Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/704

 in relation thereto, issued certificates to the members who appeared by said formal returns to have been elected.

In relation to those districts which the governor so set aside, orders were by him issued for new elections In one of these districts the same proceedings were repeated by men from Missouri, and in others not, and certificates were issued to the persons elected.

This legislative assembly, so elected, assembled at Pawnee, on the second day of July, 1855, that being the time and place for holding said meeting, as fixed by the governor, by authority of law. On assembling, the said houses proceeded to set aside and reject those members so elected on said second election, except in the district where the men from Missouri had, at said election, chosen the same persons they had elected at the said first election, and they admitted all of the said first elected members.

A legislative assembly, so created by military force, by a foreign invasion, in violation of the organic law, was but a usurpation. No act of its own, no act or neglect of the governor, could legalize or sanctify it. Its own decisions as to its own legality are like its laws, but the fruits of its own usurpation, which no governor could legitimate.

They passed an act altering the place of the temporary seat of government to the Shawnee Mission, on the border of, and in near proximity to Missouri. This act the governor regarded as a violation of the organic law establishing the territory, which fixed the temporary seat of government, and prohibited the legislative assembly from doing anything inconsistent with said act. He, therefore, and for that cause, vetoed said bill; but said assembly repassed the same by a two-thirds majority, notwithstanding said veto, and removed to said Shawnee Mission. They then proceeded to pass laws, and the governor, in writing, declined further to recognize them as a legitimate assembly, sitting at that place. They continued passing laws there from the 16th day of July to the 31st day of August, 1855.

On the 15th day of August, the governor of said territory was dismissed from office, and the duties devolved upon the secretary of the territory; and, how many of the laws passed with his official approbation does not appear, the laws as now presented being without date or authentication.

As by the law of congress organizing said territory it was expressly provided that the people of the territory were to be "left perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way," and among these institutions slavery is included, it was, of course, implied that that subject was to be open and free to public and private discussion in all its bearings, rights, and relationships. Among these must, of course, be the question, what was the state of the existing laws, and the modifications that might be required on that subject? The law had declared that its "true intent and meaning was not to legislate slavery into the territory, or exclude it therefrom." This would, of course, leave to that people the inquiry, what, then, are the existing rights under the constitution? Can slaves be holden in the absence of any law on the subject? This question, about which so much