AGAINST THE LECOMPTON FRAUDS.

IN November, 1857, Mr. Davis was elected (for the second time) to the Thirty-fifth Congress. Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, was chosen Speaker, and by him Mr. Davis was again named on the Committee of Ways and Means. He was heard during that session on the Treasury-note Bill, on the Pacific Railroad Bill, on the bill relating to the reappointment of officers dropped or retired by the Naval Board of Inquiry, and who had not been restored by the Revising Board, and on the Report of the Kansas Conference Committee. In that debate he stated correctly, and proved, from the records and from the argument of William Pinckney, of Maryland, the point settled by the Missouri Compromise-to wit, "That it assumed that there could be a restriction upon a Territory while it remained a Territory, and it settled that there could be no restriction, no I condition imposed upon a state, not merely upon the subject of slavery, but upon any subject." He also spoke on the Ohio Contested Election Case, the Washington City Election Bill, and on the Civil and Legislative Appropriations.

On the 30th of March, 1858, he spoke as follows against the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution :

MR. CHAIRMAN,-The earlier explorers in high northern latitudes were perplexed at beholding great icebergs mysteriously making their way to the north against current, and wind, and tide. Philosophers in the closet divined from the strange phenomenon the existence of an under current running counter to that of the surface, that bore them along. The disinterested spectator, Mr. Chairman, of the course of this debate, ignorant of our history for four years, and of who now holds the helm, would find himself similarly perplexed, and perhaps he might surmise a similar solution.

That an administration which professes to be the godfather of “popular sovereignty" should oppose the submission of a Constitution to the popular vote; that an administration which is in name Democratic should propose to impose upon the majority the will of the minority; that an administration elevated to power by the South, against the will of the North, should urge, as the

shortest way to accomplish the great purpose of making Kansas a free state, her admission as a slave state; that the administration, which professes anxiety to preserve the peace of the country, should say that the shortest way to restore the broken peace is, not to remove, but to fasten, by irrevocable laws, in the form of a state Constitution guaranteed by the united power of the country, that hateful oligarchy upon a people, whose neck was too tender to bear the weight of their territorial yoke, which Congress could at any moment alleviate; that these methods should be taken to accomplish these purposes, may well puzzle the speculator in exploring the hidden reasons that drive men thus contrary to what apparent reason-the ordinary method of guiding the commonwealth, the ordinary propelling powers of the government—would seem to dictate. And possibly, Mr. Chairman, he might not be very far from solving the problem if he were to assume that the question is, not so much how to accomplish the pacification of Kansas, or to make legislation square with the dogma of “ popular sovereignty,” or to secure the right of the people to form their own domestic institutions in their own way, which we are taught to believe is a new revelation of the year of grace eighteen hundred and fifty-four-not so much any of those reasons as to prevent the administration, which boasted itself the omnipotent pacificator, from being brought to lick the dust, now, ere the termination of the first session of its first Congress-to lick the dust before the will of that majority which it is defying in one of the Territoriesbefore the will of that majority of the people of the United States, against which Mr. Buchanan ascended the presidential chair, and amid the irreconcilable diversities of opinion of the people who were combined to elevate Mr. Buchanan to the Presidency-but here that men and parties are brought face to face-can no longer coalesce in the policy he would have them pursue.

We are debating the recognition of an independent state. The administration produce a piece of parchment with a form of government written on it, and a certificate of one John C. Calhoun, that it is the Constitution adopted at Lecompton by a Convention of the people of Kansas; and on this evidence the President and his friends demand the recognition of the State of Kansas.

We respectfully ask for the proof that the piece of parchment contains the will of the people of Kansas.

We are told the Territorial Legislature took, by law, the sense of the people, and 2670 voted to call a Convention; that 2200 persons voted, in all, for the members of the Convention; that the Convention, whose journal no one here has seen, voted the Constitution; that it was not submitted to the people for their ratification, and that the vote of the 4th of January, of 10,000 against it, is of no legal relevancy to the question before us.

On this state of facts, Mr. Chairman, we are besought, on behalf of the administration, to vote for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution for the sake of the principle involved. Sir, I confess myself the servant of principle; and I respectfully ask gentlemen what principle they ask me to sanction?

Is it that a minority in a Territory constitute the people, and so must make their will the law over the majority? If so, I respectfully dissent from the principle.

Is it that the people of a Territory, with or without previous authority of Congress, have a legal right themselves to take the initiative, and to lay upon your table a Constitution which they are entitled to demand at our hands that we shall accept? If so, then I respectfully dissent from the principle.

Is it, on the part of our Southern friends, that any Constitution which may be laid upon our table containing, no matter how put there, a clause sanctioning slavery, is to shut the eye to every other circumstance connected with it, and to drive us to the admission of that people as a state merely because that provision is in the Constitution? If so, then I respectfully dissent from the principle.

Is it that they mean that gentlemen may look into the Consti- ·. tution for the purpose of seeing that slavery is there, and when they find it there are bound to vote for the admission? If so, then the gentlemen upon the other side of the house, by exactly the same reason, may look into that Constitution to see that slavery is there; and, if they think it the more logical conclusion, may vote to refuse admission upon that ground. But as I do not understand the gentlemen on the other side to admit the latter alternative as one fit to be embraced, they will indulge me in the logical consequence of not regarding the former as a proper consideration to weigh at all with me upon the question that is before the House.

That slavery is embraced in that Constitution, is certainly, Mr.

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Chairman, in my opinion, no ground at all for the rejection-no ground at all for any difficulty about admission. If put there by the will of the people, it ought not to weigh with the weight of the dust in the balance upon the question; for to allow that to be a ground of exclusion, while it would be within the legislative discretion of Congress, would be, in my judgment, unwise, tending directly to consequences that all of us are most anxious to avoid, and would exhibit an unsocial disposition in behalf of the majority which might come to such a conclusion, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, the past history of the nation teaches us only too well will lead to nothing but disastrous civil collisions; which, in their result, if not immediately, will first undermine, and then bring down in ruin, the whole fabric of our liberties.

Then, if these be not the principles which ought to commend themselves to the judgment of a right-judging man, is there any other? Is it that because the Territory has proceeded under a law of a Territorial Legislature, with all the regularity and formality, as the President tells us, that any territory has ever proceeded, we are bound to accept what they send to us, blindly and without looking beyond it? Is it the principle of this government not only that we may stop, but that we are bound to stop, at what the Territory sends to us? Then, Mr. Chairman, I do not assent to that proposition; and it is to that proposition that I desire chiefly to draw your attention now.

Upon that question I am freer than most of the gentlemen upon either side of this House. I voted with my Southern friends. against the Topeka Constitution, being a free Constitution formally sent here by the majority of the then inhabitants of the Territory. I am, therefore, free to raise the question whether there is legal authority at the bottom of that Constitution now presented to us? They protested against the admission of California because there was no evidence that a majority of its people had assented; because there was no formality of law preceding its Constitution; because there were no protections to the ballot-box. I am, therefore, now free to ask those who did protest to join me in inquiring whether there be here legal authority; whether here the ballot-box has been protected; whether here we have the will of the people ascertained in legal form which we not only may accept, but which we are bound to accept?

This assumes the validity of the laws of the Territorial Legis

lature calling the Convention, and the proceedings under them in point of law; and that the legal effect of those proceedings is to clothe this parchment with all the attributes of a state Constitution, and that we are not entitled to inquire who voted for or against it; how many staid from the polls, or why they did so; nor whether fraud or force have decided the result; but that the legal certificates preclude inquiry into every thing beyond.

I respectfully deny the validity in point of law, and farther say that if they were as valid as if authorized by act of Congress, they could to no extent exclude the legislative discretion of Congress as to the fitness of recognizing the new state.

Mr. Chairman, in my judgment, all that is necessary to the admission of a state is a concurrence of the will of the people of a Territory and of Congress. Prior to such concurrence there is no state. After that concurrence there is a state. The application of a Territory to be admitted as a State is only a petition upon your table-an offer upon their part which we may accept or which we may reject at our pleasure. After that concurrence it has been ingrafted into the living body politic of the country, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, to share with us for good or evil, to the end of time, the blessings or misfortunes of the republic-to be severed by nothing except that external violence which shall lop off some living limb of the republic, or that civil strife which the chief of the republic is so rashly provoking.

Enabling acts, whether contained in the organic law of the Territory, or in special acts authorizing the formation of a Constitution, providing for the formalities of election, the protection of the polls, the expression of the popular will under the forms of law, are only the guarantees that Congress in its wisdom throws around the expression of the popular will. They are only methods. of ascertaining that will; and when that will is ascertained, Congress has every thing that is indispensable, and all the Territory can supply. The will of Congress to concur with the will of the people is expressed in the act of Congress admitting the state; and it is that concurrence, no matter how ascertained, by what forms, or with the omission of what forms, which makes the distinction, and alone makes the distinction between a Territory of the United States and a state of the United States.

There is no such thing in our system as an incipient state-a state whose federal relations are undefined, a state of uncertain