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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of
Representatives.
The Constitution requires that the Pres
ident.shall, frOm time to time, not only
recommend to the consideration of Con
gress such measures as he may judge ne
cessary and expedient, but .also that he
shall give information 46,thern of the state
of the Union. To do this fully involves
exposition of all matters in the actual con
dition of the country; domestic or foreign,
which essentially
, concern the general wel
fare. While performing his constitutional
duty in this respect, the President does
not speak merely to express personal con
victions, but as the executive minister of
the government, enabled by his position,
and culled upon by his official obligations,
to scan with an impartial eye the interests
of the whole, and of every part of the
United States.
Of the condition of the domestic inter
ests of the Union, its agricUlture,• mines,
manufactuies; navigation, and commerce,
it is only necessary to say that the inter
nal prosperity of the country, its continu
ous and steady advancement in wealth
and population, and in private as well as
public well-being,attest the wisdom of our
institutions, and the predominant spirit of
intelligence, patriotism, which, notwith
standing occasional irregularities of opin
ion or actien resulting from popular free
dom, has distinguished and characterised
the people of America.
In the brief interval beetween the ter
mination of the last and the commence
ment of the present session of Congress,
the public mind has becu occupied with
the care of selecting, for another-Consti
tutional term, the President and Vice
President of the LTUited States.
The determination of the persons, who
are of right, or contingently, to preside
over the administration of the government,
is, under our system, committed to the
States and the people. We appeal to them
by their voice pronounced in the forms of
law; to call whomsoever they will to the
high post of Chief Magistrate.
And thus it is that as the Senators re
present the respective States of the Union,
and the members of the [louse of Repre
sentatives the several constituencies of
each State, so the President represents
the aggregate population of the United
States. Their election of him is the ex
plicit and solemn act of the sole sovereign
authority of the Union.
It is impossible to misapPrehend the
great principles, which, by their recent
political action, the people of the United
/States have sanctioned and announced.
They have asserted the constitutional
equality of each and all of the States of
the Union as States; they have affirmed
the constitutional equal of each and all of
the citizens of the United States as citi
zens, whatever their religion, wherever
their birth, or their residence ; they have
maintained the inviolability of the consti
tutional rights of the different sections of
the Union ; and they have proclaimed
their devoted and unalterable attachment
to the Union and to the Constitution, as
objects of interest superior to all subjects
of local or sectional controversy, as the
safeguards of the rights of all, as the spir
it and the essence of the liberty, peace,
and greatness of the Republic.
In doing this,
they hate, at the same
time, emphatically eondemed the idea of
organizing in these - United States mere
geographical parties; of
-,marshalling in
hostile array towards each other the differ
ent parts of the country, North or South
East or, West.
Schemes of this: nature, fraught with
incalculable mischief, and. which the con
siderate sense of the people has rejected,
could have had countenance in no part of
the country, had they not been disguised
by suggestions plausible in appearance,
actin.. upon an excited state of the public
mind, induced by causes temporary in
their character,' and it is to be hoped
transient in their influence:
Perfect liberty of association for politi
cal objects, and the widest scope of discus
sion, are the received and ordinary condi
tions of government in our country. Our
institutions, framed in the spirit of . confi
dence in the intelligence and integrity of
the people, do not forbid citizens either
individually or associated together, to at
tack by writing, speech, or any other
methods short of physical force, the Con
stitution and the very existence of the
Union. Under the shelter of this great
liberty, and protected by the laws of usa
ges of the government they assail, associ
ations have beep formed, in some of the
States, of individuals, who, pretending to
seek only to prevent the spread of the in
stitution of slavery into the present or fu
ture inchoate States of the Union, are re
ally inflamed with desire to change the
domestic institutions 'of existing States.
To accomplish their objects, they dedi
cate themselves to the odious task of de
preciating the government organization
which stands in their way, and of" calum
niating, with indiscriminative invective,
not only the citizens of particular States,
with whose
- laws they find fault, but all
WILLIAM LEWIS,
VOL. XII.
others of their fellow-citizens throughout
the country, who:do 'not participate 'With
them,
in their assaults upon the_constitu
tint], framed and adopted by. our fathers,
and.claiming for the privileges' it has con
ferred, the steady support and grateful
reverence of their children. They seek
an objeCt whiCh they well know to be a
revolutionary one.
They are perfectly aware that the change,
in the relative
in
of the white and
black races in the slaveholding States,:
which .they would promote, is • beyond
their lawful authority; that to them' it is
a foreign: object ; that it cannot be effected.
by any peaceful instrninentality of theirs;
that for then:, and the States Of which
they are citizens,,the only path to its ac
complishment is through burning cities
and ravaging .fields, and slaughtered popu
lations,.and all there is most terrible in
foreign, comPlicated With civil and servile
war; and that the first step in the attempt
is the forcible disruption of a country em
bracing in its broad bosom a decree of
liberty, and an amount of individual and '
public prosperity, - to which there is no
parallel in history, and substituting in its
place hostile governments, driven 'at once
and inevitably into mutual devastation
fratricidal carnage, transforming the now
peaceful and felicitous brotherhood into a
vast permanent camp of armed men, like
the rival monarchies of Europe and Asia.
Well knowing that such and such only,
are the means and the consequences of
their plans and purposes, they endeavor to
prepare the people of the United States
for civil war by doing everything in their
power to deprive the Constitution and the
laws of moral authority, and to undermine
the fabric of the Union by appeals to pas
sion and sectional prejudices, by indo-etri
nating its people with reciprocal hatred,
and by educeting them to stand face to
face as enemies, rather than shoulder, to
shoulder as friends.
It is by the agency of such unwarranta
ble interference, foreign and domestic,
that the minds of many, otherwise good
citizens, have been so inflamed into the
passionate condemnation of the domestic
institutions of the southern States, as at
length to, pass insansibly to almost
_equally
passionate hostility towards their fellow
citizens of those States, and thus finally
to fall into temporary fellowship with the
avowed and active enemies of the consti
tution. Ardently attached to liberty in
the abstaact, they do not stop to consider
practically how the objects they would at
tain can be accomplished, nor to reflect
that, even itthe evil were so great as they
deem it, they have no remedy to apply,
and that it can be only aggravated by
their violence and unconstitutional action.
A question, which is one, of the most
difficult of all the problems of social insti
tution,
political economy and statesman
ship, they treat with unreasonable intem
perance of thcught and language. Ex
tremes beget. extremes. Violent attack
from the North finds its inevitable conse
quence in the growth of a spirit of angry
defiance at the South. Thus in the pro
gress of events we had. reached that con
summation, which the voice of the people'
has now so pointedly rebuked of the at
tempt, of a portion of the States, by a
sectional organization. and .movement, to
usurp the control of the government of the
United States.
I confidently believe that the great body
of those who inconsiderately took this fa
tal step, are sincerely attached to the
Consitution. and the Union. They would,
upon deliberation, shrink with unaffected
horror from any conscious act of disunion
or civil war. But they have entered into
a path which leads nowhere, unless it be
to civil war and disunion, and -whiCh has
no other possible outlet. They have pro
ceeded thus in that direction in conse
quence of the successive stages of their
progress having consisted of a series of
secondary issues, each of which professed
to be confined within constitutional and
peaceful limits, but which never attempt
ed indirectly hat few men were willing
to do directly, that is, to act aggressively
against the constitutional rights of nearly
one-half of the thirty-one States.
In the long series of acts of indirect ag
gression, the first was the strenuous agita
tion, by citizens of the Northern 'States,
in Congress and out of it, of the question
of negro emancipation in the. Southern
States.
The second step in this path of evil
consisted of acts of the people of the Nor
thern States, and in several instances of
their governments, aimed to facilitate the
escape of persons held to service in the
Southern States, and to prevent their ex
tradition when reclaimed according to law
and in virtue of express provisions of the
Constitutions To prornote this object,
legislative enactments and other means
were adopted to take, away or defeat rights
which the Constitution solemnly guaran
tied. In order to nullify the then exist
ing act of Congress concerning the extra
dition of fugitive from service laws were
enacted in many States, forbidding their
officers, under the severest penalties, to
participate in the execution of any 'act of
Congress whatever.
, ...
..,..:;.:.- .
.. „ . ..i . : : : : : :... • ..,.,...
)
•;., •,•• •,.... •
• ::-.. .-•,•. , , .., . • e
',..'• • •.i.::,..: . ••,z..:. '
In this Way that, system of , 'harmonious
co-operation between the authorities of the
United States, and of the several States,
for the' maintenance of their common in
stitutions, Vahich existed in the early years
of the Republic, was destroyed; conflicts
of jurisdiction came to be frequent; 'and
Congress found itself compelled, for the
support'of tbe Constitution, and the vin
dication of its power„ to authorize the
appointment of new officers charged with
the execution of its acts, as if they and
the officers of the States were the minis
ters, respectively; Of - foreign governments
in a state of mutual hostility,, rather than
fellow magistrates of,a common country,.
peacefully subsisting under the protection
of one well-constituted Union. Thus
here, also, aggression was followed by re=
action; and the attacks upon the Consti
tution at this point did but swerve to raise
up new barriers for its defence' and se
curity.
The third stage of this unhappy section
al controversy was in connection with the
organization of , territorial governments,
and the admission of new States into the
Union. When it was, proposed to admit
the State of Maine, lay separation of ter
ritory from that of Massachusetts, and the
State of Missouri, formed a portion of the
territory ceded by FranCe to the United
States, representation in Congress object
ed to the admission of the latter, unless
with Conditions suited to particular views
of public policy. The imposition of such
a condition was successfully resisted.—
But, at the same period, the question was
presented by imposing restrictions upon
the residue of the territory ceded by
France. The question was, for the time,
disposed of by the adoption of a geograph
ical line of limitation.
In this connexion it should not be for
gotten that France, of her own accord,
resolved, for considerations of the most
far-sighted sagacity, to cede Louisiana to
the United States, and that accession was
accepted by the nited States, the latter
expressly engaged that "the inhabitants
of the ceded territory shall be incorporated
in the Union of the United States, and
admitted as soon as possible, according to
the nrinci.Ules of the Federal Constitution,
to the enjoyment of"alft - rfe fignts,- uttyzni--
tages, and immunities of citizens of the
United States; and in the meantime they.
shall be maintained and protected in the
free enjoyment of their liberty, property,
and the religion which they profess"—
that is to say, while it remains in a terri
torial condition, its inhabitants are main
tained and protected in the free enjoyment
of their liberty and property, with a right
then to pass into the condition of States
on a footing of perfect equality - with the
original States.
The enactment, which established the
geographical line, was acquiesced iu rath
er than approved by the States of the
Union. It stood on the statute book,
however, for a number of years; and the
people of the respective States acquiesced
in the re-enactment of the principle as ap
plied to the State of Texas; and it was
proposed to acquiesce in its further appli
cation to the territory acquired by the U.
States from Mexico. But this proposition
was successfully resisted - by the represen
tatives front the northern States, who, re
gardless of the statute line, insisted upon
applying restriction to the new territory
generally, whether lying north or south of
it, thereby repealing it as a legislative
compromise, and on the part of the' north,
persistently violating the compaCt, 'if com
pact there was.
Thereupon this enactment ceased to
have bindink. virtue in any sense, whether
as respects VlTe North or the South; and
so in effect it was treated on the occasion
of the admission of the State of California,
and the organization of the Territories' of
New Mexico, Utah, and Washington.
Such was the . state of this, questiOn,
when the time arrived for the organization
of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
In the progress of constitutional inquiry
and reflection, it had now at length come
to be seen . clearly that Congress does not
possess constitutional power to impose re
strictions of this character upon any pre
sent or future State of the Union. In a
long series of decisions, on the fullest ar
gument, and after the most deliberate con
sideration, the Supreme Court of the - -U.
States had finally determined this, point,
in every form under which the question
could arise, whether as affecting public or
private rights—in questions of the public
domain, of religion, of navigation and of
servitude.
.The several States of the Union are, by
force of the Constitution, co-equal in do
mestic legislative power. Congress cannot
change a law of domestic relation in the
State of Maine; no more can it in the
State of Missouri. Any statute which
proposes to do this is a mere nulity; it
tikes away no right, it confers none. If
it remains on the statute-book unrepealed,
it remains there only as a monument of
error, and a beacon of warning to the leg
islator and the statesman. To . repeal it
will be only to remove imperfection from
the statutes, without affecting, - either in
the sense of permission or of prohibition,
HUNTINGDON, PA.
--PFRSEYSRE.-=-
DECEMBER 10, 1856.
the action of the State, or of their citizens.
Still, when the nominal restriction of
this nature, already a dead later in law,
was in terms repealed by the last Congress,
in - a clause of the act organizing the Ter
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska, that
repeal was made• the occasion of a wide
spread and dangerous agitation.
• It'was alleged that the original enact
ment being a compact of perpetual moral
obligation, its repeal constituted an odious
breach of faith.
An act of Congress, while it remains
unrepealed, more especially, if it be con
.stitutionally valid in the judgment of those
public - futictionaries whose duty it is to
pronounce on that point, is undoubtedly
binding on the conscience of each good
citizen of the Republic. But in what
sense can it be asserted that the enact
ment in question was invested with perpe
tuity and entitled to the respect of a sol
emn compact ?
• Between whom was the compact? No
distinct contending powers of the govern
ment, no separate sections of the Union,
treating as such, entered into treaty stip
ulations on the subject. It was a mere
clause of an act of Congress, and like any
other controverted matter of legislation,
received its final shape and was passed by
compromise of the conflicting opinions or
sentiments of the members of Congress.—
But if it had moral authority over men's
consciences, to whom did this authority
attach? Not to those of the North, who
had repeatedly refused to confirm it by
extension, and who had zealously striven
to establish other and incompatible regu
lations upon the subject. And if, as it
thus appears, the supposed compact had
no obligatory force as to the North, of
course it could not have had any as to the
South, for all such compacts must be mu
tual and of reciprocal obligation.
It has not unfrequently happened that
law givers, with undue estimation of the
value of the Jaw they give, or in the view
of impartiro , to it peculiar strength, make
it perpetual in terms; but they cannot
thus bind the conscience, the judgment,
and the will of those who may succeed
them, invested with similar responsibili
ties, and clothed with equal authority.—
aim
law to be unsound in principle. Experi
ence may show it to be imperfect in detail
and impracticable in execution. And then
both reason and right combine not merely
to justify, to require its repeal.
The Constitution, supreme as it is over
all the departments of the government,
legislative, executive, and judicial, is open
to amendment by its very terms; and
Congress or the States may, in their dis
cretion, propose amendments to it, solemn
compact though it in truth is between the
sovereign States of the Union. In the
present instance, a political enactment,
which had ceased to have legal power or
authority of any kind, was repealed. The
position assumed, that Congress had no
moral right to enact such repeal, was
strange enough, and singularly so in view
of the fact that the argument came from
those who openly refused obedience to
existing laws of the land, having the same
'popular designation and quality as com
promise acts—nhy, more; who .unequivo
cally disregarded and condemned the
most positive and obligatory injunctions
of the Constitution itself, and sought, by
every means within their reach, to deprive
a portion of their fellow-citizens of the
equal enjoyment of those rights and priv
ileges guarantied alike to all by the funda
mental compact of our Union.
The argument against the repeal of the
statute line in question, was accompanied
by another of congenial character, and
equally with the former destitute of foun
dation in reason and troth. It was impu
ted that the measure originated in the
conception of extending the limits of slave
labor beyond those previously assigned to
it, and that such was its' natural as well as
intended effect ; and these baseless as
sumptions were made, in the northern
States, the ground of unceasing assault
upon constitutional right.
The repeal in terms of a statute, which
was already obsolete, and also null for un
constitutionality, could have no influence
to obstruct or to promote the propagation
of conflicting views of political or social
institution. When the act organizing the
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska was
passed, the inherent effect upon that por
tion of the public domain thus opened to
legal settlement, was to admit settlers from
all the States of the Union 'alike, each
with his convictions of public policy and
private interest, there to be found in their
discretion, subject to such liMitations as
the Constitution and acts of Congress
might prescribe, new States, hereafter to
be admitted into the Union. It was a free
field, open alike to all, whether the statute
line of assumed restrictioniacre repealed
or not: That repeal did not open to free
competition of the diverse opinions and
domestic institutions a field, which, with
out such repeal, would have been closed
against them ; it found that field of compe
tition already opened, in fact and in law.
All the repeal did was to relieve the stat
ute-book' of an objectionable enactment)
N SIL
unconstitutional in effect, and injurious in
terms to a large portion of the States.
Is it the fact, that, in all the unsettled
regions of the United States, if emigration
be left free to act in this respect for itself,
without legal prohibitions on either side,
slave-labor will spontaneously go every
where, in preference to free labor ? Is it
the fact, that the peculiar domestic insti
tutions of the Southern States possess re
latively so much of vigor, that, whereso
ever an avenue is freely open to all the
world, they will penetrate to the exclusion
of those of the Northern States ? Is it the
fact, that the former enjoy, compared with
the latter, such irresistibly superior vitali
ty, independent of climate, soil, and all
other accidental circumstances, as to be
able to produce the supposed result, in
spite of the assumed moral and - natural
obstacles to its accomplishment, and of the
more numerous population of the Northern
States?
The argument of those who advocate
the enactment of new laws of restriction,
and condemn the repeal of old ones, in
effect avers that their particular views of
government have no self-extendinc , or
self-sustaining power of their own,- and
will no where unless forced by act of
Congress. And if Congress do but pause
for a moment in the policy of stern coer
cion; if it venture to try the experiment
of leaving men to judge for themselves
what institutions will best suit them ; if it
be not strained up to perpetual legislative
exertion on this point; if Congress proceed
thus to act in the very spirit of liberty, it
is at once charged with aiming to extend
slave labor into all the new Territories of
the United States.
Of course, these imputations on the in
tentions of Congress in this respect, con
ceived as they were in prejudice, and
disseminated in passion, are utterly desti
tute of any justification in the nature of
things, and contrary to all the fundamen
tal doctrines and principles of civil liberty
and self government.
While therefore, in general, the people
of the Northern States have never, at any
time, arrogated for the federal government
the power to interfere with the domestic
condition of persons in the Southern
States. l but on the contrary have disavow-
easuer intennons, mitt- nay c
from conspicuous affiliation with those few
who pursue their fanatical objects avow
edly through the contemplated. means of
revolutionary change of the government
and with acceptance of the necessary con
sequence—a civil and servile war—yet
many citizens have suffered themselves to
be drawn into one evanescent political
issue of agitation after another, appertain
ing to the same set of opinions, and which
subsided as rapidly as they arose when it
came to be seen, as it uniformly did, that
they were incompatible with the compacts
of the Constitution and the existence of
the Union.
Thus, when the acts of some of the
States to nullify the existing extradition
law imposed upon Congress the duty of
passing a new one, the country was invited
by agitators to enter into party organiza
tion for its repeal; hut that agitation
speedily ceased by reason of the impracti
cability of its object. So, when the stat
ute restriction upon the institutions of new
States, by a geographical line, had been
repealed, the country was urged to demand
its restoration, and that project also died
almost with its birth. Then followed the
cry of alarm from the North against impu
ted southern encroachments; which cry
sprang in reality from the spirit of revolu
tionary attack on the domestic institutions
of the South, and, after , a , tioubled bsist
ence of a few months, has been rebuked
by the voice of a patriotic people.
Of this last agitation, one latnentable
feature was, that it was carried on at the
immediate expense of the peace and hap
piness of the people of the territory of
Kansas. That was made the battle-field,
not so much of opposing . factions or inter
ests within itself, as of the conflicting pas
sions Of the Whole people of the United
States. Revolutionary disorder in Kan
sas had its origin in projects of interven
tion, deliberately arranged by certain mem
bers of that Congress, which enacted the
law for the organization of the Territory.
and when propagandist colonization of
Kansas had been thus undertaken in one
section of the Union, for the systematic
promotion of its peculiar views of policy,
there ensued, as a matter of course, a
counteraction with opposite views, in other
sections of the Union.
In consequence of these and other inci
dents, many acts of disorder, it is undeni
able, have been perpetrated in Kansas, to
the occasional interruption rather than
the permanent suspension, of regular gov
ernment. Aggressive and most reprehen
sible incursion into the territory were un
dertaken, both in the North and South,
and entered it on its northern border by
the way of lowa, as well as on the eastern
by way of Missouri : and there has existed
within it a state of insurrection against
the constitutional authorities, not without
countenance from inconsiderate persons in
each of the great sections of the Union.
Bub the difficulties in that Territory
Editor and Proprietor.
NO. 25.
have been extravagantly exaggerated for
the purpose of political agitation else
where. The number and gravity of the
acts of violence have been magnified part
ly by statements entirely untrue, and part..
ly by reiterated accounts of the same ru
mors or facts.
Thus the Territory has been seemingly
filled with extreme violence, when the
whole amount of such acts has not been
greater than what occasionally passes be:-
fore us in single cities to the regret of all
good citizenS, but Without being regarded
as of general or permanent political con
sequence.
Imputed irregularities in the elections
had in Kansas, like occasional irregulari
ties of the same description in the State;
were beyond the sphere of action of the
Executive. But incidents of actual vio
lence or of organized obstruction to the
law, pertinaceously renewed from time to
time, have been met as they occurred, by
such means as were available and as the
circumstances required; and nothing of
this character now .remains to affect the
general peace of. the Union.
The attempt of a part of the inhabitants
of the Territory to erect a revolutionary
government, though sedulously encour
aged and supplied with pecuniary aid from
active agents of disorder in some of the
States, has completely failed. Bodies of
armed men, foreign to the Territory, have
been prevented from entering or compel
led to leave it.
Predatory bands, engaged in acts of ra
pine, under cover of the existing political
disturbances, have been arrested or dis
persed. And every well disposed person.
is now enabled once more to devote him
self in peace to the pursuits of prosperous
industry, for the prosecution of which ha
undertook to participate in the settlement
of the Teiritory.
It affords me unmingled satisfactiori
thus to announce the peaceful condition
of things in Kansas, especially consider
-"
the means to which it was necessary
to have recourse for the attainment of tha
end, namely, the employment of a . part of
the military force of the United States.—
The withdrawal of that force from its
proper duty of defending the country
against foreign foes of the savages of the
frontier, to employ it for the suspension of
domestic insurrection, is. when the exi
gency occurs, a matter of the most earn
est solicitude. On this occasion of imper
ative necessity it has been done with the
best results by such means is greatly en
hanced by the consideration, that,through
the wisdom and energy of the present
Exe - eutive of Kansas, and the prudence,
firmness and vigilance of the military offi
cers on duty there, tranquility has been
restored without one drop of blood having
been shed in its accomplishment by ilia
forces of the United States.
The 'restoration of comparative tran
quility in that Territory furnishes tho
means of observing calmly, and apprecia
ting at their just value, the events which
have occurred there, and the discussioni
R f a s 7Ngli i s ityy j r e tjtjtent of the Territory
We perceive that controversy concern
ing its future domestic institutions was
inevitable; that no human prudence, no
form of legislation, no wisdom on the part
of CdngreSs, ceilld have prevented this.
It is idle to suppose that the particular
provisions of their organic law were the
cause of agitation. Those provisions were
but tl . .e occasion, or the pretext of an ag
itation, which was inherent in the nature
of things. Congress legislated upon the
subject in such terms as *ere most conso
nant with the principle of popular sover
eignty which underlies our government.
It could not have legislated otherwise
without doing violence to another great
principle of our institutions, the inprescrip
tible right of equality of the several States.
We perceive, also, that sectional inter
ests and party passions, have been the
great impediment to the salutary operation
of the organic principles adopted, and the
chief cause of the successive disturbances
in KanSas. Thd assumption that, because
in the organization of the Territories of
Nebraska and Kansas, Congress abstained
from imposing restraints upon them to
which certain, other T. rritories had been
subject,
_therefore disorders occurred in
the , latter Territory, is emphatically con
tradicted by the fact that none have oc
curred in the former: Those disorders
were not the consequence, in Kansas, of
the freedom of self-government conceded
to that Te.ritory by Congress, but of un
just interference on the part of persons
not inhabitants of the Territory. Such
interference, wherever it has exhibited
itself, by acts of insurrectionary character,
of of obstruction to processes of law, has
been repelled or suppressed, by all the
means which the Constitution and the
laws place in the hands of the Executive.
In those parts of the United States, where,
by reason of the inflamed state of the pttblio
mind, false rumors and misrepresentations
have the greatest currency, it has been as
sumed that it was the duty of the Executive
not only to suppress insurrectionary move
ments in Kansas. but also to see to the regu
larity of local elections. It needs little ar
gument to show that the President has no
such power. All government in the, United
States rests substantially upon popular elec.
Lion. The freedom of elections is liable to
be impaired by the intrusion of unlawful
votes, or the exclusion of lawful ones, by im
proper influences, by violence, or by fraud.
But the people of the United States are them
selves the all-sufficient g-uardians of their own
rights, and to suppose that they will not rein;
cc - Iy, in due season, any such incidents of civ
il freedom, is to suppose them to have ceased
to be capable of self-government. The Pres
ident of the United States has not power to
interpose in elections, to see to their freedom,
to canvass their votes, or to pass upon their
legality in the Territories any more than in
the States. If he had such power the gov
ernment might be republican in form, but it
would be a monarch in fact; and if he had
undertaken to exercise it in the case of Kan
sas, he would have been justly subject to the
charge of usurpation, ao.ti of violation eels