Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/673

 

Session of 1855-6. — The President's special message referred. — Report of committee by Mr. Douglas. — Emigrant Aid Societies. — Minority report by Mr. Collamer. — Special Committee of the House sent to Kansas to investigate affairs. — Report of the Committee. — Armed Missourians enter the territory and control the elections. — Second foray of armed Missourians. — Purposes of Aid Societies defended. — Mob violence. — Legislature assembles at Pawnee. — Its acts. — Topeka Constitutional Convention. — Free State Constitution framed. — Adopted by the people. — Election for State officers. — Topeka legislature — The Wakerusa war. — Outrages upon the citizens. — Robberies and murders. — Lawrence attacked. — Free state constitution submitted to Congress. — Bill to admit Kansas under free state constitution passes the house. — Douglas' lull before the senate. — Trumbull's propositions rejected. — Amendments proposed by Foster, Collamer, Wilson aud Seward rejected. — Bill passed by senate. — Dunn's bill passed by house. — Appropriation bills. — Proviso to army hill. — Session terminates. — Extra session. — President stands firm, house firmer, senate firmest. — The army hill passed without the proviso.

thirty-fourth session of congress convened at the capitol on the 3d of December, 1855. Nine weeks were spent in unsuccessful attempts to organize by the choice of a speaker. The plurality rule was finally adopted, and on the one hundred and thirty-third ballot, Nathaniel P. Banks, republican, was chosen by a vote of 103 to 100.

A history of the events which followed the organization of Kansas under the provisions of the act, may be gathered from the following extracts from official documents. On the 24th of January, 1856, President Pierce transmitted the following special message to congress on the affairs of Kansas:

Circumstances have occurred to disturb the course of governmental organization in the territory of Kansas, and produce there a condition of things which renders it incumbent on me to call your attention to the subject, and urgently recommend the adoption by you of such measures of legislation as the grave exigencies of the case appear to require.

A brief exposition of the circumstances referred to, and of their causes, will be necessary to the full understanding of the recommendations which it is proposed to submit.

The act to organize the territories of Nebraska and Kansas was a manifestation of the legislative opinion of congress on two great points of constitutional construction: One, that the designation of the boundaries of a new territory, and provision for its political organization and administration as a territory, are measures which of right fall within the powers of the general government; and the other, that the inhabitants of any such territory, considered as an inchoate state, are entitled, in the exercise of self-government, to determine for themselves what shall be their own domestic institutions, subject only to the constitution and the laws duly enacted by congress under it, and to the power of the existing states to decide, according to the provisions and principles of