that have been perpetrated in Utah, and would execute the laws, by military force if necessary. No temporizing policy, no half-way measures, says Mr. Douglas, will answer. “He would first repeal the organic act, absolutely and unconditionally, blotting out of existence the Territorial government, and bringing Utah under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States government."

No man can fail to see that the mode of grappling with the Utah question which Mr. Douglas suggests, is the only way in which the great problem of "What is to be done with Utah ?" can be solved. It must be settled in the way he indicates, sooner or later. We give this speech in a subse

quent part of the work.

CHAPTER XII.

THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION—BRITISH AGGRESSION-1858.

New Aspect of Affairs at the Federal Capitol-Mr. Douglas calls on the President for Information in regard to Affairs in Kansas-Great Speech of Mr. Douglas against the Lecompton Constitution-Speech in Favor of the Crittenden-Montgomery Amendment-Speech on the English Bill-Speech in favor of conferring on the President Power to punish British Outrages.

THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION.

THE first session of the 35th Congress met in December, 1857. On the 8th, President Buchanan sent to Congress his first annual message. On the 9th, Mr. Douglas addressed the Senate on that part of the message referring to affairs in Kansas.

This speech is a calm and clear examination of the question --whether or not Kansas could be received into the Union, with the Lecompton constitution.

MR. PRESIDENT: When yesterday the President's message was read at the clerk's desk, I heard it but imperfectly, and I was of the impression that the President of the United States had approved and indorsed the action of the Lecompton convention in Kansas. Under that impression, I felt it my duty to state that, while I concurred in the general views of the message, yet, so far as it approved or indorsed the action of that convention, I entirely dissented from it, and would avail myself of an early opportunity to state my reasons for my dissent. Upon a more careful and critical examination of the message, I am rejoiced to find that the Presi·

dent of the United States has not recommended that Congress shall pass a law to receive Kansas into the Union under the constitution formed at Lecompton. It is true that the tone of the message indicates a willingness on the part of the President to sign a bill, if we shall see proper to pass one, receiving Kansas into the Union under that constitution. But, sir, it is a fact of great significance, and worthy of consideration, that the President has refrained from any indorsement of the convention, and from any recommendation as to the course Congress should pursue with regard to the constitution there formed.

The message of the President has made an argument- --an unanswerable argument, in my opinion-against that constitution, which shows clearly, whether intended to arrive at the result or not, that, consistently with his views and his principles, he cannot accept that constitution. He has expressed his deep mortification and disappointment that the constitution itself has not been submitted to the people of Kansas for their acceptance or rejection. He informs us that he has unqualifiedly expressed his opinions on that subject in his instructions to Governor Walker, assuming, as a matter of course, that the constitution was to be submitted to the people before it could have any vitality or validity. He goes further, and tells us that the example set by Congress in the Minnesota case, by inserting a clause in the enabling act requiring the constitution to be submitted to the people, ought to become a uniform rule, not to be departed from hereafter in any case. On these various propositions I agree entirely with the President of the United States, and I am prepared now to sustain that uniform rule which he asks us to pursue, in all other cases, by taking the Minnesota provision as our example.

I rejoice, on a careful perusal of the message, to find so much less to dissent from than I was under the impression there was, from the hasty reading and imperfect hearing of the message in the first instance. In effect, he refers that document to the Congress of the United States-as the Constitution of the United States refers it-for us to decide upon it under our responsibility. It is proper that he should have thus referred it to us as a matter for Congressional action, and not as an administration or executive measure, for the reason that the Constitution of the United States says that "Congress may admit new States into the Union." Hence we find the Kansas question before us now, not as an administration measure, not as an Executive measure, but as a measure coming before us for our free action, without any recommendation or interference, directly or indirectly, by the administration now in possession of the Federal Govern

ment. Sir, I propose to examine this question calmly and fairly, to see whether or not we can properly receive Kansas into the Union with the constitution formed at Lecompton.

The President, after expressing his regret, and mortification, and disappointment, that the constitution had not been submitted to the people in pursuance of his instructions to Governor Walker, and in pursuance of Governor Walker's assurance to the people, says, however, that by the Kansas-Nebraska Act the slavery question only was required to be referred to the people, and the remainder of the constitution was not thus required to be submitted. He acknowledges that, as a general rule, on general principles, the whole constitution should be submitted; but according to his understanding of the organic act of Kansas, there was an imperative obligation to submit the slavery question for their approval or disapproval, but no obligation to submit the entire constitution. In other words, he regards the organic act, the Nebraska Bill, as having made an exception of the slavery clause, and pt vided for the disposition of that question in a mode different from that in which other domestic or local, as contradistinguished from federal questions, should be decided. Sir, permit me to say, with profound respect for the President of the United States, that I conceive that on this point he has committed a fundamental error, an error which lies at the foundation of his whole argument on this matter. I can well understand how that distinguished statesman came to fall into this error. He was not in the country at the time the Nebraska Bill was passed; he was not a party to the controversy and the discussion that took place during its passage. He was then representing the honor and the dignity of the country with great wisdom and distinction at a foreign court. Thus deeply engrossed, his whole energies were absorbed in conducting great diplomatic questions that diverted his attention from the mere territorial questions and discussions then going on in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and before the people at home. Under these circumstances, he may well have fallen into an error, radical and fundamental as it is, in regard to the object of the Nebraska Bill and the principle asserted in it.

Now, sir, what was the principle enunciated by the authors and supporters of that bill when it was brought forward? Did we not come before the country and say that we repealed the Missouri restriction for the purpose of substituting and carrying out as a general rule the great principle of selfgovernment, which left the people of each State and each Territory freo to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject

only to the Constitution of the United States? In support of that proposition, it was argued here, and I have argued it wherever I have spoken in various States of the Union, at home and abroad, everywhere I have endeavored to prove that there was no reason why an exception should be made in regard to the slavery question. I have appealed to the people if we did not all agree, men of all parties, that all other local and domestic questions should be submitted to the people. I said to them, “We agree that the people shall decide for themselves what kind of a judiciary system they will have; we agree that the people shall decide what kind of a school system they will establish; we agree that the people shall determine for themselves what kind of a banking system they will have, or whether they will have any banks,at all; we agree that the people may decide for themselves what shall be the elective franchise in their respective States; they shall decide for themselves what shall be the rule of taxation and the principles upon which their finance shall be regulated; we agree that they may decide for themselves the relations between husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward; and why should we not then allow them to decide for themselves the relations between master and servant? Why make an exception of the slavery question by taking it out of that great rule of self-government which applies to all the other relations of life ?" The very first proposition in the Nebraska Bill was to show that the Missouri restriction, prohibiting the people from deciding the slavery question for themselves, constituted an exception to a general rule, in violation of the principle of self-government, and hence that that exception should be repealed, and the slavery question, like all other questions, submitted to the people to be decided for themselves.

Sir, that was the principle on which the Nebraska Bill was defended by its friends. Instead of making the slavery question an exception, it removed an odious exception which before existed. Its whole object was to abolish that odious exception, and make the rule general, universal, in its application to all matters which were local and domestic, and not national or federal. For this reason was the language employed which the President has quoted; that the eighth section of the Missouri Act, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, was repealed because it was repugnant to the principle of non-intervention established by the Compromise measures of 1850, "it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the