“Franklin Pierce.”
The President was not content with the forces then on hand in the neighborhood. Other posts also were put under requisition. Two companies of national troops, stationed at New York, were kept under arms, ready at any moment to proceed to Boston; and the Adjutant-General of the Army was directed to repair to the scene, there to superintend the execution of the statute. All this was done for the sake of Slavery. But during long months of menace suspended over the Free Soil of Kansas, breaking forth in successive invasions, the President folds his hands in complete listlessness, or, if he moves at all, it is only to encourage the robber propagandists.
And now the intelligence of the country is insulted by the Apology, that the President had no power to interfere. Why, Sir, to make this confession is to confess our Government a practical failure, which I will never do,—except, indeed, as it is administered now. No, Sir, the imbecility of the Chief Magistrate shall not be charged upon American Institutions. Where there is a will, there is a way; and in his case, had the will existed, there would have been a way, easy and triumphant, to guard against the Crime we deplore. His powers are in every respect ample; and this I prove by the statute-book. By the Act of Congress of 28th February, 1795, it is enacted, “that, whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed, in any State, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this Act, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia.”[81] By the supplementary Act of 3d March, 1807, in all cases where he is authorized to call forth the militia “for the purpose of causing the laws to be duly executed,” the President is further empowered, in any State or Territory, “to employ for the same purposes such part of the land or naval force of the United States as shall be judged necessary.”[82] There is the letter of the law; and you will please to mark the power conferred. In no case, where the laws of the United States are opposed, or their execution obstructed, is the President constrained to wait for the requisition of a Governor, or even the petition of a citizen. Just so soon as he learns the fact, no matter by what channel, he is invested by law with full power to counteract it. True it is, that, when the laws of a State are obstructed, he can interfere only on the application of the Legislature of such State, or of the Executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened; but when the National laws are obstructed, no such preliminary application is necessary. It is his high duty, under his oath of office, to see that they are executed, and, if need be, by the National forces.
And, Sir, this is the precise exigency that arises in Kansas,—exactly this,—nor more, nor less. The Act of Congress constituting the very organic law of the Territory, which, in peculiar phrase, as if to avoid ambiguity, declares, as its “true intent and meaning,” that the people thereof shall be left “perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way,” has been from the beginning opposed and obstructed in its execution. If the President had power to employ the national forces in Boston, when he supposed the Fugitive Slave Bill was obstructed, and merely in anticipation of such obstruction, it is absurd to say that he has not power in Kansas, when, in the face of the whole country, the very organic law of the Territory is trampled under foot by successive invasions, and the freedom of the people there overthrown. To assert ignorance of this obstruction—premeditated, long-continued, and stretching through months—attributes to him not merely imbecility, but idiocy. And thus do I dispose of this Apology.
Next comes the Apology absurd, which is, indeed, in the nature of pretext. It is alleged that a small printed pamphlet, containing the “Constitution and Ritual of the Grand Encampment and Regiments of the Kansas Legion,” was taken from the person of one George F. Warren, who attempted to avoid detection by chewing it. The oaths and grandiose titles of the pretended Legion are all set forth, and this poor mummery of a secret society, which existed only on paper, is gravely introduced on this floor, in order to extenuate the Crime against Kansas. It has been paraded in more than one speech, and even stuffed into the report of the Committee.
A part of the obligations assumed by the members of this Legion shows why it is thus pursued, while also attesting its innocence. It is as follows.
“I will never knowingly propose a person for membership in this order who is not in favor of making Kansas a Free State, and whom I feel satisfied will exert his entire influence to bring about this result. I will support, maintain, and abide by any honorable movement made by the organization to secure this great end, which will not conflict with the laws of the country and the Constitution of the United States.”[83]
Kansas is to be made a Free State by an honorable movement which will not conflict with the laws and the Constitution. That is the object of the organization, declared in the very words of the initiatory obligation. Where is the wrong in this? What is there here to cast reproach, or even suspicion, upon the people of Kansas? Grant that the Legion was constituted, can you extract from it any Apology for the original Crime, or for its present ratification? Secret societies, with extravagant oaths, are justly offensive; but who can find in this mistaken machinery any excuse for the denial of all rights to the people of Kansas? All this I say on the supposition that the society is a reality, which it is not. Existing in the fantastic brains of a few persons only, it never had any practical life. It was never organized. The whole tale, with the mode of obtaining the copy of the Constitution, is at once cock-and-bull story and mare’s nest,—trivial as the former, absurd as the latter,—and to be dismissed, with the Apology founded upon it, to the derision which triviality and absurdity justly receive.