Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/792

 habeas corpus; the repeal of all laws inconsistent with the constitution of the United States and the organic act, and the steady administration of the government so as best to secure the general welfare.

These sterling maxims, sanctioned by the wisdom and experience of the past, and the observance of which has brought our country to so exalted a position among the nations of the earth, will be steady lights by which my administration shall be guided.

A summary view of the state of the territory upon my advent, with an allusion to some of my official acts, may not be inappropriate to this occasion f and may serve to inspire your counsels with that wisdom and prudence, by a contemplation of the frightful excesses of the past, so essential to the adoption of measures to prevent their recurrence, and enable you to lay the broad and solid foundations of a future commonwealth which may give protection and happiness to millions of freemen.

It accords not with my policy or intentions to do the least injustice to any citizen or party of men in this territory or elsewhere. Pledged to do "equal and exact justice" in my executive capacity, I am inclined to throw the veil of oblivion over the errors and outrages of the period antecedent to my arrival, except so far as reference to them may be necessary for substantial justice, and to explain and develope the policy which has shed the benign influences of peace upon Kansas, and which, if responded to by the legislature in a spirit of kindness and conciliation, will contribute much to soothe those feelings of bitterness and contention which in the past brought upon us such untold evils.

I arrived at Fort Leavenworth on the ninth day of September last, and immediately assumed the executive functions. On the eleventh, I issued my inaugural address, declaring the general principles upon which I intended to administer the government. In this address, I solemnly pledged myself to support the constitution of the United States, and to discharge my duties as governor of Kansas with fidelity; to sustain all the provisions of the organic act, which I pronounced to be "eminently just and beneficial;" to stand by the doctrine of popular sovereignty, or the will of the majority of the actual bona fide inhabitants, when legitimately expressed, which I characterized "the imperative rule of civil action for every law-abiding citizen." The gigantic evils under which this territory was groaning were attributed to outside influences, and the people of Kansas were earnestly invoked to suspend unnatural strife; to banish all extraneous and improper influences from their deliberations; and in the spirit of reason and mutual conciliation to adjust their own differences. Such suggestions in relation to modifications of the present statutes as I deemed for the public interests, were promised at the proper time. It was declared that this territory was the common property of the people of the several states, and that no obstacle should be interposed to its free settlement, while in a territorial condition, by the citizens of every state of the Union. A just territorial pride was sought to be infused; pledge was solemnly given to know no party, no section, nothing but Kansas and the Union; and the people were earnestly invoked to bury the past in oblivion, to suspend hostilities and