Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/688

 laws, confined in their operation to the internal concerns of the territory, the control and management of which, by the principles of the federal constitution, as well as by the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska act, are confided to the people of the territory, to be determined by themselves through their representatives in their local legislature, and not by the congress, in which they have no representatives to give or withhold their assent to the laws upon which their rights and liberties may all depend. Under these laws marriages have taken place, children have been born, deaths have occurred, estates have been distributed, contracts have been made, and rights have accrued which it is not competent for congress to divest. If there can be a doubt in respect to the validity of these laws, growing out of the alleged irregularity of the election of the members of the legislature, or the lawfulness of the place where its sessions were held, which it is competent for any tribunal to inquire into with a view to its decision at this day, and after the series of events which have ensued, it must be a judicial question, over which congress can have no control, and which can be determined only by the courts of justice, under the protection and sanction of the constitution.

When it was proposed in the last congress to annul the acts of the legislative assembly of Minnesota, incorporating certain railroad companies, this committee reported against the proposition, and, instead of annulling the local legislation of the territory, recommended the repeal of that clause of the organic act of Minnesota which reserves to congress the right to disapprove its laws. That recommendation was based on the theory that the people of the territory, being citizens of the United States, were entitled to the privilege of self-government in obedience to the constitution; and if, in the exercise of this right, they had made wise and just laws, they ought to be permitted to enjoy all the advantages resulting from them; while, on the contrary, if they had made unwise and unjust laws, they should abide the consequences of their own acts until they discovered, acknowledged, and corrected their errors.

It has been alleged that gross misrepresentations have been made in respect to the character of the laws enacted by the legislature of Kansas, calculated, if not designed, to prejudice the public mind at a distance against those who enacted them, and to create the impression that it was the duty of congress to interfere and annul them. In view of the violent and insurrectionary measures which were being taken to resist the laws of the territory, a convention of delegates, representing almost every portion of the territory of Kansas, was held at the city of Leavenworth on the 14th of November, 1855, at which men of all shades of political opinions, "whigs, democrats, pro-slavery men, and freo state men, all met and harmonized together, and forgot their former differences in the common danger that seemed to threaten the peace, good order, and prosperity of this community." This convention was presided over by the governor of the territory, assisted by a majority of the judges of the supreme court; and the address to the citizens of the United States, among other distinguished names, bears the signatures of the United States district attorney and marshal for the territory.