irregular, illegal, and revolutionary convention of only a portion, and a very small portion at that, of the people of the Territory. The plan I submit is the-same offered by my colleague [Mr. Toombs] in the Senate. I suppose gentlemen have read it. I cannot now read it. Its main features are to provide for the admission of Kansas, under such constitution as her people may form, at as early a day as is practicable. It provides, first, for the taking of a census. This is to be done by five commissioners, to be appointed by the President, and ratified by the Senate." It provides, secondly, for an election to be held in the Territory on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November next, (the day of the" Presidential election in the States,) for delegates to a convention to form a State Constitution. Representation in this convention is to be according to the number of voters in the several counties and districts, as shall appear from the census, which is, amongst other things, to exhibit the names of all the actual residents of the Territory at the date of the passage of the bill. These commissioners are to appoint the officers to conduct the election. Returns are to be made , to them, and they are to judge and determine all questions relating to the election, and to give certificates of the same. Three months’ residence in the county is required to entitle any one to vote. And to guard the purity and sanctity of the ballot-box, so that the untrammelcd voice of the people may be heard, let it be as it may, these stringent provisions are inserted: Sec. 10. Jlndbe it further enacted, That every while male citizen of the United States, (including Indians of like description qualified by existing laws to Vote,) over twenty- one years old, who may be a bona fide inhabitant of said Territory at th® pasage of this act, and who shall have resided three months next before said election in the county in which he offers to vote, and no other persons whatever, shall be entitled to vote at said election ; and all persons qualified as voters may be elected delegates to said convention, and no others. Sec. 11. Jlnd be it further enacted, That, if any person, by menaces, threats, or force, or by any other unlawful meanb, shall directly or indirectly attempt to influence any qualified voter in giving his vote, or deter him from giving the same, or disturb dr hinder him in the free exercise of his right of suffrage, at the election provided for by this act, the person so offending shall be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both, at the discretion of the court Sec. 12. •And be it further enacted, That any person not being a qualified voter, according to the provisions of this Stet, who shall vote at the election herein provided for, | knowing that he is nbt entitled to vote, and any person who shall, at the same election, vote more than once, whether at the same or at different places, shall be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both, at the discretion of the court. Sec. 13. Jlnd be it further enacted', That aniy person ^whatsoever who may be charged with the holding of the ’election herein authorized to be held, who shall willfully and knowingly commit any fraud or irregularity whatever, with the intent to hinder or prevent, or defeat a fair expression of the popular will in said ejection, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both, at the discretion of the court. But, sir, my time will not allow me to go more into details. The object of the bill, from the Does any free maji want a better security for his sovereign right ofsuffrage than is here given ? Does this look like the work of “border ruffians” who were looking to carry elections by fraud or violence ? But it is said that in the same law it is provided that no man shall be entitled to vote who has been guilty of a violation of the fugitive slave law passed by Congress! Well, sir, is this an onerous restriction? Ought men who ■set themselve's up in open violation of the laws of our country to complain of being deprived of the right of having a voice in making laws ? Are not certain offenses in all our States grounds of denying suffrage? But the great question is, cannot this provision of the election law be repealed by the next Legislature if a majority ofthe honest I people there are against it? The case then presented by the Governor and his associates in the Topeka movement is not such as to justify, in my judgment, this revolution which they have set on foot, and now ask Congress to approve and sanction. Besides this, Mr. Speaker, the evidence is very strong to my mind, if not conclusive, that this Topeka constitution does not meet the approval of a majority of the people of Kansas. When it was submitted to popular vote, I only about seventeen hundred in the whole Territory approved it. Now, sir, I am for no such judgment either way—I am for fair dealing in this matter on both sides. I wish for nothing but a fair expression of the will of the bona fide residents of Kansas upon this subject. When I voted for the Kansas bill, I did so, not for the purpose of making it a slave State, unless a majority of the white freemen there desired it; and if they did desire it, I was for permitting them to exercise the same power over the subject that the freemen of the other States of the Union exercise over the same subjects within their respective limits. I never regarded the success of that measure as a triumph of the South over the North, further than it was a triumph of this great constitutional principle of equality over that sectionalism of a party at the North, which denied it. Whether Kansas or Nebraska would be slave-States or free States, I did not know. I left that to time, climate, soil, and the people, to settle. And now, sir, though upon general principles I am opposed to the admission of any State into the Union without population sufficient to entitle them to a member on this floor, according to the ratio of representation, yet, in the present case, if gentlemen are so anxious to press the admission of Kansas, I am willing to forego the usual inquiry into the exact amount of population there. I will waive that point. I do not know the number of peojUe there. Gfentlemen on the other side vary in their estimates from sixty thousand to ninety thousand. I think it would be best first to ascertain the facts. Still I will, I say, waive that point; and if gentlemen are so anxious for the admission of the people of that Territory, whatever may be their j numbers, as a State, I meet them, and offer the substitute to this bill which I have submitted. Mine is an alternative proposition. If Kansas is to be admitted, let it be done in a fair, just, and proper way, and not at the instance of an 1
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