Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/351

 ADMINISTRATION OF FRANKLIN PIERCE. 319

as follows : " Through the wisdom and energy of the present executive of Kansas, and the prudence, firmness, and vigilance of the military officers on duty there, tranquillity has been restored without one drop of blood having been shed in its accomplishment, by the forces of the United States." From November, 1856', to the close of President Pierce's term of office. Kansas re- mained peaceful. The action of the President and the principles by which he was governed in the performance of his responsible duties during this impor- tant period are best stated in his annual message to Congress, December 2, 1856. In this message he says :

" Many acts of disorder it is undeniable have been perpetrated in Kansas, to the occasional internjption, rather than the permanent suspension of regular government. Aggressive and most reprehensible incursions into the Territory were undertaken, both in the North and in the South, and entered it on its northern border, by the way of Iowa, as well as on the eastern by the way of Missouri : and there has existed within it a state of insurrection aorainst the constituted authorities, not without countenance from inconsiderate persons in each of the great sections of the Union. Bui the difficulties in that Territory have been extravagantly exaggerated for purposes of political agitation else- where. The number and gravity of the acts of violence have been magnified, partly by statements entirely untrue, and partly by reiterated accounts of the same rumors or facts. I'hus the Territory has been seemingly filled with ex- treme violence, when the whole amount of such acts has not teen greater than what occasionally passes before us in single cities, to the regret of all good citizens, but without being regarded as of general or permanent political con- sequence. Imputed irregularites in the elections had in Kansas, like occas- ional irregularites of the same description in the States, were beyond the sphere of action of the Executive. But incidents of actual violence or of organized obstruction of law, pertinaciously renewed from time to time, have been met as they occurred, by such means as were available and as circum- stances required ; and nothing of this character now remains to affect the general peace of the Union. The attempt of a part of the inhabitants of the Territory to erect a revolutionary government, though sedulously encouraged and supplied with pecuniary aid from active agents of disorder in some of the States, has completely failed. Bodies of armed men, foreign to the Territory, have been prevented from entering or compelled to leave it. Predatory bands, engaged in acts of rapine, under cover of existing political disturbances, have been arrested or dispersed. And every well disposed person is now enabled once more to devote himself in peace to the pursuits of prosperous industry, for the prosecution of which he undertook to participate in the settlement of the Territory."

And further : "In those parts of the United States where, by reason of the inflamed state of the public mind, false rumors and misrepresentations have the greatest currency, it has been assumed that it was the duty of the Execu- tive not only to suppress insurrectionary movements in Kansas, but also to see to the regularity of local elections. It needs little argument to show that the President has no such power. All government in the United States rests sub- stantially upon popular election. The freedom of elections is liable to be im- paired by the intrusion of unlawful votes or the exclusion of lawful ones, by improper influences, by violence, or by fraud, but the people of the United States are themselves the all sufficient guardians of their own rights, and to suppose that they will not remedy, in due season, any such incidents of civil freedom, is to suppose them to have ceased to be capable of self-government. The President of the United States has not power to interfere in elections, to

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