mind; it had lashed it into fury everywhere. Well, then, this question was plainly and palpably submitted. The legal expression of the public will speaks through the Lecompton constitution. All other constitutions, or steps taken to form a constitution, have been done without law or the form of law; not in conformity to, but in violation of, not only the Kansas and Nebraska act, but of every legally authoritative step that was taken by the people of Kansas." This, sir, is not only a declaration that no more slave states shall be admitted into the Union, but that slavery must yield even in the fifteen slave states. He must have the whole continent. That is his declaration. And, sir, with this formal and well-considered proclama tion by the leader of the Black Republican party, in tho Senate, reiterated by chiefs and subalterns of the same party here on this floor, can there be any misapprehension as to the purposes and the inevitable end to be accomplished Hon. WILLIAM BARKSDALE of Mississippi, in the House of by this opposition to the admission of Kansas? Representatives, March 20th, 1858. Mr. BARKSDALE. What, then, is the ground of the opposition to the admission of Kansas? The true ground, sir. disguise it as gentlemen may, is that its constitution recognises slavery. I see near me the gentleman from Indiana. Mr. Colfax], who is one of the leaders of his party in this house, and I desire to ask him now whether, if all the people of Kansas desired to have a pro-slavery constitution, he would vote for her admission into the Union? Mr. COLFAX. The gentleman from Mississippi asks me a question. I have listened very attentively to his speech, and 1 desire to say to him that if I get the floor when he concludes, as I hope to, I intend to answer every point he has mnade in his speech. Mr. BARKSDALE. I do not know that I will be here. I should like to have the answer now. I ask you, gentlemen on the other side of the house, of the Black Republican party, would you vote for the admission of Kansas into the Union with a constitution tolerating slavery, if a hundred thousand people there wished it? Mr. GIDDINGS. Does the gentleman ask me? Mr. GIDDINGS. Then I answer the gentleman that I will never associate, politically, with men of that character, if 1 can help it. I will never vote to compel Ohio to associate with another slave state, if I can prevent it. Mr. BARKSDALE. I desire to ask the gentleman from Ohio if he speaks for his party? Mr. GIDDINGS. I speak for the thinking, reflecting, humane portion of mankind generally. [Laughter.] Mr. BARKSDALE. Black Republican mankind you mean. Laughter.] I have no doubt of it. I repeat that the true ground of opposition to the admission of Kansas is, that her constitution tolerates slavery, and I now have indubitable evidence of the fact in the declaration of the gentleman from Ohio. Why, sir, gentlemen on the other side of this hall voted for the admission of Kansas into the Union under the Topeka constitution-a constitution framed not only without authority of law, but in violation of law-a constitution which did not embody the will of the people-a tion to the negro. as I am told by a friend near me, [Mr. constitution which, notwithstanding their professed devoKeitt,] prohibits the immigration of free negroes. Mr. BINGHAM. If the gentleman will allow me for a moment, I wish to say that the statement which I have heard made before, that the Topeka constitution excluded free negroes from Kansas, is an entire mistake. It excludes nobody from that territ. On the contrary, so far from excluding free negroes, it provides that no person shall be transported from the state, not even for crime. Mr. BARKSDALE. Was that constitution ever submitted to the people and voted on by them? Mr. BINGHAM. It was submitted. and I believe voted on, though the vote was not a large one. Was it ratified? Mr. BARKSDALE. Mr. BINGHAM. Yes. sir. Mr. BARKSDALE. The gentleman is mistaken: it had not been submitted before it was sent here. While the gentleman from Ohio is on the stand, I ask him if he would vote to admit Kansas into the Union with a pro-slavery constitution if the people of that territory all desired it? Mr. BINGHAM. Certainly not. Mr. BARKSDALE. I repeat, then, sir, that the opposition to the admission of Kansas into the Union is based upon the ground that her constitution tolerates slavery. Mr. STANTON. I will say, if the gentleman will allow me, that the Republican members of this House, so far as I know, will never vote for the admission of any slave state north of 36° 30'. Mr. KEITT. Will you south of 36° 30'? Mr. STANTON. A good many of them will. Mr. BARKSDALE. The gentleman speaks for himself. I suppose, when he makes that declaration. Ile certainly did not speak for his colleague over the way. [Mr. Giddings.] Then, sir, this question involves the rights. the equality. and honor of the Southern States of this Confederacy. Upon the floor of the Senate it has already been avowed by the Senater from New York. [Mr. Seward.] that no more slave £tates shall be admitted into the Union. I will read the language of the Senator: "The white man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities are fixed. He must and will have it." Hon. JAMES A. BAYARD, of Delaware, in the Senate, March 22d, 1858. "What is the basis of all our state governments? That from the nature of man it necessarily results that in the formation of mankind into distinct communities, the only admissible axiom is. that the power of self-government is inherent in the people at large, and of necessity to be exercised by a majority. "Two propositions are essential parts of the axiom. First, that the right of government vests in the people at large; and secondly, that a majority of those who choose to act may organize a government; and the right to change is included in the principle which gives the authority to organize. The constitution of a state cannot restrain or impair this right; because it exists in the people outside of the constitution. It is the political axiom upon which the constitution itself is founded. In governments founded on the social compact, nɔ ex. press or actual contract exists between the different members of society; but the theory is that the consent of all is implied, and an indefinite authority exists in the majority to bind the whole. "This assumed right of the majority under the axion must exist at all times, and cannot be controverted, except by those who place the right of government on some other foundation. "Whence does the right of the majority spring to form governments, if not from the assumed principle, the doctrine of implied compact, as the true basis of goverument! "If the people of one generation have an inherent right to form governments, the same inherent right must exist unfettered in those of a subsequent generation. The right of the majority to organize a government under the law of the social compact, precludes any power alterable, either for twenty or ten years, or for one year; in that majority to render the government they form unbecause such a restriction is inconsistent with their own authority to form a government, and at war with the very siders that, where the constitution prohibits change, or speaxiom from which their own power to act is derived. "The Senator from Illinois admits the right: but eoncifies a mode of change, alteration in any other mode would be an act of revolution. In this I differ with him. change of organic law in modes other than those specified in the constitution, may be made without revolution in the present received sense of the word. present received sense of the word. Wherever the ultimate power of government rests, there the power to change its form must rest." The Hon. JOHN BELL of Tennessee, in the Senate, March 18th. 1858. 66 But, upon principle. the people of a territory, without any act of the territorial legislature, without an enabling act of Congress, can hold public meetings and elect delegates tution; and when formed, it has all the essential attributes to meet in convention for the purpose of forming a constiof a valid constitution, as one formed in any other way. Many Senators contend that it is the inalienable and indefeasible right of the people of a state at all times to change doctrine I do not admit, in regard to the people of a state: their constitution in any manner they think proper. This but, in reference to the formation of a constitution by the people of a territory, there can be no question as to the by delegates voluntarily chosen and sent to a convention, soundness of this doctrine. They can form a constitution but what is it worth when it is formed? Nothing at all, until Congress shall accept it, and admit the territory into the Union as a state under that constitution. It is worth formed under a territorial act, or an act of Congress; but it no more in that case than in the case of a constitution is worth just as much." sentatives, March 29th, 1858. "The territories of the United States are under the government and control of Congress. No legal proceedings can be taken to organize a state government in a territory, except by the authority of Congress. Any proceedings adopted in the territory for that purpose. (without such authority,) whether originating with the legislature or the people, can only be regarded as an unauthorized voluntary application, and is entitled to no consideration, except as an expression To suppose that the legislative powers granted to the General Assembly include the authority to abrogate, alter. or modify the territorial government established by the act of Congress, and of which the Assembly is a constituent part. would be manifestly absurd. Consequently, it is not in the power of the General Assembly of Arkansas to pass any law for the purpose of electing members to a convention to form a constitution and state government, nor to do any other act, directly or indirectly, to create such new government. Every such law, even though it were approved by the governor of the territory, would be null and void; if passed by them, notwithstanding his veto, by a vote of twothirds of each branch, it would still be equally void.' In the case of Michigan, the President (then in the Senate) held the same doctrine. He said: No Senator will pretend that the territorial legislature had any right whatever to pass laws enabling the people to elect delegates to a convention for the purpose of forming a >tate constitution. It was an act of usurpation on their part. But the President and his friends insist that the organic act, in this case, conferred upon the people of Kansas the right to form their state constitution in their own way. If this were conceded, the authority was given to the people, and not to the legislature. The authority granted to the legislature is specified in that act, and none was given in any form to call a convention to form a state constitution. If the act authorized the people to form a state constitution. it was independent of the legislature; and the Topeka constitution was made and adopted in a legal and regular manner." Hon. W. D. BISHOP of Connecticut, in the House of Representatives, March 22d, 1858. "No man has more respect for the principle of popular Sovereignty, or will go further to secure to the people the right to govern themselves, than my self. But who are the people in a legal sense, and how do they speak and express their will? Why, our government is a representative government, and the will of the people is expressed through their representatives. In every state in this Union laws are frequently passed, which, if submitted to a vote of the people for ratification or rejection, would be voted down by a 1 overwhelming majority; and yet who would presume to say that those laws are of no binding force, because a majority of the people are opposed to them, and would vote them down if an opportunity was offered? Candidates are nominated as exponents of the will of the people; if elected, the power and authority of the people is vested in themtheir will is the will of the people; and should they turn traitor to those by whom they were elected, no matter how great the majority by which they were elected, still they would express the legal will of the people. The people of Kansas were asked to form and regulate their institutions in their own way when they nominated and elected dele gates to the constitutional convention. All the people were included in the invitation. They must have known the character and opinions of the candidates presented; and if the majority held back, and allowed the minority to elect their candidates, the legal presumption is that the majority that the Lecompton constitution does not express the legal were satisfied with the result. How, then, can it be claimed will of the people of Kansas? The territorial legislature being a legal body, being invested by the organic act with full power to legislate upon all rightful subjects, having passed a law for the election of delegates to form a constitution, having conferred upon these delegates full powers having violated the law or exceeded the authority conferred without limitation or restriction, the delegates elected not upon them by the legislature, I cannot, for the life of me, discover upon what ground it can be claimed that the constitution framed by them was not a legal instrument. For there reasons I regard the Lecompton constitution as the Hon. JOHN A. BINGHAM of Ohio, in the House of Represen- legal, the only legal, constitution of Kansas. Thus far I tatives, January 25th, 1858. "This is the precise principle, the ball and atheistic averruent, of this Lecompton constitution; and we. by affirming it, are only to become the avowed upholders of the stupendous lie, that one class of men have no rights which another are bound to respect; and hence, the partial and exclusive provision of this instrument, "That no freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned. or disseised of his freehold, liberties. or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land." | have referred to the Lecompton constitution only as a legal "NO FREEMAN: the words of necessity import that any person not a freeman, any slave, any human chattel. may be taken and imprisoned, disseised of his freehold, liberties, and privileges, outlawed. exiled, and murdered, without the judgment of his peers, and without the protection of law. That this instrument may want in no feature of horrid cruelty, it is further therein provided, that 'free negroes shall not be permitted to live in this state under any circumstances.' Sir. they are mere · visionary theorists' who suppose that this world was not made for Cæsar, but for man--that it belongs only to the common Fåther of all, and is for the use and sustenance of all his children. By our affirmance of this instrument, we are to say to certain human beings in the territory of Kansas, though you were born in this territory, and born of free parents, though you are human beings, and no chattels, yet you are not free to live here upon your native heath; you must be disseised of your freehold, liberties, and privileges, without the judgment of your peers and without the protection of law. Though born here, you shall not. under any circumstances, be permitted to live here. You must suffer exile or death-their own way. The whole power of the government was you cannot and shall not live here. That sky which you first saw, and to which weary men look up for hope and consolation-that beautiful sky which bends above your humble home like the arms of beneficence, clasping in its embrace the evil and the good, the just and the unjust that sky was not made for you; you shall not live under it. This land, this goodly land, with its fertile fields, and quiet | waters, and rustic homes, where you first learned to lisp the hallowed name of father, sister, brother, and where sleeps in humble hope the sacred dust of your poor dead mother this land was not made for you; you shall not, under any circumstances, be permitted to live upon it; go hence, never more to return: that is our law. Representatives! will you give to this proposed atrocity your official sanction? Answer upon your oaths, to your conscience, to your country, und to your God!" those men who are now complaining and lamenting that the dear people are deprived of their sovereignty. Why did they tell them not to vote? Ah, they believed that, if they voted, Kansas would be a free and prosperous state. They knew that, when peace was restored to Kansas, the days of their party would be numbered; they knew that, when the wounds of bleeding Kansas were healed, the life of republicanism would be extinguished. Twice, previous to the adoption of the Lecompton constitution. had the free-state men of Kansas, if they were in the majority, an opportunity to assume the control of her government. The army of the United States, sent into the territory upon their own request, was pledged to protect them against invasion from abroad and intimidation at home. Guided by the advice of outside polit.cians, twice did they refuse the proffered boon. The legislature by which the convention was called was offered to them and refused the delegates to that convention, clothed with full power to adopt such a constitution as they pleased, were offered to them and refused. After these to distinct assertions on the part of the people that they would have nothing to do with the formation and regulation of their own domestic institutions, still the legally constituted convention of Kansas, though not required by the territorial law to submit any portion of the constitution to the people, said, though you have refused to participate in the elections; though you have defied our authority and trampled the laws under your feet, yet your voice may be heard upon the great question which has convulsed the country, and so long disturbed the peace of this territory; though we have the power in our own hands; though we are anxious to make Kansas a slave state, yet we will leave that question for you, and you alone. to decide.' What was the response? Away with your constitution. Who cares about slavery? Let us kill the whole constitution. Let us undo all that you, the legal representatives and exponents of the people, have done. Let us open afresh the wounds of bleeding Kansas. Let us keep up this agitation until 1860, until upon this sea of excitement we have wafted our candidate into the presidential chair; or you may make Kansas a slave state as soon as you please. Then, when that deed is accomplished, we will raise the cry at the North, Behold how our prophecies are fulfilled! We told you that the result of the Kansas and Nebraska bill would be to make Kansas a slave state. Under these circumstances Kansas presents herself for admission into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, and, so far as the facts now appear, I deem it due to Kansas and due to the country that she should be admitted. | She will be a slave state in name, and in name only, and that for a brief period. I care not how deeply slavery may be engrafted in her constitution, for there is an unwritten law far above all human constitutions and laws which must ever control and regulate that institution. It is the irrepealable law of nature, of climate, production, and soil. That law I, as a Northern man, am willing to trust. We have seen its operation in California, Utah, Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, Nebraska, and Minnesota." Hon. F. P. BLAIR, Jr., of Missouri, in House of Representatives, March 23d, 1858. "Now, I apply another test. The oligarchy say that they have the right to take their slaves into the territories of the Union, and employ them as they see fit. under the Constitution of the United States, and nobody can take that right from them. They can take them into the territories, and make them mechanics, and work them in the mines. in the factories, or in any other way; and if white men don't like that sort of competition, the Democracy will tell them to go somewhere else. In Russia, a man can educate his serf or slave, and they frequently do, and make lawyers. doctors, and merchants, of them. Now, suppose these Southern | gentlemen should exercise their constitutional right of educating their slaves, and put them into the learned professions; do you suppose the people of this country would submit, for one instant, to this Russian innovation? Would there not be a cry raised, from one end of this land to the other? And why? Have they not the same constitutional right to make lawyers. doctors, and merchants, of their slaves, as they have to make them mechanics? Precisely the same. There is no difference whatever. But the Russian nobles never engage in those avocations themselves, and therefore they do not feel the degradation of putting their serfs into the professions. But with us that would be trenching upon the occupation of the slaveholders themselves-the oligarchs-and here the shoe pinches. They demand that they shall be allowed to put their slaves to work side by side with mechanics and laborers; and, in the same breath, they claim that no slave shall be allowed to degrade the employments in which they condescend to engage. I contend that they have no more right to inflict this degradation on mechanics, by placing slave labor in competition with their free labor. Not a whit more; and. as they exercise the right of excluding slaves from the professions in which they are themselves engaged (as they do by inhibiting their education), I say they admit the right of thers to exclude them from the mechanical trades, and from competition with every freeman who follows an honest calling." IIon. THOMAS S. Bocock of Virginia, in the House of Representatives, March 8th, 1858. "In the first place, then, I admit that governments instituted among men derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. That is the first admission. But I deny that it is a necessary corollary from this principle that the constitution of a state shall be submitted to the votes of all the governed. On the contrary, no constitution that was ever framed, either in this or any other country, was ever submitted to the vote of all the people who were to be governed by it. How many of the states of this Uniou allow the African race to vote? I think New England and New York alone aspire to that had eminence.' Yet the African race are among the governed. How many states in this Union allow a citizen just landed upon its soil from any other state, or from a foreign country, to vote? Not one, I believe. In most of the states in the Union, they require a man to have resided in the state for twelve months, even if a citizen of the United States, before he is allowed to vote. And yet, sir, they are among the governed. How many of the states of this Union allow females and children to vote? Not one; and yet, are they not in the list of the governed? Then it is a clear proposition, that the fact that a form of government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, does not require the constitution to be submitted to all who are to be governed under it. I will show, in the sequel, that the consent of the governed is given on the representative principle. The next concession which I make is to be found in a certain letter written by the late governor of Kansas, upon the occasion of his resignation of office. He says that- exclusively with the people of each state; that sovereignty "Sovereignty makes constitutions; that sovereignty rests cannot be delegated; that it is inalienable, indivisible, a unit incapable of partition.' "Now, sir. I admit all that; but I will not concede for a moment, because sovereignty is inalienable, that acts of sovereignty cannot be exercised through some medium, organism, or representative agency; far from it. I think that the celebrated letter to which I refer affords a remarkable instance of how a really able man, when sustaining a heresy, may entangle and overthrow himself in the mazes of his own metaphysics. Robert J. Walker declares: "It will not be denied that sovereignty is the only power that can make a state constitution, and that it rests excluively with the people; and if it is inalienable, and cannot be delegated, as I have shown, then it can only be exercised by the people themselves.' "And again, in reference to the Constitution of the United States, he says: "Each state acted for itself alone in acceding to the Articles of Confederation in 1778, and each state acted for itself alone in framing and ratifying, each for itself, the Constitution of the United States. Sovereignty, then, with us, rests exclusively with the people of each state.' "IIere, sir, he assumes that each state adopted the Constitution of the United States for itself, and that the Constitution of the United States, being so adopted, has become the constitution of each particular state. Yet he seems not to have borne in mind that that very fact upsets his whole theory. Sir, the Constitution of the United States is not today binding in the state of Virginia, or in any other state of this Union, or else the doctrine is erroneous that it requires the people in their primary capacity to ratify it. Why, sir, the Constitution of the United States was framed by a convention and ratified by conventions and legislatures in the several states; not in any one case was it referred to a direct vote of what Mr. Walker calls the sovereign people. "Sir, to declare war and to make peace-are they not acts of sovereignty? And are they not done by representative agencies? Why may not a constitution be formed in like manner? Mr. Chairman, a great deal of confusion exists in the public mind in relation to the question, who are the people in whom the sovereignty resides? I accord with the doctrine of Robert J. Walker, and say it resides in the masses. Every man and every citizen who has rights and power in the community is a part of the sovereign mass. All of the citizens together constitute the original fountain and source of all power in a community. They are the sovereignty. Now, sir, if sovereignty is a unit and indivisible, the whole sovereign mass must act together. If one citizen be wanting, the unity is broken and the sovereignty destroyed. It is clear, then, that if sovereignty resides in the mass. and is indivisible, it cannot be carried out into acts without a medium, an organism, or a representative agency, as the free mind cannot act except through the agency of the body This results from the fact that it is impossible ever to get all the citizens together in consentaneous action. If this sovereignty is a unit, can a majority exercise that sovereignty? Those who do not act with the majority have a part of the sovereignty in themselves, and their dissent breaks the unity. I wish now to inquire upon what principle the majority acts for a community, and what results from that fact? I say that the majority does not act for the community upon any principle of natural right. Let us suppose that the whole frame-work of government could by some mighty convulsion be struck from existence in any state of the Union: what would follow? A primary meeting of the people would be held, to put into operation some rude structure of government. Would all the people assemble? By no means. That is always impossible. A great many would stay away, and those who stayed away would have a part of the sovereignty in themselves. But according to the principle declared by Governor Walker, those who came would be the representatives of those who stayed away. Each man who should attend the primary meeting would represent his absent neighbor and family; and, upon the principle of representation, that primary meeting could act for the whole. If the community left without government should consist of one hundred thousand people, not more than eighty thousand could assemble in primary meeting. How would they act? The eighty thousand would not agree upon all questions, or perhaps upon any question; and from necessity, a majority would control their decisions, unless a different rule were agreed on. Then forty-one thousand, being the majority of the eighty thousand. would speak for the whole community. Upon what principle of natural right or undivided sovereignty, I ask, can forty-one thousand declare the opinion of one hundred thousand? Again, take the case of the voters of a community. Upon what priuciple do they act for the whole? Are they the sovereign mass? No, sir, by no means. Take the case of Kansas itself; and allowing that there are one hundred thousand people in that territory, then say that the constitution is to be submitted to the voters. According to statistics, the number of votes would be about one-fifth of the entire mass. Take the census of 1840 or 1850, and then the vote at the intervening and succeeding presidential election, and you will find that the votes are rarely, if ever, more than one-fifth of the entire number of the people. Then, if there were one hundred thousand people in Kansas, the number of voters might have been as high as twenty thousand. Of that twenty thousand, a majority would control, and eleven thousand would constitute that majonity. Now, I ask, upon what principle of natural right, or of indivisible sovereignty, can eleven thousand voters declare the voice of one hundred thousand people? They are the organism or representative agency merely, through which the whole body speaks, just as a convention is the mouth-piece of the people. Chief Justice Taney. in giving the opinion of the court in the Dred Scott case, says: "Undoubtedly, a person may be a citizen-that is a member of the community who form the sovereignty—although he exercises no share of the political power, and is incapacitated from holding particular offices. Women and minors, who form a part of the political family, cannot vote; and when a property qualification is required to vote or hold a particular office, those who have not the necessary qualifications cannot vote or hold the office, yet they are citizens.' a convention. nevertheless announces itself as the art of the people. In its preamble it says: We, the people of tì United States, &c.. &c., do ordain and establish this consti tution.' So in Kansas, the convention was merely the mouth through which the people were presumed in law to speak. The constitution adopted by them was. therefore, the act of the people. You may think that another agency would have been better, but you cannot properly interfere, for this is that which was spoken when we said that we would leave the people thereof (of Kansas) perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." Hon. W. W. BOYCE of South Carolina, in the IIouse of Representatives, March 25th, 1858. Empowering others to make the constitution for them, is agreeing in advance to be bound by the action of those others, and thus in advance giving their assent to the constitution. There are several modes by which the people might give their assent to a constitution. They might meet in mass meeting, and make their constitution, clause by clause. This would come nearest, perhaps, to actually making their own constitution; but there are so many practical objections to this mode, that it will find, perhaps, few advocates; though, in the progress of the democratic mania, even this mode may come to be insisted on eventually as the only legitimate mode having due regard to popular sovereignty. sovereignty. Again: the people might authorize their delegates to form and establish their constitution for them; and this, perhaps. is the best mode of accomplishing the purpose, if the delegates are judiciously chosen; for it is most likely that in this mode the constitution will be the embodiment of the highest wisdom of the community, acting independ ent of popular errors or prejudices. "Yet further, the people might confer upon their delegates the power of forming the constitution, but deny them the power of giving it vitality, but reserve to themselves this sovereign right. At first view this mode may appear desirable; but when we consider that the mere power to say yes or no upon an entire constitution in the lump, not permitting an expression of opinion upon every clause, but only upon the aggregate, amounts to very little. If every man were allowed to vote upon every clause, it is likely that no constitution that could be devised would obtain a majority of votes for all its clauses, yet if the same constitution were submitted to a popular vote it would in all probability, as a general rule, obtain a majority of votes Hon. JESSE D. BRIGHT of Indiana, in the Senate, March 25th, 1858. "In our country. however, where the people are recog nised as the origin and seat of political power; where constitutions flow from them, instead of being concessions to them; where the remedy for an abuse is in their own hands, to be exercised at any time and in their own way, the case is far different. With us, state constitutions are mere orga nizations. They are merely pieces of political mechanismsimple contrivances for organizing legislative, judicial, and executive branches. One power is made to lodge in one place, and another resides elsewhere. In their declaration of general principles, they but repeat the common law, which our fathers brought with them, and which would be law without such repetition. So far even as the limitations in them are concerned, they are but restrictions upon the agents of the people, which can be removed or modified at their pleasure. Even against a provision contained in the constitution itself, it can be amended. Wherever the doctrine prevails that all power is lodged with the people, to be exercised by them for their own benefit, such must be the necessary consequence. Where the power to make exists, there also the power to modify exists, if the rights of none others intervene. If royal power could not rightfully abrogate constitutions and charters, it is because the rights of other parties do intervene. In our country, however, there is no other party but the people. They make for themselves, and can unmake. There is no power anywhere to prevent. When the people of a state determine to change their con "There are a number of the citizens in every community who constitute a part of the body politic, who have a portion of the sovereignty in themselves, but who are not allowed to vote. The voters, then, only represent the people. They are not. in fact, the sovereign people. So I show the universality of the representative principle. A primary meeting, as usually constituted. is a representative agency. A convention is a representative agency. The voters are a representative agency, and any question between them is a question between different representative agencies. Each one speaks the voice of the people in its sphere, just as the agent when acting within his power speaks the voice of his principal. Talk about appealing from the convention to the sovereign people! I say, if you appeal to the voters. you only appeal from one representation to another representa-stitution, there is no political body in existence which can tion. Perhaps broader, perhaps better, but still a representative agency. You deny the voice of one organism through which the people speak, and take the voice of another organism. When there is no law to determine who shall declare the voice of the people. the people are a law unto themselves. and necessity and circumstances determine. When you have an organized society, the law declares who shall speak for the people in each particular case. Now, apply these principles to the case of Kansas. Who was authorized to speak the voice of the people of Kansas in relation to the constitution? The convention. and the convention only. Sir, the convention was the organism through which sovereignty spoke. Its voice was the voice of the people. The Constitution of the United States, framed, as I have said, by a convention, and ratified in each state by interpose. The distinction, in this respect, between our federal and state constitutions is apparent. One is a compact between several parties. Any one can claim the observance of any provision. To a state constitution, however, there is but one party. It is merely a rule of action devised by themselves for themselves alone. There are no obligations in it of which other political bodies can claim the benefit. At the pleasure of the party which made it, it can be unmade. Any provision in it which pretends to take away that power or delay its exercise is impotent against the majesty of the people. I hold it, therefore, Mr. President, as incontrovertible, that the constitution of Kansas now presented. so far as it conflicts with the interests, or even caprices, of the people of that territory, can be altered at any time and in any way, at their pleasure. Hon. DAVID C. BRODERICK of California, in the Senate, language of Mr. Bell, in his reply to Mr. Toombs, they March 22d, 1858. In the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the rampart that protected slavery in the Southern territories was broken down. Northern opinions, Northern ideas, and Northern institutions were invited to the coutest for the possession of Nay, more, I hold that if the proposed constitution be ob- brave men falter and fall. Let them teach this tyrannoxious to the people of Kansas. the surest and speediest nical administration, that it is strong, the people are way of securing to Kansas a constitution agreeable to her stronger behind it. Thus I would speak to the young men people would be to admit her to the companionship of states, ¦ of the country. 1 differ in some points with those men, and under the Lecompton constitution, and then leave her as a I do not wish to complicate them. I pay also the high Sovereign power to adjust her own affairs without inter- tribute of my admiration to that band of men who have ference from any quarter. Once admitted into the Union, been reposing outside of the boundaries of the great parties the contest loses its national character (an event which of the country as a patriotic corps of reserve, for the purevery true patriot should desire), and the determination of pose, I suppose, of saving the Union when it is endangered. her people will stand as the law and the fact for the youth- When they saw this sectional issue made, standing as they ful state." did in a position to look fairly on between the parties, they saw who made it, and they instantly took sides; and in the accepted the issue of disunion. They accepted it; and when, with forgery, with perjury, with ballot-box stuffing,' then sir, they saw that Lecompton was synonymous with 'fraud, they trampled it with their high manly honesty under their box pure and open to American citizens. Sir. it was a proud. feet. They have taken it in charge to preserve the ballot day to me, when I heard the speech of the venerable Senator and his patriotic accent, still sound in my ears. I was glad from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden]. The melody of his voice, for the truth. to hear him denounce fraud; I was glad to hear him stand of the Kentucky commoner had come back again to visit his for the truth. As I listened, it seemed to me that the spirit old place in the Senate. It seemed to me as if his spirit was hovering there. looking, as in the days of old, after the interests of the Union. At that moment, the heart of Massachusetts beat responsive once again to that of grand old Kentucky; and I longed to have the day come again, when there should be such feelings as in the olden time, when the Bay State bore the name of Henry Clay on her banners over her hills and through her valleys, everywhere to victory, and with an affection equal to the affection of Kentucky these territories. How foolish for the South to hope to contend with sucress in such an encounter! Slavery is old. decrepid, and Consumptive. Freedom is young, strong, and vigorous. One is naturally stationary and loves ease. The other is migratory and enterprising. There are six millions of people interested in the extension of slavery. There are twenty millions of freemen to contend for these territories. out of which to carve for themselves homes where labor is honorable. Up to the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, a large majority of the people of the North did not question the right of the South to control the destinies of the territories south of the Missouri line. The people of the North should have welcomed the passage of the KansasNebraska act. I am astonished that Republicans should call for a restoration of the Missouri Compromise. With the terrible odds that are against her, the South should not berself. have repealed it, if she desired to retain her rights in the | Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Bell. I was glad to hear their "I also felt proud to hear the speech of the distinguished confreres on this floor, Messrs. Underwood of Kentucky, Gilmer of North Carolina, Ricaud and Harris of Maryland, territories." Hon. JAMES BUFFINTON of Massachusetts, in the House and Davis, with his surpassing eloquence, worthy of the best of Representatives, March 24th, 1858. There is an attempt made to establish, by violence, or fraud, or any iniquity which may be necessary to accomplish the purpose, the relation of slavery among a people, a great majority of whom detest it: a great majority of the people of the whole country sympathizing with them in their abhorrence of it. They oppose it because they believe it an institution nefarious in itself. and pernicious in its influence. It is a curse upon any state where it exists: it affects all the relations of a community, internal and external; it is a 1 light upon moral and social progress: it affects all the material interests; it depresses the value of lands, it discourages and debases free labor; and gives the political Control and social predominance to a few aristocratic proprietors of slaves; it retards and prevents the development of all the resources of a state, aud is a withering blight upon its prosperity. The Free-State people of Kansas resist this scourge which would afflict and injure them, and would be a curse upon their posterity. Yet by those laws. which are upheld by the pro-slavery party, they are forbidden to write, speak, or circulate in any way, the expression of their hostility to this great wrong; and the National Administration emulates the oppression of foreign despotism. in its efforts to sustain, by the employment of United States troops, the enforcement of this tyranny.” day of Pinkney and of Wirt; and I also express my gratitude Hon. HENRY C. BURNETT of Kentucky, in the House of Representatives, March 23d, 1858. We are told that the Kansas-Nebraska bill, by leaving Hon. Axsox BURLINGAME of Massachusetts. in the House the people of the territories free to regulate their own of Representatives, March 31st, 1858. domestic institutions, had reference to other institutions all domestic institutions. Sir, this is not a true construction than that of domestic slavery; that it was meant to embrace of that act. Previous to its passage. nnder the Missouri Compromise, the people were left free to regulate all their domestic institutions except that of slavery. It was in referThe Kansas-Nebraska bill removed that restriction. ence to that institution alone that they were restricted. It referred to no other domestic institutions, because no others were restricted. that it had reference; and it was especially to leave the It was to the institution of slavery alone people free to have slavery, or not. in the territory, as they pleased. that that clause of the bill was inserted. The whole history of the struggle in Kansas shows that this was the only question involved; it has been the issue of every battle fought: it has been the bone of contention both in and out of the territory. In the last presidential canvass it was an issue made upon the Democratic party by the Black RepubKansas-Nebraska bill. as originally reported by him from the Committee on Territories, the material section made reference only to the question of slavery; and he proposed to settle that, even, not by a vote of the people, but through their representatives in convention. 1 read it: | I hold it also their duty to bear testimony as to the manner in which the Douglas men-and they will pardon me for giving them the name of their gallant and gifted leader--to bear testimony to the manner in which they have borne themselves. They have kept the faith; they have adhered to the doctrine of popular sovereignty; they have voted it in this House, and they have not fawned and trembled in the presence of a dominating administration-in the presence of that great tyranny which holds the government in its thrall at Washington. They have given flash for flash to every indignant look; and when a gentleman from Virginia, the other day. tauntingly told them that certain language which they used upon the floor of this House was the language of rebellion, they shouted out, through the lips of the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Davis), it was the lan guage of freemen.' I say that it is due to them that we should say that they have borne the brunt of the battlelicans. Judge Douglas himself so regarded it; for in the aud that they, whether from New York. Pennsylvania. Ohio, Indiana. or Illinois, have kept the whiteness of their souls. and have made a record which has lain in light; and if my voice can have any weight with the young men of the country where those men dwell, I should say to them. stand by these men with all your young enthusiasm. stand by them without distinction of party: they may not agree | exactly with you, but they have stood the test here, where All the questions appertaining to slavery in the terri tory, and in the new states to be formed therefrom, are to |