Part 18

It was Mr. Calhoun, however, who pressed the opposition with the most persevering intensity. In his sight, the admission of Michigan, under the circumstances, “would be the most monstrous proceeding under our Constitution, that can be conceived, the most repugnant to its principles and dangerous in its consequences.”[116] “There is not,” he exclaimed, “one particle of official evidence before us. We have nothing but the private letters of individuals, who do not know even the numbers that voted on either occasion. They know nothing of the qualifications of voters, nor how their votes were received, nor by whom counted.”[117] And he proceeded to characterize the popular Convention as “not only a party caucus, for party purpose, but a criminal meeting,--a meeting to subvert the authority of the State, and to assume its sovereignty,”--adding, that “the actors in that meeting might be indicted, tried, and punished.”[118] And he expressed astonishment that “a self-created meeting, convened for a criminal object, had dared to present to this Government an act of theirs, and to expect that we are to receive this irregular and criminal act, as a fulfilment of the condition which we had prescribed for the admission of the State.”[119] No stronger words are employed against Kansas.

The single question on which all the proceedings then hinged, and which is as pertinent in the case of Kansas as in the case of Michigan, was thus put by Mr. Morris, of Ohio: “_Will Congress recognize as valid, constitutional, and obligatory, without the color of a law of Michigan to sustain it, an act done by the People of that State in their primary assemblies, and acknowledge that act as obligatory on the constituted authorities and Legislature of the State?_”[120] This question, thus distinctly presented, was answered in debate by able Senators, among whom were Mr. Benton and Mr. King. There was one person, who has since enjoyed much public confidence, and left many memorials of an industrious career in the Senate and in diplomatic life, James Buchanan, who rendered himself conspicuous by the ability and ardor with which, against all assault, he upheld the cause of the popular Convention, which was so strongly denounced, and the entire conformity of its proceedings with the genius of American Institutions. His speeches on that occasion contain an unanswerable argument at all points, _mutato nomine_, for the immediate admission of Kansas under her present Constitution; nor is there anything by which he is now distinguished that will redound so truly to his fame, if he only continues true to them. The question was emphatically answered in the Senate by the final vote on the passage of the bill, where we find 25 yeas to only 10 nays. In the House of Representatives, after debate, the question was answered in the same way, by a vote, on ordering the bill to a third reading, of 140 yeas to 57 nays; and among the yeas is again the name of FRANKLIN PIERCE, a Representative from New Hampshire.

Thus, in that day, by triumphant votes, did the cause of Kansas prevail in the name of Michigan. A popular Convention, called absolutely without authority, and containing delegates from a portion only of the population,--called, too, in opposition to constituted authorities, and in derogation of another Convention assembled under forms of law,--stigmatized as a caucus and a criminal meeting, whose authors were liable to indictment, trial, and punishment,--was, after ample debate, recognized by Congress as valid; and Michigan now holds her place in the Union, and her Senators sit on this floor, by virtue of that act. Sir, if Michigan is legitimate, Kansas cannot be illegitimate. You bastardize Michigan, when you refuse to recognize Kansas.

But this is not all. The precedent is still more clinching. Thus far I have followed exclusively the public documents laid before Congress, and illustrated by the debates of that body; but well-authenticated facts, not of record here, make the case stronger still. It is sometimes said that the proceedings in Kansas are defective because they originated in a party. This is not true; but even if it were true, yet would they find support in the example of Michigan, where all the proceedings, stretching through successive years, began and ended in party. The proposed State Government was pressed by the Democrats as a _party test_; and all who did not embark in it were denounced. Of the Legislative Council which called the first Constitutional Convention in 1835, all were Democrats; and in the Convention itself, composed of eighty-seven members, only seven were Whigs. The Convention of 1836 which gave the final assent originated in a Democratic Convention, on the 29th of October, in the County of Wayne, composed of one hundred and twenty-four delegates, all Democrats, who proceeded to resolve:--

“That the delegates of the _Democratic party_ of Wayne, solemnly impressed with the spreading evils and dangers which a refusal to go into the Union has brought upon the people of Michigan, earnestly recommend meetings to be immediately convened by their fellow-citizens in every county of the State, with a view to the expression of their sentiments in favor of the election and call of another Convention, in time to secure our admission into the Union before the first of January next.”

Shortly afterwards, a committee of five, appointed by this Convention, all leading Democrats, issued a circular, “under the authority of the delegates of the County of Wayne,” recommending that the voters throughout Michigan should meet and elect delegates to a Convention to give the necessary assent to the Act of Congress. In pursuance of this call, the Convention met; and as it originated in an exclusively party recommendation, so it was of an exclusively party character. And it was the action of this Convention that was submitted to Congress, and, after discussion in both bodies, on solemn votes, approved.

The precedent of Michigan has another feature, which is entitled to gravest attention, especially at this moment, when citizens exerting themselves to establish a State Government in Kansas are openly arrested on the charge of treason, and we are startled by tidings of maddest efforts to press this procedure of preposterous Tyranny. No such madness prevailed under Andrew Jackson,--although, during the long pendency of the Michigan proceedings, for more than fourteen months, the Territorial Government was entirely ousted, and the State Government organized in all its departments. One hundred and thirty-seven different legislative acts and resolutions were passed, providing for elections, imposing taxes, erecting corporations, and organizing courts of justice, including a Supreme Court and a Court of Chancery. All process was issued in the name of the People of the State of Michigan. And yet no attempt was made to question the legal validity of these proceedings, whether legislative or judicial. Least of all did any menial Governor, “dressed in a little brief authority,” play the fantastic tricks now witnessed in Kansas; nor did any person wearing the robes of justice shock high Heaven with the mockery of injustice now enacted by emissaries of the President in that Territory. No, Sir: nothing of this kind then occurred. Andrew Jackson was President.

Again I say, do you require a precedent? I give it. But I will not stake this cause on any precedent. I plant it firmly on the fundamental principle of American Institutions, as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, by which government is recognized as deriving its just powers only _from the consent of the governed_, who may alter or abolish it, when it becomes destructive of their rights. In the debate on the Nebraska Bill, at the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, the Declaration of Independence was denounced as “a self-evident lie.” It is only by similar effrontery that the fundamental principle which sustains the proceedings in Kansas can be assailed. Nay, more: you must disown the Declaration of Independence, and adopt the Circular of the Holy Alliance, which declares that “useful or necessary changes in legislation and in the administration of states _ought to emanate only from the free will and the deliberate and enlightened impulse of those whom God, has rendered responsible for power_.”[121] Face to face I put the principle of the Declaration of Independence and the principle of the Holy Alliance, and bid them grapple. “The one places the remedy in the hands which _feel_ the disorder; the other places the remedy in those hands which _cause_ the disorder”; and when I thus truthfully characterize them, I but adopt a sententious phrase from the Debates in the Virginia Convention on the adoption of the National Constitution.[122] And now these two principles, embodied in the rival propositions of the Senator from New York and the Senator from Illinois, must grapple on this floor.

Statesmen and judges, publicists and authors, with names of authority in American history, espouse and vindicate the American principle. Hand in hand they now stand around Kansas, and feel this new State lean on them for support. I content myself with adducing two only, both from slaveholding Virginia, in days when Human Rights were not without support in that State. Listen to the language of St. George Tucker, the distinguished commentator upon Blackstone, uttered from the bench in a judicial opinion.

“The power of convening the legal Assemblies, or the ordinary constitutional Legislature, _resided solely in the Executive_. They could neither be chosen without writs issued by its authority, nor assemble, when chosen, but under the same authority. The Conventions, on the contrary, were chosen and assembled either in pursuance of recommendations from Congress or from their own bodies, _or by the discretion and common consent of the people_. They were held even whilst a legal Assembly existed.… The Convention, then, was not the ordinary Legislature of Virginia. It was the body of the people, impelled to assemble from a sense of common danger, consulting for the common good, and acting in all things for the common safety.”[123]

Listen also to the language of James Madison:--

“That, in all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the former would render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious right of the people to ‘abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.’ … Nor could it have been forgotten _that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those who wished to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity to the substance contended for_.”[124]

Proceedings thus sustained I am unwilling to call _revolutionary_, although this term has the sanction of the Senator from New York. They are founded on unquestionable American right, declared with Independence, confirmed by the blood of the Fathers, and expounded by patriots, which cannot be impeached without impairing the liberties of all. On this head the language of Mr. Buchanan, in reply to Mr. Calhoun, is explicit.

“Does the gentleman [Mr. CALHOUN] contend, then, that, if, in one of the States of this Union, the Government be so organized as utterly to destroy the right of equal representation, there is no mode of obtaining redress, but by an Act of the Legislature authorizing a Convention, or by open rebellion? Must the people step at once from oppression to open war? Must it be either absolute submission or absolute revolution? _Is there no middle course?_ I cannot agree with the Senator. I say that the whole history of our Government establishes the principle that the people are sovereign, and that a majority of them can alter or change their fundamental laws at pleasure. _I deny that this is either rebellion or revolution. It is an essential and a recognized principle in all our forms of government._”[125]

Surely, Sir, if ever there was occasion for the exercise of this right, the time had come in Kansas. The people there were subjugated by a horde of foreign invaders, and brought under a tyrannical code of revolting barbarity, while among them property and life were exposed to shameless assaults which flaunted at noonday, and to reptile abuses which crawled in the darkness of night. _Self-defence is the first law of Nature_; and unless this law is temporarily silenced, as all other law is silenced there, you cannot condemn the proceedings in Kansas. Here, Sir, is unquestionable authority, _in itself an overwhelming law_, which belongs to all countries and times,--which is the same in Kansas as at Athens and Rome,--which is now, and will be hereafter, as it was in other days,--in presence of which Acts of Congress and Constitutions are powerless as the voice of man against the thunder which rolls through the sky,--which declares itself coëval with life,--whose very breath is life itself; and now, in the last resort, do I place all these proceedings under this supreme safeguard, which you will assail in vain. Any opposition must be founded on absolute perversion of facts, or perversion of fundamental principles, which no speeches can uphold, though surpassing in numbers the myriad piles sunk in the mud to sustain the Dutch Stadthouse at Amsterdam.

* * * * *

Thus, on every ground of precedent, whether as regards population or forms of proceeding,--also, on the vital principle of American Institutions,--and, lastly, on the supreme law of self-defence, do I now invoke the power of Congress to admit Kansas at once and without hesitation into the Union. “New States _may_ be admitted by the Congress into this Union”: such are the words of the Constitution. If you hesitate for want of precedent, then do I appeal to the great principle of American Institutions. If, forgetting the origin of the Republic, you turn away from this principle, then, in the name of human nature, trampled down and oppressed, but aroused to just self-defence, do I plead for the exercise of this power. Do not hearken, I pray you, to the propositions of Tyranny and Folly; do not be ensnared by that other proposition of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS], where is the horrid root of Injustice and Civil War; but apply gladly, and at once, the True Remedy, where are Justice and Peace.

* * * * *

Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and I stand now at the goal. The argument in its various parts is here closed. The Crime against Kansas has been displayed in its origin and extent, beginning with the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, next cropping out in conspiracy on the borders of Missouri, then hardening into continuity of outrage through organized invasion and miscellaneous assaults where all security was destroyed, and ending at last in the perfect subjugation of a generous people to an unprecedented Usurpation. Turning aghast from the Crime, which, like murder, confesses itself “with most miraculous organ,” we have looked with mingled shame and indignation upon the four Apologies, whether of Tyranny, Imbecility, Absurdity, or Infamy, in which it is wrapped, marking especially false testimony, congenial with the original Crime, against the Emigrant Aid Company. Then were noted, in succession, the four Remedies, whether of Tyranny, Folly, Injustice and Civil War, or of Justice and Peace, which last bids Kansas, in conformity with past precedents and under exigencies of the hour, for redemption from Usurpation, to take her place as a State of the Union; and this is the True Remedy. If in this argument I have not unworthily vindicated Truth, then have I spoken according to my desires,--if imperfectly, then only according to my powers. But there are other things, not belonging to the argument, which still press for utterance.

* * * * *

Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, with the education of freemen and the rights of American citizens, now stand at your door. Will you send them away, or bid them enter? Will you push them back to renew their struggle with a deadly foe, or will you preserve them in security and peace? Will you cast them again into the den of Tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts to escape? These questions I put with no common solicitude, for I feel that on their just determination depend all the most precious interests of the Republic; and I perceive too clearly the prejudices in the way, and the accumulating bitterness against this distant people, now claiming a simple birthright, while I am bowed with mortification, as I recognize the President of the United States, who should have been a staff to the weak and a shield to the innocent, at the head of this strange oppression.

At every stage the similitude between the wrongs of Kansas and those other wrongs against which our fathers rose becomes more apparent. Read the Declaration of Independence, and there is hardly an accusation against the British Monarch which may not now be hurled with increased force against the American President. The parallel has fearful particularity. Our fathers complained, that the King had “sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance,”--that he had “combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, _giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation_,”--that he had “abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and _waging war against us_,”--that he had “excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and _endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless savages_,”--that “our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” And this arraignment was aptly followed by the damning words, that “a Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” And surely the President who does all these things cannot be less unfit than a Prince. At every stage the responsibility is brought directly to him. His offence is of commission and omission. He has done that which he ought not to have done, and has left undone that which he ought to have done. By his activity the Prohibition of Slavery was overturned. By his failure to act the honest emigrants in Kansas are left a prey to wrong of all kinds. His activity and inactivity are alike fatal. And now he stands forth the most conspicuous enemy of that unhappy Territory.

As the tyranny of the British King is all renewed in the President, so are renewed on this floor the old indignities which embittered and fomented the troubles of our fathers. The early petition of the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of Independence, was opposed--like the petitions of Kansas--because that body “was assembled without any requisition on the part of the Supreme Power.” Another petition from New York, presented by Edmund Burke, was flatly rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to Parliament. And still another petition from Massachusetts Bay was dismissed as “vexatious and scandalous,” while the patriot philosopher who bore it was exposed to peculiar contumely. Throughout the debates our fathers were made the butt of sorry jest and supercilious assumption. And now these scenes, with these precise objections, are renewed in the American Senate.

With regret I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER], who, omnipresent in this debate,[126] overflows with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas has applied for admission as a State, and, with incoherent phrase, discharges the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make,--with so much of passion, I gladly add, as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure--with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in details of statistics or diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his mouth, but out there flies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar with the life of Franklin; and yet he referred to this household character, while acting as agent of our fathers in England, as above suspicion: and this was done that he might give point to a false contrast with the agent of Kansas,[127]--not knowing, that, however the two may differ in genius and fame, they are absolutely alike in this experience: that Franklin, when intrusted with the petition of Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker where he could not be heard in defence, and denounced as “thief,” even as the agent of Kansas is assaulted on this floor, and denounced as “forger.” And let not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by parallel with the British statesmen of that day; for it is only in hostility to Freedom that any parallel can be found.