12 to frame a Constitution under which they would j live. This act having no binding authority of law, it was at the option of every man to do just as he pleased about it. If he went, it was well enough. If he failed tcf go, you could not denounce him as having done anything wrong, because there was no law compelling him to go. It was a mere invitation from an irresponsible power, to come up and aid them in doing a certain act. That is all the shrewdest lawyer can make out of it. So we strip you even of the technicality of law, upon which you seek to deprive the people of Kansas of the right of self-government. Your technicality has failed you. It is not even necessary for us to go back, and show your Legislature to be arrant usurpers and enemies to the great mass of the peop!e there, as they were. We may, if we see fit, denounce you as rebels with as much reason as you have denounced us, because you got together without authority of law, and sought to frame a Constitution under which you would live The President has said, over and over again, that this was done by au'hority of law, that the people had a perfect right to go and vote, and that it was their duty to go; and that if they did not go, they were in default. He said it was all fair. Now, sir, I take no pleasure in saying that the President, at the very time he made this declaration, if he was not blind, deaf, and dumb, must have known that it was not true. If he had read the communications that were sent to him constantly from that Territory, by its Governors and its other officers, he could not fail to have known, at the time he made this declaration, that in one-half of the counties no census was taken or record made of the voters, and the law required that as a condition upon which a man should vote. No man need rise and tell me here that that is not so, because I will face him down with authorities that he cannot overcome. I have the law that required the registry; I have the law that required the census to be taken. The question is, was it taken ? If it was not taken, why was it not done? Governor Walker says it was not taken for no fault of the people there. He says, in some of his letters, that it was not taken in many counties, because there was no pay provided for those who should do it, and they would not do it for nothing; and in other places, the people, suspecting that it was all a trick and a fraud, were reluctant. But that was no excuse. You never have taken a census of the United States where there were not vast numbers of people who were most strenuously opposed to it; and oh inquiring, your deputy marshals, as they go round, were frequently chased out of the houses by the women with broomsticks, thinking, probably, that the object was to levy a tax on them. Would that be any excuse for not taking a census ? You find one or two men who are reluctant or opposed to it for any reason. Can the President plant himself upon a solitary objection like that, and say it was an excuse that the people would not submit their names to be registered ? If a man would not comply with the law, if he would not give his name when he was asked, he would be no gentleman, I grant you; but you could not convict him of any crime for not doing it, and certainly you could not deprive his neighbor, who was perfectly willing to give his name, of his rights. You indulge in these generalities ; you say that A, B, C, or D, went into a country, and Tom, Dick, or Harry, said, “ I will not have my name registered/’ and then turn about and say the people can lose their liberties by a default consequent on such proceedings as these 1 Sir, it is arrant nonsense, come from what source it. may. The fact was, that the people could not vote if they would; and, in a great many instances, would not if they could ; and I commend them for it. The experience they had had in that Territory had shown them already that it was a mere empty mummery to vote, for votes did no good. Cincinnati Directories and candle-box returns have been infinitely more potent than the real votes of the inhabitants of that Territory. What good would it do them to vote? You had already taught them that there was a purpose to be accomplished, and, if votes would not answer, Cincinnati Directories, forged returns, anything, would be resorted to; the thing would move on, majority or no majority. The American people are supposed to be a shrewd people. They understand pretty well Peter Funk auctions. Once in a while, a greenhorn gets taken in, but the great mass of the people will not be taken in by them. But the President of the United States has set up and devised schemes as shallow, as fraudulent— yea, as infamous as that; and he supposes the people of the United States are going to be defrauded by such nefarious means as those. Sir, he will find they will not work. They would not work in the days of the Revolution, and much less will they work now. TERRITORIAL ELECTION. Well, sir, a Legislature was elected shortly after the time these delegates were elected to frame a Constitution. You attempted an outrageous fraud then, in order to carry the Legislature. Your Oxford and Delaware Crossing frauds were resorted to. I have the evidence of them all here. Nobody doubts them. There is not a man here who will rise and say that it is not the truth that these frauds were open, palpable, notorious, and understood by everybody. Governor Walker investigated them, and said so. He even went up into one of the precincts where these frauds were committed, and found that it was impossible such a vote could have been cast there. He found the people amazed that any such pretences should be made; and he found that the names of your best men, whose names were notorious, known
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=