention, as “elected by the People of the State of Michigan,” and reported a bill, responsive to their acceptance of the proposed condition, for the admission of the State without further terms.[112] Then, Sir, appeared the very objections now directed against Kansas. It was complained, that the movement for immediate admission was the work of “a minority,” and that “a great majority of the State feel otherwise.”[113] And a leading Senator, of great ability and integrity, Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, broke forth in catechism which would do for the present hour. He exclaimed:--

“What evidence had the Senate of the organization of the
Convention? of the organization of the popular assemblies who
appointed their delegates to that Convention? None on earth.
Who they were that met and voted we had no information. Who
gave the notice? And for what did the People receive that
notice? To meet and elect? What evidence was there that the
Convention acted according to law? Were the delegates sworn?
And if so, they were extrajudicial oaths, and not binding
upon them.… Were the votes counted? In fact, it was not
a proceeding under the forms of law, for they were totally
disregarded.”[114]

And the same able Senator, on another occasion, after exposing the imperfect evidence with regard to the action of the Convention, existing only in letters and in an article from a Detroit newspaper, again exclaimed:--

“This, Sir, is the evidence to support an organic law of a
new State about to enter the Union,--yes, of an organic law,
the very highest act a community of men can perform: letters
referring to other letters, and a scrap of a newspaper!”[115]

It was Mr. Calhoun, however, who pressed the opposition with the most persevering intensity. In his sight, the admission of Michigan, under the circumstances, “would be the most monstrous proceeding under our Constitution, that can be conceived, the most repugnant to its principles and dangerous in its consequences.”[116] “There is not,” he exclaimed, “one particle of official evidence before us. We have nothing but the private letters of individuals, who do not know even the numbers that voted on either occasion. They know nothing of the qualifications of voters, nor how their votes were received, nor by whom counted.”[117] And he proceeded to characterize the popular Convention as “not only a party caucus, for party purpose, but a criminal meeting,--a meeting to subvert the authority of the State, and to assume its sovereignty,”--adding, that “the actors in that meeting might be indicted, tried, and punished.”[118] And he expressed astonishment that “a self-created meeting, convened for a criminal object, had dared to present to this Government an act of theirs, and to expect that we are to receive this irregular and criminal act, as a fulfilment of the condition which we had prescribed for the admission of the State.”[119] No stronger words are employed against Kansas.

The single question on which all the proceedings then hinged, and which is as pertinent in the case of Kansas as in the case of Michigan, was thus put by Mr. Morris, of Ohio: “_Will Congress recognize as valid, constitutional, and obligatory, without the color of a law of Michigan to sustain it, an act done by the People of that State in their primary assemblies, and acknowledge that act as obligatory on the constituted authorities and Legislature of the State?_”[120] This question, thus distinctly presented, was answered in debate by able Senators, among whom were Mr. Benton and Mr. King. There was one person, who has since enjoyed much public confidence, and left many memorials of an industrious career in the Senate and in diplomatic life, James Buchanan, who rendered himself conspicuous by the ability and ardor with which, against all assault, he upheld the cause of the popular Convention, which was so strongly denounced, and the entire conformity of its proceedings with the genius of American Institutions. His speeches on that occasion contain an unanswerable argument at all points, _mutato nomine_, for the immediate admission of Kansas under her present Constitution; nor is there anything by which he is now distinguished that will redound so truly to his fame, if he only continues true to them. The question was emphatically answered in the Senate by the final vote on the passage of the bill, where we find 25 yeas to only 10 nays. In the House of Representatives, after debate, the question was answered in the same way, by a vote, on ordering the bill to a third reading, of 140 yeas to 57 nays; and among the yeas is again the name of FRANKLIN PIERCE, a Representative from New Hampshire.

Thus, in that day, by triumphant votes, did the cause of Kansas prevail in the name of Michigan. A popular Convention, called absolutely without authority, and containing delegates from a portion only of the population,--called, too, in opposition to constituted authorities, and in derogation of another Convention assembled under forms of law,--stigmatized as a caucus and a criminal meeting, whose authors were liable to indictment, trial, and punishment,--was, after ample debate, recognized by Congress as valid; and Michigan now holds her place in the Union, and her Senators sit on this floor, by virtue of that act. Sir, if Michigan is legitimate, Kansas cannot be illegitimate. You bastardize Michigan, when you refuse to recognize Kansas.

But this is not all. The precedent is still more clinching. Thus far I have followed exclusively the public documents laid before Congress, and illustrated by the debates of that body; but well-authenticated facts, not of record here, make the case stronger still. It is sometimes said that the proceedings in Kansas are defective because they originated in a party. This is not true; but even if it were true, yet would they find support in the example of Michigan, where all the proceedings, stretching through successive years, began and ended in party. The proposed State Government was pressed by the Democrats as a _party test_; and all who did not embark in it were denounced. Of the Legislative Council which called the first Constitutional Convention in 1835, all were Democrats; and in the Convention itself, composed of eighty-seven members, only seven were Whigs. The Convention of 1836 which gave the final assent originated in a Democratic Convention, on the 29th of October, in the County of Wayne, composed of one hundred and twenty-four delegates, all Democrats, who proceeded to resolve:--

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

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

The precedent of Michigan has another feature, which is entitled to gravest attention, especially at this moment, when citizens exerting themselves to establish a State Government in Kansas are openly arrested on the charge of treason, and we are startled by tidings of maddest efforts to press this procedure of preposterous Tyranny. No such madness prevailed under Andrew Jackson,--although, during the long pendency of the Michigan proceedings, for more than fourteen months, the Territorial Government was entirely ousted, and the State Government organized in all its departments. One hundred and thirty-seven different legislative acts and resolutions were passed, providing for elections, imposing taxes, erecting corporations, and organizing courts of justice, including a Supreme Court and a Court of Chancery. All process was issued in the name of the People of the State of Michigan. And yet no attempt was made to question the legal validity of these proceedings, whether legislative or judicial. Least of all did any menial Governor, “dressed in a little brief authority,” play the fantastic tricks now witnessed in Kansas; nor did any person wearing the robes of justice shock high Heaven with the mockery of injustice now enacted by emissaries of the President in that Territory. No, Sir: nothing of this kind then occurred. Andrew Jackson was President.

Again I say, do you require a precedent? I give it. But I will not stake this cause on any precedent. I plant it firmly on the fundamental principle of American Institutions, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, by which government is recognized as deriving its just powers only _from the consent of the governed_, who may alter or abolish it, when it becomes destructive of their rights. In the debate on the Nebraska Bill, at the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, the Declaration of Independence was denounced as “a self-evident lie.” It is only by similar effrontery that the fundamental principle which sustains the proceedings in Kansas can be assailed. Nay, more: you must disown the Declaration of Independence, and adopt the Circular of the Holy Alliance, which declares that “useful or necessary changes in legislation and in the administration of states _ought to emanate only from the free will and the deliberate and enlightened impulse of those whom God, has rendered responsible for power_.”[121] Face to face I put the principle of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of the Holy Alliance, and bid them grapple. “The one places the remedy in the hands which _feel_ the disorder; the other places the remedy in those hands which _cause_ the disorder”; and when I thus truthfully characterize them, I but adopt a sententious phrase from the Debates in the Virginia Convention on the adoption of the National Constitution.[122] And now these two principles, embodied in the rival propositions of the Senator from New York and the Senator from Illinois, must grapple on this floor.

Statesmen and judges, publicists and authors, with names of authority in American history, espouse and vindicate the American principle. Hand in hand they now stand around Kansas, and feel this new State lean on them for support. I content myself with adducing two only, both from slaveholding Virginia, in days when Human Rights were not without support in that State. Listen to the language of St. George Tucker, the distinguished commentator upon Blackstone, uttered from the bench in a judicial opinion.

“The power of convening the legal Assemblies, or the ordinary
constitutional Legislature, _resided solely in the Executive_.
They could neither be chosen without writs issued by its
authority, nor assemble, when chosen, but under the same
authority. The Conventions, on the contrary, were chosen and
assembled either in pursuance of recommendations from Congress
or from their own bodies, _or by the discretion and common
consent of the people_. They were held even whilst a legal
Assembly existed.… The Convention, then, was not the ordinary
Legislature of Virginia. It was the body of the people,
impelled to assemble from a sense of common danger, consulting
for the common good, and acting in all things for the common
safety.”[123]

Listen also to the language of James Madison:--

“That, in all great changes of established governments, forms
ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in
such cases to the former would render nominal and nugatory
the transcendent and precious right of the people to ‘abolish
or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness.’ … Nor could it have
been forgotten _that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for
adhering to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those
who wished to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity
to the substance contended for_.”[124]

Proceedings thus sustained I am unwilling to call _revolutionary_, although this term has the sanction of the Senator from New York. They are founded on unquestionable American right, declared with Independence, confirmed by the blood of the Fathers, and expounded by patriots, which cannot be impeached without impairing the liberties of all. On this head the language of Mr. Buchanan, in reply to Mr. Calhoun, is explicit.

“Does the gentleman [Mr. CALHOUN] contend, then, that,
if, in one of the States of this Union, the Government be
so organized as utterly to destroy the right of equal
representation, there is no mode of obtaining redress, but
by an Act of the Legislature authorizing a Convention, or by
open rebellion? Must the people step at once from oppression
to open war? Must it be either absolute submission or absolute
revolution? _Is there no middle course?_ I cannot agree with
the Senator. I say that the whole history of our Government
establishes the principle that the people are sovereign, and
that a majority of them can alter or change their fundamental
laws at pleasure. _I deny that this is either rebellion or
revolution. It is an essential and a recognized principle in
all our forms of government._”[125]

Surely, Sir, if ever there was occasion for the exercise of this right, the time had come in Kansas. The people there were subjugated by a horde of foreign invaders, and brought under a tyrannical code of revolting barbarity, while among them property and life were exposed to shameless assaults which flaunted at noonday, and to reptile abuses which crawled in the darkness of night. _Self-defence is the first law of Nature_; and unless this law is temporarily silenced, as all other law is silenced there, you cannot condemn the proceedings in Kansas. Here, Sir, is unquestionable authority, _in itself an overwhelming law_, which belongs to all countries and times,--which is the same in Kansas as at Athens and Rome,--which is now, and will be hereafter, as it was in other days,--in presence of which Acts of Congress and Constitutions are powerless as the voice of man against the thunder which rolls through the sky,--which declares itself coëval with life,--whose very breath is life itself; and now, in the last resort, do I place all these proceedings under this supreme safeguard, which you will assail in vain. Any opposition must be founded on absolute perversion of facts, or perversion of fundamental principles, which no speeches can uphold, though surpassing in numbers the myriad piles sunk in the mud to sustain the Dutch Stadthouse at Amsterdam.

* * * * *

Thus, on every ground of precedent, whether as regards population or forms of proceeding,--also, on the vital principle of American Institutions,--and, lastly, on the supreme law of self-defence, do I now invoke the power of Congress to admit Kansas at once and without hesitation into the Union. “New States _may_ be admitted by the Congress into this Union”: such are the words of the Constitution. If you hesitate for want of precedent, then do I appeal to the great principle of American Institutions. If, forgetting the origin of the Republic, you turn away from this principle, then, in the name of human nature, trampled down and oppressed, but aroused to just self-defence, do I plead for the exercise of this power. Do not hearken, I pray you, to the propositions of Tyranny and Folly; do not be ensnared by that other proposition of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS], where is the horrid root of Injustice and Civil War; but apply gladly, and at once, the True Remedy, where are Justice and Peace.

* * * * *

Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and I stand now at the goal. The argument in its various parts is here closed. The Crime against Kansas has been displayed in its origin and extent, beginning with the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, next cropping out in conspiracy on the borders of Missouri, then hardening into continuity of outrage through organized invasion and miscellaneous assaults where all security was destroyed, and ending at last in the perfect subjugation of a generous people to an unprecedented Usurpation. Turning aghast from the Crime, which, like murder, confesses itself “with most miraculous organ,” we have looked with mingled shame and indignation upon the four Apologies, whether of Tyranny, Imbecility, Absurdity, or Infamy, in which it is wrapped, marking especially false testimony, congenial with the original Crime, against the Emigrant Aid Company. Then were noted, in succession, the four Remedies, whether of Tyranny, Folly, Injustice and Civil War, or of Justice and Peace, which last bids Kansas, in conformity with past precedents and under exigencies of the hour, for redemption from Usurpation, to take her place as a State of the Union; and this is the True Remedy. If in this argument I have not unworthily vindicated Truth, then have I spoken according to my desires,--if imperfectly, then only according to my powers. But there are other things, not belonging to the argument, which still press for utterance.

* * * * *

Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, with the education of freemen and the rights of American citizens, now stand at your door. Will you send them away, or bid them enter? Will you push them back to renew their struggle with a deadly foe, or will you preserve them in security and peace? Will you cast them again into the den of Tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts to escape? These questions I put with no common solicitude, for I feel that on their just determination depend all the most precious interests of the Republic; and I perceive too clearly the prejudices in the way, and the accumulating bitterness against this distant people, now claiming a simple birthright, while I am bowed with mortification, as I recognize the President of the United States, who should have been a staff to the weak and a shield to the innocent, at the head of this strange oppression.

At every stage the similitude between the wrongs of Kansas and those other wrongs against which our fathers rose becomes more apparent. Read the Declaration of Independence, and there is hardly an accusation against the British Monarch which may not now be hurled with increased force against the American President. The parallel has fearful particularity. Our fathers complained, that the King had “sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance,”--that he had “combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, _giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation_,”--that he had “abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and _waging war against us_,”--that he had “excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and _endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless savages_,”--that “our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” And this arraignment was aptly followed by the damning words, that “a Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” And surely the President who does all these things cannot be less unfit than a Prince. At every stage the responsibility is brought directly to him. His offence is of commission and omission. He has done that which he ought not to have done, and has left undone that which he ought to have done. By his activity the Prohibition of Slavery was overturned. By his failure to act the honest emigrants in Kansas are left a prey to wrong of all kinds. His activity and inactivity are alike fatal. And now he stands forth the most conspicuous enemy of that unhappy Territory.

As the tyranny of the British King is all renewed in the President, so are renewed on this floor the old indignities which embittered and fomented the troubles of our fathers. The early petition of the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of Independence, was opposed--like the petitions of Kansas--because that body “was assembled without any requisition on the part of the Supreme Power.” Another petition from New York, presented by Edmund Burke, was flatly rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to Parliament. And still another petition from Massachusetts Bay was dismissed as “vexatious and scandalous,” while the patriot philosopher who bore it was exposed to peculiar contumely. Throughout the debates our fathers were made the butt of sorry jest and supercilious assumption. And now these scenes, with these precise objections, are renewed in the American Senate.

With regret I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER], who, omnipresent in this debate,[126] overflows with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas has applied for admission as a State, and, with incoherent phrase, discharges the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make,--with so much of passion, I gladly add, as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure--with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in details of statistics or diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his mouth, but out there flies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar with the life of Franklin; and yet he referred to this household character, while acting as agent of our fathers in England, as above suspicion: and this was done that he might give point to a false contrast with the agent of Kansas,[127]--not knowing, that, however the two may differ in genius and fame, they are absolutely alike in this experience: that Franklin, when intrusted with the petition of Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker where he could not be heard in defence, and denounced as “thief,” even as the agent of Kansas is assaulted on this floor, and denounced as “forger.” And let not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by parallel with the British statesmen of that day; for it is only in hostility to Freedom that any parallel can be found.

But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities of the Senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as he announces, “from a State,”--ay, Sir, from South Carolina,--he turns with lordly disgust from this newly formed community, which he will not recognize even as “a member of the body politic.”[128] Pray, Sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism? Has he read the history of the “State” which he represents? He cannot, surely, forget its shameful imbecility from Slavery, confessed throughout the Revolution, followed by its more shameful assumptions for Slavery since. He cannot forget its wretched persistence in the slave-trade, as the very apple of its eye, and the condition of its participation in the Union. He cannot forget its Constitution, which is republican only in name, confirming power in the hands of the few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators on “a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of land _and_ ten negroes.”[129] And yet the Senator to whom this “State” has in part committed the guardianship of its good name, instead of moving with backward-treading steps to cover its nakedness, rushes forward, in the very ecstasy of madness, to expose it, by provoking comparison with Kansas. South Carolina is old; Kansas is young. South Carolina counts by centuries, where Kansas counts by years. But a beneficent example may be born in a day; and I venture to declare, that against the two centuries of the older “State” may be set already the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in the younger community. In the one is the long wail of Slavery; in the other, the hymn of Freedom. And if we glance at special achievement, it will be difficult to find anything in the history of South Carolina which presents so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as shines in that repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where even the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The matrons of Rome who poured their jewels into the treasury for the public defence, the wives of Prussia who with delicate fingers clothed their defenders against French invasion, the mothers of our own Revolution who sent forth their sons covered over with prayers and blessings to combat for Human Rights, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these women on this occasion. Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to the day of the last election of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civilization might lose--I do not say how little, but surely less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in that valiant struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration. Already in Lawrence alone are newspapers and schools, including a High School,--and throughout this infant Territory there is more of educated talent, in proportion to its inhabitants, than in his vaunted “State.” Ah, Sir, I tell the Senator, that Kansas, welcomed as a Free State, “a ministering angel shall be” to the Republic, when South Carolina, in the cloak of darkness which she hugs, “lies howling.”[130]

The Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] naturally joins the Senator from South Carolina, and gives to this warfare the superior intensity of his nature. He thinks that the National Government has not completely proved its power, as it has never hanged a traitor,--but, if occasion requires, he hopes there will be no hesitation; and this threat is directed at Kansas, and even at the friends of Kansas throughout the country. Again occurs a parallel with the struggles of our fathers; and I borrow the language of Patrick Henry, when, to the cry from the Senator of “Treason! treason!” I reply, “If this be treason, make the most of it.” Sir, it is easy to call names; but I beg to tell the Senator, that, if the word “traitor” is in any way applicable to those who reject a tyrannical Usurpation, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, then must some new word, of deeper color, be invented to designate those mad spirits who would endanger and degrade the Republic, while they betray all the cherished sentiments of the Fathers and the spirit of the Constitution, that Slavery may have new spread. Let the Senator proceed. Not the first time in history will a scaffold become the pedestal of honor. Out of death comes life, and the “traitor” whom he blindly executes will live immortal in the cause.

“For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn.”[131]

Among these hostile Senators is yet another, with all the prejudices of the Senator from South Carolina, but without his generous impulses, who, from his character before the country, and the rancor of his opposition, deserves to be named: I mean the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON], who, as author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, has associated himself with a special act of inhumanity and tyranny. Of him I shall say little, for he has said little in this debate, though within that little was compressed the bitterness of a life absorbed in support of Slavery. He holds the commission of Virginia; but he does not represent that early Virginia, so dear to our hearts, which gave to us the pen of Jefferson, by which the equality of men was declared, and the sword of Washington, by which Independence was secured: he represents that other Virginia, from which Washington and Jefferson avert their faces, where human beings are bred as cattle for the shambles, and a dungeon rewards the pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bondage by reading the Book of Life.[132] It is proper that such a Senator, representing such a State, should rail against Free Kansas.

Such as these are natural enemies of Kansas, and I introduce them with reluctance, simply that the country may understand the character of the hostility to be overcome. Arrayed with them are all who unite, under any pretext or apology, in propagandism of Human Slavery. To such, indeed, time-honored safeguards of popular rights can be a name and nothing more. What are trial by jury, _Habeas Corpus_, ballot-box, right of petition, liberty in Kansas, your liberty, Sir, or mine, to one who lends himself, not merely to the support at home, but to propagandism abroad, of that preposterous wrong which denies even the right of a man to himself? Such a cause can be maintained only by the practical subversion of all rights. It is, therefore, merely according to reason that its partisans should uphold the Usurpation in Kansas.

To overthrow this Usurpation is now the special, importunate duty of Congress, admitting of no hesitation or postponement. To this end must it ascend from the cabals of candidates, the machinations of party, and the low level of vulgar strife. Especially must it turn from that Slave Oligarchy now controlling the Republic, and refuse to be its tool. Let its power be stretched forth into this distant Territory, not to bind, but to release,--not for oppression of the weak, but for subversion of the tyrannical,--not for prop and maintenance of revolting Usurpation, but for confirmation of Liberty.

“These are imperial arts, and worthy thee!”[133]

Let it now take stand between the living and dead, and cause this plague to be stayed. All this it can do; and if the interests of Slavery were not hostile, all this it would do at once, in reverent regard for justice, law, and order, driving far away all alarms of war; nor would it dare to brave the shame and punishment of this “Great Refusal.”[134] But the Slave Power dares anything; and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the People. From Congress to the People I appeal.

Already Public Opinion gathers unwonted forces to scourge the aggressors. In the press, in daily conversation, wherever two or three are gathered together, there the indignant utterance finds vent. And trade, by unerring indications, attests the growing energy. Public credit in Missouri droops. The six per cents of that State, which at par should be 102, have sunk to 84,--thus at once completing the evidence of Crime, and attesting its punishment. Business is now turning from the Assassins and Thugs that infest the Missouri River, to seek some safer avenue. And this, though not unimportant in itself, is typical of greater change. The political credit of the men who uphold the Usurpation droops even more than the stocks; and the People are turning from all those through whom the Assassins and Thugs derive their disgraceful immunity.

It was said of old, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s Landmark. _And all the people shall say, Amen._”[135] “Cursed,” it is said, “in the city and in the field; cursed in basket and store; cursed when thou comest in, and cursed when thou goest out.”[136] These are terrible imprecations; but if ever any Landmark were sacred, it was that by which an immense territory was guarded _forever_ against Slavery; and if ever such imprecations could justly descend upon any one, they must descend now upon all who, not content with the removal of this sacred Landmark, have since, with criminal complicity, fostered the incursions of the great Wrong against which it was intended to guard. But I utter no imprecations. These are not my words; nor is it my part to add to or subtract from them. But, thanks be to God! they find response in the hearts of an aroused People, making them turn from every man, whether President or Senator or Representative, engaged in this Crime,--especially from those who, cradled in free institutions, are without the apology of education or social prejudice,--until upon all such those other words of the Prophet shall be fulfilled: “I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people.”[137] Turning thus from the authors of this Crime, the People will unite once more with the Fathers of the Republic in just condemnation of Slavery, determined especially that it shall find no home in the National territories, while the Slave Power, in which the Crime had its beginning, and by which it is now sustained, will be swept into the charnel-house of defunct Tyrannies.

In this contest Kansas bravely stands forth, the stripling leader, clad in the panoply of American Institutions. Calmly meeting and adopting a frame of government, her people with intuitive promptitude perform the duties of freemen; and when I consider the difficulties by which she is beset, I find dignity in her attitude. _Offering herself for admission into the Union as a_ FREE STATE, _she presents a single issue for the people to decide_. And since the Slave Power now stakes on this issue all its ill-gotten supremacy, the People, while vindicating Kansas, will at the same time overthrow this Tyranny. Thus the contest which she begins involves Liberty not only for herself, but for the whole country. God be praised that Kansas does not bend ignobly beneath the yoke! Far away on the prairies, she is now battling for the Liberty of all, against the President, who misrepresents all. Everywhere among those not insensible to Right, the generous struggle meets a generous response. From innumerable throbbing hearts go forth the very words of encouragement which in the sorrowful days of our fathers were sent by Virginia, speaking by the pen of Richard Henry Lee, to Massachusetts, in the person of her popular tribune, Samuel Adams:--

“CHANTILLY, VA., June 23, 1774.

“I hope the good people of Boston will not lose their spirits,
under their present heavy oppression, for they will certainly
be supported by the other Colonies; and the cause for which
they suffer is so glorious, and so deeply interesting to the
present and future generations, that all America will owe, in a
great measure, their political salvation to the present virtue
of Massachusetts Bay.”[138]

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

* * * * *

The contest, which, beginning in Kansas, reaches us will be transferred soon from Congress to that broader stage, where every citizen is not only spectator, but actor; and to their judgment I confidently turn. To the People, about to exercise the electoral franchise, in choosing a Chief Magistrate of the Republic, I appeal, to vindicate the electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box of the Union, with multitudinous might, protect the ballot-box in that Territory. Let the voters everywhere, while rejoicing in their own rights, help guard the equal rights of distant fellow-citizens, that the shrines of popular institutions, now desecrated, may be sanctified anew,--that the ballot-box, now plundered, may be restored,--and that the cry, “I am an American citizen,” shall no longer be impotent against outrage. In just regard for free labor, which you would blast by deadly contact with slave labor,--in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom you would task and sell,--in stern condemnation of the Crime consummated on that beautiful soil,--in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subjugated to Tyrannical Usurpation,--in dutiful respect for the early Fathers, whose aspirations are ignobly thwarted,--in the name of the Constitution outraged, of the Laws trampled down, of Justice banished, of Humanity degraded, of Peace destroyed, of Freedom crushed to earth,--and in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Freedom, I make this last appeal.

Mr. Sumner spoke for two days. As soon as he took his seat, the
storm which had been preparing broke forth. Mr. Cass was the
first to speak. He began by saying that he had “listened with
equal regret and surprise” to the speech of Mr. Sumner, which
he characterized as “the most un-American and unpatriotic that
ever grated on the ears of the members of this high body.”
Mr. Douglas followed in a tirade of personality, in which he
renewed the old assault of two years before, charging Mr.
Sumner with defying the Constitution, when he exclaimed with
regard to the rendition of a fugitive slave, “Is thy servant
a dog, that he should do this thing?”[139] The speech of Mr.
Sumner was characterized in the most offensive terms. “He seems
to get up a speech as in Yankee-land they get up a bed-quilt.”
Then again: “Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick
him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy
upon the just chastisement?” Then again: “We have had another
dish of the classics served up,--classic allusions, each one
only distinguished for its lasciviousness and obscenity,--each
one drawn from those portions of the classics which all decent
professors in respectable colleges cause to be suppressed, as
unfit for decent young men to read. Sir, I cannot repeat the
words. I should be condemned as unworthy of entering decent
society, if I repeated those obscene, vulgar terms which have
been used at least a hundred times in that speech.” Then,
further, he said that “the Senator from Massachusetts had his
speech written, printed, committed to memory, practised every
night before the glass, with a negro boy to hold the candle and
watch the gestures, and annoying the boarders in the adjoining
rooms until they were forced to quit the house.” All this was
uttered with the sympathy of the slave-masters about him.

Mr. Mason followed with a bitterness which seemed a
prolongation of the debate two years before. The tone of his
speech appears in these words:--

“The necessities of our political position bring us into
relations and associations upon this floor, which, in obedience
to a common government, we are forced to admit. They bring
us into relations and associations which beyond the walls of
this Chamber we are enabled to avoid,--associations here whose
presence elsewhere is dishonor, and the touch of whose hand
would be a disgrace.…

“I have said that the necessity of political position alone
brings me into relations with men upon this floor who elsewhere
I cannot acknowledge as possessing manhood in any form. I am
constrained to hear here depravity, vice in its most odious
form uncoiled in this presence, exhibiting its loathsome
deformities in accusation and vilification against the quarter
of the country from which I come; and I must listen to it
because it is a necessity of my position, under a common
government, to recognize as an equal politically one whom to
see elsewhere is to shun and despise.”

This debate, which was much in harmony with that of June, 1854, showed a state of feeling bordering on violence. The language of Mr. Douglas seemed to invite it, especially when he asked, “Is it his object to provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy upon the just chastisement?” It came soon.

Mr. Sumner followed in unpremeditated remarks, replying to the only point of argument, and giving expression to the indignant sentiments inspired by the attack. These are preserved here as belonging to the history of this occasion.

MR. PRESIDENT,--Three Senators have spoken: one venerable in years, with whom I have had associations of personal regard longer than with anybody now within the sound of my voice,--the Senator from Michigan [Mr. CASS]; another, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS]; and a third, the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON].

The Senator from Michigan knows well that nothing I say can have anything but kindness for him. He has declared on this floor to-day that he listened with regret to my speech. I have never avowed on this floor how often, with heart brimming full of friendship for him, I have listened with regret to what has fallen from his lips. I have never said that he stood here to utter sentiments which seemed beyond all question disloyal to the character of the Fathers and to the true spirit of the Constitution; but this, with his permission, and in all kindness, I do now say to him.

The Senator proceeded very briefly and in a cursory manner to criticise my statement of the Michigan case. Sir, my statement was founded on the actual documents. No word was mine: it was all from Jackson, from Grundy, from Buchanan, from Benton, from the Democratic leaders of that day. When the Senator criticised me, his shaft did not touch me, but fell upon them. And here I leave the Senator from Michigan.

To the Senator from Illinois I should willingly yield the privilege of the common scold,--the last word; but I will not yield to him, in any discussion with me, the last argument, or the last semblance of it. He has crowned the outrage of this debate by venturing to rise here and calumniate me. He has said that I came here, took an oath to support the Constitution, and yet determined not to support a particular clause in that Constitution. To that statement I give, to his face, the flattest denial. When it was made previously on this floor by the absent Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER], I then repelled it: you shall see how explicitly and completely. I read from the debate of the 28th of June, 1854, as published in the “Globe.” Here is what I answered to the Senator from South Carolina:--

“This Senator was disturbed, when, to his inquiry, personally,
pointedly, and vehemently addressed to me, whether I would join
in returning a fellow-man to Slavery, I exclaimed: ‘Is thy
servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’”

You will observe that the inquiry of the Senator was, whether I would join in returning my fellow-man to slavery? It was not, whether I would support any clause of the Constitution of the United States?--far from that. I then proceeded:--

“In fitful phrase, which seemed to come from unconscious
excitement, so common with the Senator, he shot forth various
cries about ‘dogs,’ and, among other things, asked if there was
any ‘dog’ in the Constitution? The Senator did not seem to bear
in mind, through the heady currents of that moment, that, by
the false interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution,”--

and in which the Senator from Illinois now joins,--

“he has helped to nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina
bloodhounds, trained, with savage jaw and insatiable scent,
for the hunt of flying bondmen. No, Sir, I do not believe that
there is any ‘kennel of bloodhounds,’ or even any ‘dog,’ in the
Constitution.”

I said further:--

“Since I have been charged with openly declaring a purpose to
violate the Constitution, and to break the oath which I have
taken at that desk, I shall be pardoned for showing simply how
a few plain words will put all this down.”