5 planted the Territorial Legislature before the action of Congress. Michigan applied for admission with a Constitution formed by her people without any previous act of Congress. Under it she had elected a Governor, Legislature, United States Senators, and member of Congress. Her application was met with the. same objection as is now urged against Kansas—that her proceedings were not only without law, but against law and good order; and that class of objectors were opposed to receiving her memorial, on the same grounds urged by a class of Senators against the memorial of Kansas, for it would be recognising the State, of Michigan when there was no such State ; and to recognise her as such would be sanctioning treason. Congress, however, admitted her, on condition that her people, should assent to a change of boundary. The legally-constituted authorities called a convention, fixed the time and place of holding the election for delegates, and prescribed the qualifications of voters. This convention, so constituted, rejected the terms of admission. But the people, by a spontaneous movement, without any legislative act whatever, called another convention, and accepted the condition of admission fixed by Congress. Under these circumstances, Michigan was admitted into the Union. Kansas, with far greater reasons than ever existed heretofore for a departure from the usual forms of proceeding, asks at your hands the same boon. In the case of Michigan, the times were more fortunate than those of Kansas. Andrew Jackson was then President; Benton, Niles, W. R. King, and a host of other equally illustrious leaders of the Democracy, were then in the Senate Chamber, and espoused her cause. No threats or efforts were then made to subdue liberty. Kansas, having violated no law, lays her petition for a redress of grievances at your feet. For doing this, some of her citizens are exiled from their homes, and others pine in chains, charged by the Government of their country with treason—treason in peaceably forming a State Constitution under the right guarantied by the paramount law of the land, in order to ask of Congress admission into the Union—treason for doing precisely what the people of Arkansas and Michigan did almost a quarter of a century ago, and which was endorsed by Congress and the then President of the Republic. But times have changed, and men with them. The Democracy in the days of Jackson stood upon the principles of the fathers of the Republic in reference to the Territories, and justified the right of the people peaceably to assemble at all times, and petition for a redress of grievances. The gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Stephens,] in his remarks on Saturday, appealed to the higher law to sustain Slavery. Without stopping to discuss Scripture authority on that point, for it belongs to the theologian as one of his controverted questions, I wish here only to say, that if Slavery and its existence rest on the Old Test- j ament for their support, then the same authority will support white Slavery as well as black, and the amalgamation of master and slave. In the Slavery of the patriarchs there was intermarriage between the master and slave—the sons and daughters of the one with the sons and daughters of the other. It is not questioned that the slaves of that day were white. If that was the case, then the gentleman’s argument proves too much, and there is a rule of the logicians, that an argument is as faulty that proves too much, as one that proves too little. If the Bible argument be good, whites can be seized and carried into bondage, and masters and slaves may amalgamate. But I will pass by for the present the defence of Slavery, as authorized by the practice of the patriarchs; for how far their example should be followed, or can be, consistently with the new dispensation that declares “ that whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” will come up properly on a bill now pending in reference to another patriarchal institution existing in one of the Territories. The gentleman seemed to think that the spirit of Jefferson would feel indignant that he should be quoted as authority by Republicans. Sir, if the spirits of the departed hover over the scenes of earth, and watch with solicitude its affairs, with what anguish must that spirit contemplate the wrongs in Kansas, who exclaimed, when on earth— “ With what execrat'on should the statesman be loaded, who. pern i:ting one-half the citizens thus to trample on lh« rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patrice of the other! ” If the spirits of the sainted dead hover over their country, watching its destiny with anything of their earthly solicitude for its welfare, what anguish must wring the heart of his noble copatriot, who, in the Senate Chamber, in 1819, declared that—■ ‘ Nothing can more gladden the heart, than the contemplation o’ a portion of territory consecrated to Freedom, whose soil should never be moistened by the tear of the slave, or degraded by the step of the oppressor or the oppressed.” Can the spirits of such men be wounded by the appeal of the living to their authority to vindicate the rights of the freemen of their native land, qnd save from degradation the very territory that once so gladdened the patriotic heart! Tyranny and wrong rule with brute force one of the Territories of the Union, and violence reigns in the Capitol of the Republic. In the one, mob law silences with the revolver the voice of justice, pleading for the inalienable rights of man; in the other, the sacred guarantees of the Constitution are violated, and reason and free speech are supplanted by the bludgeon; and, in the Council Chamber of the nation, men stand up to vindicate and justify both ! Well may the patriot tremble for the future of his country, when he loeks upon this picture, and then upon that I Can the spirits of the departed, unless they partake more of earth than when surrounded by their clay tenements, look down on these scenes without anguish and bitter sorrow ? Mr. Speaker why, should the application of
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