Of the three methods which were supposable, I think Congress adopted the best; it was the only one which was attainable and secured all which was of value to the South. It was the admission by Congress of a State with a pro-slavery Constitution; it was the triumph of the principle that forbade Congress to interfere either as to the matter of the Constitution or the manner in which it should be formed and adopted.
The refusal of the inhabitants to accept the reduced endowment offered to them, and their decision to remain in a territorial condition, was, in my opinion, wise on their part and fortunate on ours. The late Governor, Denver, has forcibly pointed out to them their want of means to support a State government, and the propriety of giving their first attention to the establishment of order and the development of their internal resources. There were many reasons to doubt the fitness of the inhabitants of Kansas to be admitted as a State.
The condition of the country and the previous legislation of Congress made the case exceptional, and, in my judgment, justified the course adopted. I have, therefore, no apology or regret to offer in the case.
The Northern opponents of the measure have, among other denunciatory epithets, applied to it those of “bribery” and “coercion.” “Bribery” to give less by twenty millions of acres of land than was claimed, and “coercion” to leave them to the option of receiving the usual endowment, or waiting until they had an amount of population which would give some assurance of their ability to maintain a State government. Though such is the requirement of the law, and designed to secure exemption from the mischievous agitation which has for several years disturbed the country and benefitted only the demagogues who make a trade of politics, we may scarcely hope to escape from a renewal of the agitation which has been found so profitable. The next phase of the question will probably be in the form of what is termed an “enabling act,”—a favorite measure with the advocates of “squatter sovereignty,” who, claiming for the inhabitants of a Territory all the power of the people of a State, nevertheless consider it necessary that Congress should confer the power to form a Constitution and apply as a State. Congress has given authority for admission in some cases, but I think it better to avoid than to follow the precedent. Not that I am concerned for the doctrine of “squatter sovereignty,” but that I would guard against the mischievous error of considering the federal government as the parent of States, and would restrict it to the function of admitting new States into the Union, barring all pretension to the power of creating them.
It seems now to be probable that the Abolitionists and their allies will have control of the next House of Representatives, and it may be well inferred from their past course that they will attempt legislation both injurious and offensive to the South. I have an abiding faith that any law which violates our constitutional rights, will be met with a veto by the present Executive.—But should the next House of Representatives be such as would elect an Abolition President, we may expect that the election will be so conducted as probably to defeat a choice by the people and devolve the election upon the House.
Whether by the House or by the people, if an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies. Without pausing for your answer, I will state my own position to be that such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect.
In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside of a Union with those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the power, to deprive you of your birthright and to reduce you to worse than the colonial dependence of your fathers.
The master mind of the so-called Republican party, Senator Seward, has in a. recent speech at Rochester, announced the purpose of his party to dislodge the Democracy from the possession of the federal Government, and assigns as a reason the friendship of that party for what he denominates the slave system. He declares the Union between the States having slave labor and free labor to be incompatible, and announces that one or the other must disappear. He even asserts that it was the purpose of the framers of the Government to destroy slave property, and cites as evidence of it, the provision for an amendment of the Constitution. He seeks to alarm his auditors by assuring them of the purpose on the part of the South and the Democratic party to force slavery upon all the States of the Union. Absurd as all this may seem to you, and incredulous as you may be of its acceptance by any intelligent portion of the citizens of the United States, I have reason to believe that it has been inculcated to no small extent in the Northern mind.
It requires but a cursory examination of the Constitution of the United States; but a partial knowledge of its history and of the motives of the men who formed it, to see how utterly fallacious it is to ascribe to them the purpose of interfering with the domestic institutions of any of the States. But if a disrespect for that instrument, a fanatical disregard of its purposes, should ever induce a majority, however large, to seek by amending the Constitution, to pervert it from its original object, and to deprive you of the equality which your fathers bequeathed to you, I say let the star of Mississippi be snatched from the constellation to shine by its inherent light, if it must be so, through all the storms and clouds of war.
The same dangerously powerful man describes the institution of slavery as degrading to labor, as intolerant and inhuman, and says the white laborer among us is not enslaved only because he cannot yet be reduced to bondage. Where he learned his lesson, I am at a loss to imagine; certainly not by observation, for you all know that by interest, if not by higher motive, slave labor bears to capital as kind a relation as can exist between them anywhere; that it removes from us all that controversy between the laborer and the capitalist, which has filled Europe with starving millions and made their poor houses an onerous charge. You too know, that among us, white men have an equality resulting from a presence of the lower caste, which cannot exist where white men fill the position here occupied by the servile race. The mechanic who comes among us, employing the less intellectual labor of the African, takes the position which only a master-workman occupies where all the mechanics are white, and therefore it is that our mechanics hold their position of absolute equality among us.