Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/843

 The sacred principle of popular sovereignty has been invoked in favor of the enemies of law and order in Kansas. But in what manner is popular sovereignty to be exercised in this country, if not through the instrumentality of established law? In certain small republics of ancient times the people did assemble in primary meetings, passed laws, and directed public affairs. In our country this is manifestly impossible. Popular sovereignty can be exercised here only through the ballot-box; and if the people will refuse to exercise it in this manner, as they have done in Kansas at the election of delegates, it is not for them to complain that their rights have been violated.

The Kansas Convention, thus lawfully constituted, proceeded to frame a Constitution, and, having completed their work, finally adjourned on the 7th day of November last. They did not think proper to submit the whole of this Constitution to a popular vote, but they did submit the question whether Kansas should be a free or a slave State to the people. This was the question which had convulsed the Union and shaken it to its very centre. This was the question which had lighted up the flames of civil war in Kansas, and had produced dangerous sectional parties throughout the confederacy. It was of a character so paramount in respect to the condition of Kansas as to rivet the anxious attention of the people of the whole country upon it, and it alone. No person thought of any other question. For my own part, when I instructed Governor Walker in general terms, in favor of submitting the Constitution to the people, I had no object in view except the all-absorbing question of slavery. In what manner the people of Kansas might regulate their other concerns was not a subject which attracted any attention. In fact, the general provisions of our recent State Constitutions, after an experience of eight years, are so similar and so excellent that it would be difficult to go far wrong at the present day in framing a new Constitution.

I then believed, and still believe, that, under the organic act, the Kansas Convention were bound to submit this all-important question of slavery to the people. It was never, however, my opinion that, independently of this act they would have been bound to submit any portion of the Constitution to a popular vote, in order to give it validity. Had I entertained such an opinion, this would have been in opposition to many precedents in our history, commencing in the very best age of the republic. It would have been in opposition to the principle which pervades our institutions, and which is every day carried out into practice, that the people have the right to delegate to representatives, chosen by themselves, their sovereign power to frame Constitutions, enact laws, and perform many other important acts, without requiring that these should be subjected to their subsequent approbation. It would be a most inconvenient limitation of their own power, imposed by the people upon themselves, to exclude them from exercising their sovereignty in any lawful manner they think proper. It is true that the people of Kansas might, if they had pleased, have required the Convention to submit the Constitution to a popular