The Crime Against Kansas

16 I rovernor Reeder, after allowing only five days >r objections to the returns—a space of time nreasonably brief in that extensive Territory ‘-declared a majority of the members of the ouncil and of the House of Representatives duly elected,” withheld certificates from cer- in others, because of satisfactory proof that ^ey were not duly elected, and appointed a y for new elections to supply these vacan- 3S. Afterwards, by formal message, he re- gnized the Legislature as a legal body, and hen he vetoed their act of adjournment the neighborhood of Missouri, he did it nply on the ground of the illegality of such adjournment under the organic law. Now, every assumption founded on these facts, 'ere are two satisfactory replies; first, that certificate of the Governor can do more tn authenticate a subsisting legal act, with- t of itself infusing legality w’here the essence legality is not already ; and secondly, that )lence or fraud, wherever disclosed, vitiates hpletely every proceeding. In denying bse principles, you place the certificate above * thing certified, and give a perpetual lease J violence and fraud, merely because at an lemeral moment they were unquestioned, ns will not do. Sir, I am no apologist for Governor Reeder, fere is sad reason to believe that he went to nsas originally as the tool of the President; s his simple nature, nurtured in the atmos- Jre of Pennsylvania, revolted at the service ‘hired, and he turned from his patron to !y. Grievously did he err in yielding to the Jdslature any act of authentication; but he ;i in some measure answered for this error ^determined efforts since to expose the utter i^ality of that body, which he now reputes entirely. It was said of certain Roman ‘^erors, who did infinite mischief in their ynhings, and infinite good towards their ”3, that they should never have been born hbver died; and I would apply the same to official life of this Kansas Governor. At Events, I dismiss the Apology founded on > acts, as the utterance of tyranny by the Se of law, transcending the declaration of pedantic judge, in the British Parliament, Hie eve of our Revolution, that our fathers, withstanding their complaints, were in ty represented in Parliament, inasmuch as Jr lands, under the original charters, were P “in common socage, as of the manor of mwich in Kent,” which, being duly repre- pd, carried with it all the Colonies. Thus , her ages has tyranny assumed the voice ; ,w* i hxt comes the Apology imbecile, which is ded on the alleged want of power in the I ident to arrest the Crime. It is openly I ted, that, under the existing laws of the I' 3d States, the Chief Magistrate had no ■ < 7 O I authority to interfere in Kansas for this purpose. . Such is the broad statement, which,, even if correct, furnishes no Apology for any proposed ratification of the Crime, but which is in reality untrue; and this, I call the Apology of imbecility. In other matters, no such ostentatious imbecility appears. Only lately, a vessel of war in the Pacific has chastised the cannibals of the Fejee islands, for alleged outrages on American citizens. But no person of ordinary intelligence will pretend that American citizens in the Pacific have received wrongs from these cannibals comparable in atrocity to those recei v- ed by American citizens in Kansas. Ah, sir, the interests of Slavery are not touched by any chastisement of the Fejees! Constantly Ave are informed of efforts at New York, through the agency of the Government, and sometimes only on the breath of suspicion, to arrest vessels about to sail on foreign voyages in violation of our neutrality ‘ laws or treaty stipulations. Now, no man familiar with these cases will presume to suggest that the urgency for these arrests was equal to the urgency for interposition against these successive invasions from Missouri. But the Slave Power is not disturbed by such arrests at New York! At this moment the President exults in the vigilance with which he has prevented the enlistment of a few soldiers, to be carried off to Halifax, in violation of our territorial sovereignty, and England is bravely threatened, even to the extent of a rupture of diplomatic relations, for her endeavor, though unsuccessful, and at once abandoned. But no man in his senses will urge that the act was anything but trivial by the side of the Crime against Kansas. But the Slave Power is not concerned in this controversy. _ Thus, where the Slave Power is indifferent, the President will see that the laws are faithfully executed; but, in other cases, where the interests of Slavery are at stake, he is controlled absolutely by this tyranny, ready at all times to do, or not to do, precisely as it dictates. Therefore it is, that Kansas is left .a prey to the Propagandists of Slavery, while the whole Treasury, the Army and Navy of the United States, are lavished to hunt a single slave through the streets of Boston. You have not forgotten the latter instance; but I choose to refresh it in your minds. As long ago as 1851, the War Department and Navy Department concurred in placing the forces of the United States, near Boston, at the command of the Marshal, if needed, for the enforcement of an Act of Congress, which had no support in the public conscience, as I believe it has no support in the Constitution; and thus these forces were degraded to the loathsome work of slave-hunters. More than

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