5 be taken at the will of a craven and besotted Executive. That is the proposition offered to the high-minded people of that section from which I come. They will’spurn it, though I perceive that some of their Representatives are about to take it. Now, what are to be the consequences of the passage of this proposition? I must judge from what has preceded it. I do not know but that I may be uncharitable in my supposition; but when I look at your candle-box frauds, at your Cincinnati Directory frauds, all adopted by your Executive, and the agents who commit the frauds applauded and foisted into high offices of power and respectability, how can I repose confidence in you? When I see the just arrangement which had been made by that just man, the lover of equality and justice to all parties and to all sections, the Senator from Kentucky, stricken out, and another man added to the board to supervise the election—a man who was no more wanted there than a fifth wheel to a coach, for you had a full board before—I ask this committee, and I wish them to answer me now, why did you place the district attorney of the Territory on that board of commissioners? I repeat the question, why did you do it? Was it not right before ? A corrupt Executive was allowed to appoint two. Was it wrong that the people should appoint two more? Why give your Executive the appointment of a majority of the board, and full power over the people, to trample them in the dust? Answer me that,, if you can ! I pause, but I pause in vain, for a reply. What shall I say, then? Sir, it savors too much of the candle-box and of the Cincinnati Directory. Is it intended, at all hazards, against the vote of the people, and in defiance of their wishes, to forge a majority, to make a false return to the President that you have outvoted the Free-State men, and that Lecompton is adopted? Was that the anchor you had thrown to the windward, in giving a complete majority to your own party in that board, and not trusting the people on equal terms with the Executive? man who will not die in his tracks before he would surrender to a proposition so insulting to the South as this manifestly is to the North. I know you would not, and I give you all honor for it, because in that, if in nothing else, God knows I sympathize with you ; you are right in it. The proposition now offered to the people of Kansas is this: “You shall have six million acres of land, and immediate admission into the Union, if you will take Slavery; but if you prefer a free State, you shall be excluded; you' shall be treated as outside barbarians, unworthy to be members of this Union for an indefinite length of time to come.” It is undeniable; it stands out gross, palpable, upon the face of your record, and cannot be disguised. It required a good deal of assurance, a good deal of effrontery, to bring in a proposition like this ; but you knew the. material to which you were addressing it too well to fear the consequences. You say by this proposition, if Congress adopts it, “ Come in, ye people of Kansas; here are millions of acres of land ; here is immediate admission if you prefer Slavery; but if, on the other hand, you prefer Liberty, you are unworthy of admission, you are not numerous enough to be admitted.” One slaveholder, for the purpose of the admis- । sion of a Territory as a State, is worth more than twenty free men. That is the naked proposition which you have brought here for the consideration of Northern men, and I perceive that you will have Northern men who will go with you even for this. You will have them, and you knew you would ; because you knew you could not make a proposition, however fatal to the rights, however fatal to the honor of the North, without finding here men who would stoop to it. When I contrast the high chivalric honor of the South in this particular with the North, I sometimes wish to change places with them. Here is a proposition offering a premium to Slavery, and immediate admission without inquiry as to the numbers, if the people of Kansas will come here as a slave State; but if they decide on the side of Freedom, they are to be indefinitely postponed until a census shall
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