Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/842

 appropriate function when it extends to the people the right of suffrage, but it cannot compel the performance of that duty. Throughout our whole Union, however, and wherever free government prevails, those who abstain from the exercise of the right of suffrage authorize those who do vote to act for them in that contingency; and the absentees are as much bound, under the law and Constitution, where there is no fraud or violence, by the act of the majority of those who do vote, as if all had participated in the election. Otherwise, as voting must be voluntary, self-government would be impracticable, and monarchy or despotism would remain as the only alternative.

It may also be observed, that at this period any hope, if such had existed, that the Topeka Constitution would ever be recognized by Congress, must have been abandoned. Congress had adjourned on the 3d March previous, having recognized the legal existence of the Territorial Legislature in a variety of forms, which I need not enumerate. Indeed, the delegate elected to the House of Representatives, [sic]nnder a Territorial law, had been admitted to his seat, and had just completed his term of service on the day previous to my inauguration.

This was the propitious moment for settling all difficulties in Kansas. This was a time for abandoning the revolutionary Topeka organization, and for the enemies of the existing government to conform to the laws, and to unite with its friends in framing a State Constitution. But this they refused to do, and the consequences of their refusal to submit to lawful authority and vote at the election of delegates may yet prove to be of a most deplorable character. Would that the respect for the laws of the land which so eminently distingushed the men of the past generation could be revived! It is a disregard and violation of law which have for years kept the Territory of Kansas in a state of almost open rebellion against its government. It is the same spirit which has produced actual rebellion in Utah. Our only safety consists in obedience and conformity to law. Should a general spirit against its enforcement prevail, this will prove fatal to us as a nation. We acknowledge no master but the law; and should we cut loose from its restraints, and every one do what seemeth good in his own eyes, our case will indeed be hopeless.

The enemies of the Territorial government determined still to resist the authority of Congress. They refused to vote for delegates to the Convention, not because, from circumstances which I need not detail, there was an omission to register the comparatively few voters who were inhabitants of certain counties of Kansas in the early spring of 1857, but because they had predetermined, at all hazards, to adhere to their revolutionary organization, and defeat the establishment of any other Constitution than that which they had framed at Topeka. The election was, therefore, suffered to pass by default; but of this result the qualified electors who refused to vote can never justly complain.

From this review, it is manifest that the Lecompton Convention, according to every principle of constitutional law, was legally constituted and was invested with power to frame a Constitution.