Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/705

 of opinion exists, and which congress and the courts have never settled, was thus turned over to the people there, to discuss and settle for themselves. This territorial legislature, so created by force from Missouri, utterly refused to permit discussion on the subject; but, assuming that slavery already existed there, and that neither congress nor the people in the territory, under the authority of congress, had or could prohibit it, passed a law which, if enforced, utterly prohibits all discussion of the question. The eleventh and twelfth sections of that act are as follows:

"Sec. 11. If any person print, write, introduce into, publish or circulate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written, published or circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist in bringing into, printing, publishing or circulating within this territory, any book, paper, pamphlet, magazine, hand-bill or circular, containing any statements, arguments, opinions, sentiments, doctrines, advice or inuendo, calculated to promote a disorderly, dangerous or rebellious disaffection among the slaves in this territory, or to induce such slaves to escape from the service of their masters or to resist their authority, he shall be guilty of a felony, and be punished by imprisonment and hard labor for a term not less than five years.

"Sec. 12. If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this territory, or shall introduce into this territory, print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into this territory, written, printed, published or circulated in this territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet or circular, containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this territory, such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than two years."

And further providing, that no person "conscientiously opposed to holding slaves" shall sit as a juror in the trial of any cause founded on a breach of the foregoing law. They further provided, that all officers and attorneys should be sworn not only to support the constitution of the United States, but also to support and sustain the organic law of the territory, and the fugitive slave laws; and that any person offering to vote shall be presumed to be entitled to vote until the contrary is shown, and if any one, when required, shall refuse to take oath to sustain the fugitive-slave laws, he shall not be permitted to vote. Although they passed a law that none but an inhabitant, who had paid a tax, should vote, yet they required no time of residence necessary, and provided for the immediate payment of a poll-tax; so providing, in effect, that on the eve of an election the people of a neighboring state could come in, in unlimited numbers, and, by taking up a residence of a day or an hour, pay a poll-tax, and thus become legal voters, and then, after voting, return to their own state. They thus, in practical effect, provided for the people of Missouri to control elections at their pleasure, and permitted such only of the real inhabitants of the territory to vote as are friendly to the holding of slaves.

They permitted no election of any of the officers in the territory to be made by the people thereof, but created the offices and filled them, or appointed officers to fill them for long periods, and provided that the next anuual election should be holden in October, 1856, and the assembly to meet in Jauuary, 1857; so that none of these laws could be changed, until the lower house