Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/844

 vote; but this they have not done. The only remedy, therefore, in this case, is that which exists in all other similar cases. If the delegates who framed the Kansas Constitution have in any manner violated the will of their constituents, the people always possess the power to change their Constitution or their laws, according to their own pleasure.

The question of slavery was submitted to an election of the people of Kansas on the 21st of December last, in obedience to the mandate of the Constitution. Here, again, a fair opportunity was presented to the adherents of the Topeka Constitution, if they were the majority, to decide this exciting question "in their own way," and thus restore peace to the distracted Territory; but they again refused to exercise their right of popular sovereignty, and again suffered the election to pass by default.

I heartily rejoice that a wiser and better spirit prevailed among a large majority of these people on the first Monday of January; and that they did, on that day, vote under the Lecompton Constitution for a Governor and other State officers, a member of Congress, and for members of the Legislature. This election was warmly contested by the parties, and a larger vote was polled than at any previous election in the Territory. We may now reasonably hope that the revolutionary Topeka organization will be speedily and finally abandoned, and this will go far towards the final settlement of the unhappy differences in Kansas. If frauds have been committed at this election, either by one or both parties, the Legislature and the people of Kansas, under their Constitution, will know how to redress themselves and punish these detestable but too common crimes without any outside interference.

The people of Kansas have, then, "in their own way," and in strict accordance with the organic act, framed a Constitution and State government; have submitted the all-important question of slavery to the people, and have elected a Governor, a member to represent them in Congress, members of the State Legislature, and other State officers. They now ask admission into the Union under this Constitution, which is republican in its form. It is for Congress to decide whether they will admit or reject the State which has thus been created. For my own part, I am decidedly in favor of its admission, and thus terminating the Kansas question. This will carry out the great principle of non-intervention recognized and sanctioned by the organic act, which declares in express language in favor of "non-intervention of Congress with slavery in the States or Territories," leaving "the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." In this manner, by localizing the question of slavery and confining it to the people whom it immediately concerned, every patriot anxiously expected that this question would be banished from the halls of Congress, where it has always exerted a baneful influence throughout the whole country.

It is proper that I should briefly refer to the election held under an act of