neld even whilst a legal Assembly existed. ~ "Witness the Convention held in Richmond, in March, 1775; after which period, the legal constitutional Assembly was convened in ! Williamsburg, by the Governor, Lord Dunmore.” * * * “ Yet a constitutional dependence on the British Govern- \ment was never denied until the succeeding May.” * * * “ 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.”— Virginia Cases, 70, 71, Kamper vs. Hawkins. Listen alsc to the language of James Madison : “ That in all great changes of established government, forms ought to give way to substance ; that a rigid adherence in such, cases to the forms would render nominal and nugatory the transcendent and precious right of the people ‘ to abolish or alter their Government, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safely and happiness? ” * * * “ Nor can it have been forgotten that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering to ordinary forms, were a/ny where seen, except in those who wished to indulge vender these masks their secret enmity to the substance contended fur.”—The Federalist, No. 40. 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 an unquestionable American right, declared with Independence, confirmed by the blood cf 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 Senator [Mr. Calhoun] contend, then, that if, in one of the States of this Union, the Government be so organized as to utterly 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 coursed 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.”—Con* gress Det., vol. 13, p. 313, 2Uh Cong., 2d Session. Surely, sir, if ever there was occasion for the exercise of this right, the time has come in Kansas. The people there had been subjugated by a horde of foreign invaders, and brought under a tyrannical code of revolting barbarity, while property and life among them were left exposed to audacious assaults which flaunted at noon-day, and to reptile abuses which crawled in the darkness of night. Selfdefense is the first law of nature; and unless this law is temporarily silenced—as all other law has been silenced there—you cannot condemn the proceedings in Kansas. Here, sir, is an unquestionable authority — in itself an overwhelming law—which belongs to 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 whispers itself coeval 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 a fundamental perversion of facts, or a perversion of fundamental principles, which no speeches can uphold, though surpassing in numbers the nine hundred thousand piles driven into the mud in order to sustain the Dutch Stadt-House at Amsterdam! Thus, on every ground of precedent, whether as regards population or forms of proceedings; also on the vital principle of American institutions ; and, lastly, on the absolute law of self-defense, 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 the 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 a just self-defense, do I Dlead 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], in which is the horrid root of Injustice and Civil War. But apply gladly, and at once, the True Remedy, wherein are J ustice and Peace. Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and I now stand 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 a continuity of outrage, through organized invasions and miscellaneous assaults, in which 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, seemed to confess 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 has been wrapped, marking especially the 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 Justice and Peace, wiiich last bids Kan- . sas, in conformity with past precedents and under the exigencies of the hour, in order to redeem her from Usurpation to take a place as a sovereign 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^ny 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, qow stand at your door. Will you send them away >. old them enter? Will you push them back to renew their struggles 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 their 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 ot Independence, and there is hardly an accusation which is there directed against the British Monarch, which may nor now be directed with increased force against the American President. The parallel has a 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 absent 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 insurrection among us, and endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontier 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 cha-. racter is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” And surely, a President who has done all these things, cannot be less unfit than a Prince. At every stage, the responsibility is brought directly to him. His offence ha^ been both of commission and omission. He has done that which ho ought not to have done, and he 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 have been left a prey to wrong of all kinds. Nullum flagitium extitit, nisi per te; nullum flagilium sine te. 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 on this floor have the old indignities been renewed, which embittered and fomented the troubles of our Fathers. The early petition of the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of independence,
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