olemnly 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 ounty of the State, with a view to the expression of their entiments in favor of the election and call of another Con- ention, in time to secure our admission into the Union be- ore the first of January next.” Shortly afterwards, a committee of five, appointed by b’s Convention, all leading Democrats, issued a circular, ‘ under the authority of the delegates of the county of recommending that the voters throughout Michi- Vayne, an should meet and elect delegates to a Convention to ive the necessary assent to the Act of Congress. In pur- uance of this call, the Convention met; and, as it origin- led in an exclusively party recommendation, so it was of Ln exclusively party character. And it was the action of his Convention that was submitted to Congress, and, after Uscussion in both bodies, in solemn votes, approved. I But the precedent of Michigan has another feature, which h entitled to the gravest attention, especially at this moment, when citizens engaged in the effort to establish a Iitate Government in Kansas are openly arrested on the Lharge of treason, and we are startled by tidings of the maddest efforts to press this procedure of preposterous pyranny. No such madness prevailed under Andrew rackson ; although, during the long pendency of the Michi- Lan proceedings, for more than fourteen months, the territorial Government was entirely ousted, and the State Government organized in all its departments. One hun- llred and thirty different legislative acts were passed, proriding for elections, imposing taxes, erecting corporations, ind establishing courts of justice ; including a Supreme Court and a Court of Chancery. All process was issued in he name of the people of the State of Michigan. And yet ho attempt was made to question the legal validity of these proceedings, whether legislative or judicial. Least of all Ud any menial Governor, dressed in a little brief authority play the fantastic tricks which we now witness in Kansas ; lor did any person, wearing the robes of justice, shock high leaven 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. Senators such as these are the natural enemies of Kansas, ind I introduce them with reluctance, simply that the pountry may understand the character of the hostility which must be overcome. Arrayed with them, of course, lire all who unite, under any pretext or apology, in the pro- bagandism of Human Slavery. To such, indeed, the time- laonored safeguards of popular rights can be a name only, nnd nothing more. What are trial by jury, habeas corpus, the ballot-box, the right of petition, the liberty of Kansas, your liberty, sir, or mine, to one who lends himself, not merely to the support at home, but to the propagandism Abroad, of that, preposterous wrong, which denies even the right of a man to himself? Such a cause can be maintained only by a practical subversion of all rights. It is, ereiy according to reason that its partizans therefore, II should uphold the Usurpation in Kansas. To overthrow this Usurpation is now the special, importunate duty of Congress, admitting of no hesitation or postponement. To this end it must lift itself from the cabals of candidates, the machinations of party, and the low level of vulgar strife. It must turn from that Slave Oligarchy which now controls the Republic, and refuse to be its tool. Let its power be stretched forth towards this distant Territory, not to bind, but to unbind; not for the oppression of the weak, but the subversion of the tyrannical; not for the prop and maintenance of a revolting Usurpation, but for the confirmation of Liberty. “ These are imperial arts, and worthy thee I” Let It now take its stand between the living and dead, and cause this plague to be stayed. All this it can do ; and if the interests of Slavery did not oppose, all this it would do at once, in reverent regard for justice, law, and order, driving far away all the alarms of war ; nor would it dare to brave the shame and punishment of this Great Refusal. But the Slave Power dales anything; and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the People. From Congress to the People, I appeal. Already Public Opinion gathers unwonted forces to scourge the aggressors. In the press, in daily conversation, wherever two or three are gathered together, there the indignant utterance finds vent. And trade, by unerring indications, attests the growing energy. Public credit in Missouri droops. The six per cents, of that State, which at par should be 102, have sunk to —thus at once co II pleting the evidence of Crime, and attesting its punishment. Business is now turning from the Assassins and Thugs, that infest the Missouri River, on the way to Kansas, to seek some safer avenue. And this, though not unimportant in itself, is typical of greater changes. The political credit of the men who uphold the Usurpation, droops even more than the stocks; and the people are turning from all those through whom the Assassins and Thugs have derived their disgraceful immunity. It was said of old, “ Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s Landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.”— (Deut. xxvil., 17.) Cursed, it is said, in the city and in the field ; cursed in basket and store; cursed when thou comest in, and cursed when thou goest out. These are terrible imprecations; but if ever any Landmark was sacred, it was that by which an immense territory was guarded forever against Slavery; and if ever such imprecations could justly descend upon any one, they must descend now upon all who, not content with the removal of this sacred Landmark, have since, with criminal complicity, fostered the incursions of the great Wrong against which it was intended to guard. But I utter no imprecations. These are not my words; nor is it my part to add or subtract from them. But thanks be to God ! they find a response in the hearts of an aroused People, making the turn from every man. II whether President or Senator, or Representative, who has* been engaged in this Crime—especially from those who, cradled in free institutions, are without the apology of education or social prejudice—until of all such those other words of the prophet shall be fulfilled—“I will set my faa against that man, and make him a sign and a proverb, an( I will cut him off from the midst of my people.”—(Ezekii xiv., 8.) Turning thus from the authors of this Crime, th' People will unite once more with their Fathers of the Repuh lie, in a just condemnation of Slavery—determined espy cially that it shall find no home in the National Territoria* —while the Slave Power, in which the Crime had its begin ning, and by which it is now sustained, will be swept ink the catalogue of departed Tyrannies. In this contest, Kansas bravely stands forth—the stripling leader, clad in the panoply of American institutions. Ii calmly meeting and adopting a frame of Government, het people have with intuitive promptitude performed the duties of freemen; and when I consider the difficulties by which she was beset, I find dignity in her attitude. In offering herself for admission into the Union as a Free State, she presents a single issue for the people to decide. And since the Slave Power now stakes on this issue all its ill-gotten supremacy, the People, while vindicating Kansas, will at the same time overthrow this Tyranny. Thus does the contest which she now begins, involve not only Liberty for herself, but for the whole country. God be praised, that she did not bend ignobly beneath the yoke! Far away on the prairies, she is now battling for the Liberty of all, against the President, who misrepresents all. Everywhere among those who are not insensible to Right, the generous struggle meets a generous response. From innumerable throbbing hearts go forth the very words of encouragement which, in the sorrowful days of our Fathers, were sent by Virginia, speaking by the pen of Richard Henry Lee, to Massachusetts, in the person of her popular tribune, Samuel Adams: “ Chantilly (Va.), June 23cZ, 1774’ “I hope the good people of Boston will not lose their spirits under their present heavy oppression, for they will certainly be supported by the other Colonies; and the cause for which they suffer is so glorious and so deeply interesting to the present and future generations, that all America will owe, in a great measure, their political salvation to the present virtue of Massachusetts Bay.”—American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, p. 446. In all this sympathy there is strength. But in the cause Unseen of men, the great itself there is angelie power. spirits of History combat by the side of the people of Kansas, breathing a divine courage. Above all towers the majestic form of Washington once more, as on the bloody field, bidding them to remember those rights of Human Nature for which the War of Independence was waged. Such a cause, thus sustained, Is invincible.
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