9 the Halls of Congress to your Territories. Do you gain anything by it? Agitation begins in your Territories. Is it not sure to find its way into these Halls ? The House of Representatives sent into that Territory a commission of the most honorable men, noton one side of politics, but on both, there to investigate the charges that were made against the first Legislature. I have its report before me. I have read more than ninety of the depositions that were taken, of men who are not impeached, men who were partisans, many of them against the side of the question which I advocate. Here are their depositions. Perhaps I had better read some of them. They go to show you that even before this law was passed, there were organized Upon the borders of Missouri divers lodges, under different names, for the sole and only purpose of carrying Slavery into that Territory at all hazards. That was the object of their organization. They had all the paraphernalia of a secret society They had their grips, their pass-words, their modes of recognition of one another; and before the day of election they went over there, embodied in military array, in vast numbers, with their colors flying and their drums beating, with guns, cannon, pistols, and bowie knives. They disseminated themselves through all the Territory, took possession of all the polls but one, and frequently removed the judges, giving them a certain time to deliver the poll books— a few minutes—holding watch in hand, and pointing pistols at the heads of the election judges. They drove them off with force and fraud. This is undeniable. The volume before me proves it. It will go down to the latest posterity, that these nefarious acts are proved. They are part of the records of your legislation. They never shall be gainsayed. I know the Senator from South Carolina, and a good many other Senators', have been willing to divide the cdium of this transaction with us. He thought there were disgraceful frauds on both sides—“ disgraceful,” said be, “ to the country,” and he has not sought to investigate them. He says it is a disagreeable subject, and he has no doubt both sides are guilty. Sir, it was not on both sides. It was only on one side. You took possession of those polls. You elected your own men, members of a foreign State, who came in there to control the destinies of this Territory, which it was especially said should be ruled as its own citizens pleased. I do not want to detain the Senate by reading the pages which I have turned down in this document, unless some gentlemen wishes to hear them. Tney are long, but they are all pertinent. All go to show the facts I have stated, and there is nobody to deny or contradict them. Now, you say we do not prove them. Did not we ask you for a commission to examine them during the last Congress? We made charges; we said they were true; we had letters and communications imploring us to investigate the state of things that was prevailing there; but as often as we asked you to give us a commission, you refused it. Standing on that refusal, you turn round and deny the weight of the authorities we produce. Sir, that will not go down. Now, at a later day, when your candle-box frauds, your forgeries most disgraceful, are coming to light—when they are known of all men—we ask you for a commission to investigate this matter; and as often as we ask it, you turn round coolly and vote us down, and then deny that there is any such thing I Sir, the country will take cognizance of that. The fraud by which the election of March 30, 1855, was carried, is established. I know you undertake to estop us by saying that Governor Reeder gave certificates to a majority of the members. So he did; but that did not cure the usurpation. I think the Governor allowed but four days to receive protests contesting the seats of the members elect. The people, scattered as they were, could not prepare their memorials to the Governor and get them there in time. In every instance where it was done, the election was set aside for most paloable frauds; but the setting them aside availed nothing. There were your blue lodges, your usurpers, in power. They were taking their seats by a usurpation ; they were not to be turned aside by anything like this. New elections were ordered in several of the districts, and in every instance the Free State men were returned; but, on the very first day of the meeting of the Legislature, without investigation, without referring to a committee, they just turned every Free S*ate man right out of the Legislature. What good would it do to give certificates ? But is a man to be estopped on a gross usurpation like this? Is an American citizen to be cheated out of his rights under forms of law ? I ask any honorable gentleman on the other side, would you submit to it? No, sir, you would not. Would you submit to be governed by a gang of usurpers, who, without right, and in defiance of right, had taken possession of your ballot-boxes, defeated your election, turned your countrymen out, and foreigners usurped your places ? Would technicalities avail ? No, sir; I have too high an cp’nion of you to believe that. It would be idle, mere miserable pettifogging, to come in and say, oh, you have certificates from the Governor, and that cures everything, and we cannot be admitted to & ove that it was a usurpation. Sir, there was n jt a man who received his certificate as havi g been elected on that day, who had any more title to a seat in the Legislature than he had to the kingdom of heaven ; and can a certificate give a man the right to rule in this country ? Sir, American liberty rests on no fragile basis like that; and shame to the man who will say that he would succumb to a fraud like this. Such was the original usurpation. It was the result of fraud. It was worse than void. It was a result brought about by the commis
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