After the convention had adjourned, Mr. Stanton, acting Governor of the Territory, called and extra session of the Freesoil Legislature, which has been elected, and it passed an act to submit the whole constitution to a popular vote. The President removed him from office,—a further evidence of the sincerity with which he was fulfiling your expectations in relation to Kansas. And it gives me pleasure here to say of him, what I am assured I can now say with confidence, that he will not shrink a hair’s breadth from the position he has taken, but will move another step in advance, and fall, if fall he must, manfully upholding the rights and defying the insolence of ill-gotten power.
When the bill was presented to the Senate for the admission of the State of Kansas, after a long discussion, it was adopted, with a provision which required the State after admission to relinquish its claim to all the land asked for in its ordinance, except 5,000,000 acres, that being the largest amount which had been ever granted to a State at the period of its admission. There was also a provision declaratory of the right of the people to change their constitution at any time; though the instrument itself had restricted them for a term of years. I considered both those provisions objectionable; the first, because it was directory of legislation to be enacted by a State; and the second, because it was inviting to a disregard of the fundamental law, and had too much the seeming of a concession to the anti-slavery feeling which was impatient for a change of the constitution. That bill failed in the House, and was succeeded by a bill of the Opposition which recognized the right of Kansas to be admitted with a pro-slavery constitution, provided it should be adopted by a popular vote. This also failed, and in the division between the two Houses, a com- {sic}
As there has been much diversity of opinion in relation to that law, and I think much misapprehension as to its character, I will be pardoned for speaking of it somewhat minutely.
When it was known that the Conference Committee had prepared a bill, I mittee of conference was appointed, which framed the bill that became a law. being at the time confined to my house by disease, invited my colleague and the Representatives from the State to visit me, that we might confer together and decide upon the course which we would pursue. Before the evening of our meeting, a distinguished member of the House of Representatives, a member of the Committee, called and read to me the bill which they had prepared. It contained some features which I considered objectionable. He concurred with me, and promised to use his efforts to have them stricken out. When the Mississippi delegation assembled, our conference was full, and marked by the desire, first to protect the rights of our State, and secondly, to secure unanimity of action by its delegation. The objections which were urged, referred, as my memory serves me, entirely to the features which I had reason to hope would be stricken out. One of the delegation announced an unwillingness to support the proposed modification of the Senate proposition, lest it should be considered as yielding the point on which we had insisted that Congress could not require the Constitution to be submitted to a popular vote. I refer to the lamented Quitman, whose sincere devotion to Southern interests, no one, who knew him, could question. I regretted that he deemed it necessary to vote, finally, against the measure, but I honor the motive which governed his course.
The ordinance which was attached to the Constitution, was not a part of it, but a condition annexed to the application for admission. If Congress had stricken the ordinance out, the effect, I believe, would have been that of admitting the State without any reservation of the public land; would have transferred as an attribute of sovereignty the useful as well as the eminent domain. The Southern Senators who received the soubriquet of Southern ultras, held that position in 1850, in relation to the public lands of California, and it constituted one of their objections to the admission of that State at the time it was effected. To modify the ordinance, that is to change the condition on which the inhabitants of Kansas proposed to enter into the Union was necessarily to give them the right to withdraw their proposition.
It remained then for Congress if they reduced the amount of land asked for in the ordinance, either to provide the mode in which the inhabitants should accept or reject the modification or leave them to do it in such manner as they might adopt. The convention was defunct, the legislature was black republican and thought to be entitled to little confidence, and it seemed to be better that Congress should itself provide the mode of ascertaining the public will than leave that duty to the territorial legislature, such as it was believed and proven to be. It was a mere question of expediency, and I think the best course was pursued.
To have admitted the State without modification of the ordinance, would have been to grant five times as much of the public land as had ever been given to a State at the period of admission.
There was nothing to justify such a discrimination, and otherwise the State could not be admitted without referring the question or violating the principle of State sovereignty.
As a condition precedent, the general government may require the recognition of its right to control the primary disposal of the land, but can have no right to impose a condition with the mandate that it shall be subsequently fulfiled and no power to enforce the mandate if the State admitted should refuse to comply. Not for all the land in Kansas, not for all the land between the Missouri and the Pacific ocean, not for all the land of the continent of North America, would I agree that the federal government should have the power to coerce a State.
The necessity for having all conditions agreed upon before the admission of a State was demonstrated by Mr. Soule, in 1850, in the discussion of the bill for the admission of California. Mr. Webster replied to him but did not answer his argument, and the course of events seems likely to verify all that Senator Soule foretold.