Newspaper Page Text
f 6j[t failH
B y THOMAS JDK WOLF.
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
Ji; y *t Five Dollars a year. Where the sub
!' ,a j .Inn is made for less than a year, at the rate of
I tints month. Single copies, Five Cents,
f |W ADVJSUTXSING KATKS.
fi.eineuts will be inserted at Ten Cents u line
I -vl,er asertiou, and Five Cents a line for each subse-
K r ftret 1 . u the same —to be paid for when the
■ is uanded into the office.
jS 1 CONTRACT ADVERTISERS.
, ot exceeding 5 lines, not renewable, will be
I A ‘'"l three mouths for $4, six months for $6, or one
■iwirted i -Dime agreed upon to be paid for before the
Bf* r lor * ‘ n j is put in type.
daaments not exceeding ten lines, renewable at
■ AJv r “” rte( j at S2O a year—to be paid for quarterly
j., i-nsure, 1“
Bo VS “-' em entM of 20 Hues, renewable at pleasure, in-
I .W>' eru ” x yeur—payable quarterly in advance
■ (fieJ a 1 ’ .jy.enißeiut'iits exceeding 20 lines, will be
■ distract rllle „f jlo for for every additional ten
I ‘“‘Citable quarterly in advance.
I ‘“*l rtiseuieuts or notices, occupying a place between
1 ling matter and advertisements, will be charged
► w ‘'t’ .M u. line for every insertion.
glVii ‘ -
I PRESIDENT’S message.
I fiUow-Citizent of the Senate,
I and of the House of Representatives.
j ‘l'he Constitution requires that the President
I hall from t ' uie t 0 t ‘ me ’ ,10t on *y rocommend
I to the consideration of Congress such measures
I , i i, e may judge necessary and expedient, but
I a f 90 that he shall give information to them of
I “he state of the Union. To do this fully in-
I yolves exposition of all matters in the actual
I oaJition of the country, domestic or foreign,
I *hicb essentially concern the general welfare.
■ While performing his constitutional duty in
I this respect, the President does not speak uiere-
II yto express his personal convictions, but as
E J ie executive minister of the government, ena-
I bled by his position, and called upon by his
I uilicial obligations, to scan with an impartial
I eve, the interests of the whole, and of every
( pari of the United States.
I Os the condition of the domestic interests of
I the Union, its agriculture, mines, manufac-
I tures navigation, and commerce, it isnecessa
f a y only to say that the internal prosperity of
the couutry, its continuous and steady ad-
I vaucement in wealth and population, and iu
l private as well as public well-being, attest the
I wisdom of our institutions, and the predomi-
I mint spirit of intelligence and patriotism,
I which, notwithstanding occasional irregulari-
I ties of opinion or notion, resulting from popu-
I ]ar freedom, has distinguished and character
[ ired the people of America.
In the brief interval between the termination
I of the last and the commencement of the pre
sent session of Congress, the public mind has
been occupied with the care of selecting, for
another constitutional term, the President and
Vice President of the United States.
The determination of the persons, who are
of right, or contingently, to preside over the
administration of the government, is, under
our system, committed to the States and the
people. “ e appeal to them, by their voice
pronounced in the form of law, to call whom
soever they will to the high post of Chief Mag
istrate.
And thus it is that as the Senators represent
the respective States of the Union, and the
members of the House of Representatives the
several constituencies of each State, so the
President represents the aggregate population
of the United Sates. Their election of him is
the explicit and solemn act of the sole sover
eign authority of the Union.
It is impossible to misapprehend the great
principles, which, by their recent political ac
tion, the people of the United States havesnne
tioned and announced.
They have asserted the constitutional equal
ity of each and all of the States of the Union
as States; they have affirmed the constitution
al equality of each and all of the citizens of
the United States as citizens, whatever their
religion, wherever their birth, or their resi
dence; they have maintained the inviolability
of the constitutional rights of the different sec
tions of the Union; and they have proclaimed
their devoted and unalterable attachment to
the Union and to the Constitution, as objects
of interest superior to all subjects of local or
sectional controversy, as the safe-guard of the
rights of all, as the spirit and the essence of
the liberty, peace, and greatness of the Repub
lic.
Iu doing this, tbey have, at the same time,
emphatically condemned the idea of organizing,
in these United States, mere geographical par
ties ; of marshaling in hostile array towards
each other the different parts of the country,
North or South, East or West.
Schemes of this nature, fraught with incal
culable mischief, and which the considerate
sense of the people has rejected, could have
had countenance in no part of the country,
had they not been disguised by suggestions
plausibie in appearance, acting upon an excit
ed state of the public mind, induced by causes
temporary in their character, and it is to be
hoped transient in their influence.
l’erfect liberty of association for political ob
jects, and the widest scope of discussion, are
the received and ordinary conditions of gov
ernment in our country. Our institutions,
trained in the spirit of confidence in the intel
ligence and integrity of the people, do not for
bid citizens either individually or associated
together, to attack by writting, speech, or any
other method* shortof physical force, the Con
stitution and the very existenoe of the Union.
Under the shelter of this great liberty, and
protected by the laws and usages of the gov
ernment they assail, associations have been
termed, iu some of the States, of individuals,
who, pretending to seek only to prevent the
spread of the institution of slavery into the
present or future inchoate States of the Union,
are really inflamed with desire to change the
domestic institution* of existing States. To
accomplish thoir objects, they dedicate them
selves to the odious task of deprecating the
government organization which stands in thoir
way, and of calumniating, with indiscriminate
invective, not only the citizens of particular
States, with whose laws they find fault, but
all others of their fellow citizensc throughout
the couutry, who do not participate with them
in their assaults upon the Constitution, framed
and adopted hy our fathers, and claiming for
the privileges it has secured, aud the blessings
it has conferred, the steady support and grntc
lul reverence of their children. They seek an
object they well kuow to boa revolutionary
one. They are perfectly aware that the change
m the relative condition of the white mid black
races iu the slaveholding States, which they
would promote, i* beyond their lawful authori
ty ; that to them is a foreign object ; that it
cannot be effected by nuy peaceful instrumen
tality of theirs ; that for them, and the States
ot which they are citizens, the only path to its
accomplishment is through burning cities, and
ravaged fields, and slaughtered populations,
and all there is most terrible in foreign, com
plicated with civil and servile war ; and that
the first step in the attempt is the forcible dis
ruption of acountry embracing iu its broad
bosom a degree of liberty, aud an amount of
individual and public prosperity, to which thei e
is no parallel in history, and substituting in its
place hostile-governments, driven at once and
inevitably into mutual devastation and fratri-
ft tc lailj jkii.
VOL. ll.}
cidal carnage, transforming the now peaceful
and felicitous brotherhood into a vast perma
nent camp of armed men like the rival monar
chies of Europe and Asia. Well knowing that
such and such only, are the means and conse
quence of their plans and purposes, thoy en
deavor to prepare the people of the United
States for civil war by doingeverything in their
power to deprive the Constitution and the laws
of moral authority, and to undermine the fab
ric of this Union by appeals to passion and
sectional prejudice, by indoctrinating its peo
ple with reciprocal hatred, and by educating
them to stand face to face as enemies, rather
than shoulder to shoulder as friends.
It is by the agency of such unwarrantable
interference, foreign and domestic, that the
minds of many, otherwise good citizens, have
been so inflamed into the passionate condemna
tion of the domestic institutions of the South
ern States, as at length to pass insensibly to
almost equally passionate hostility towards
their fellow citizens of those States, and thus
finally to fall into temporary fellowship with
the avowed and active enemies of the Constitu
tion. Ardently attached to liberty in the ab
stract, they do not stop to consider practically
how the objects they would attain can be ac
complished, nor to reflect that, even if the
evil were as great as thoy deem it, they have
no remedy to apply, and that it can be only
aggravated by their violence and unconstitu
tional action. A question, which is one of the
most difficult of all the problems of social insti
tution, political economy and statesmanship,
they treat with unreasoning intemperance of
thought and language. Extremes beget ex
tremes. Violent attack from the North finds
its inevitable consequence in the growth of a
spirit of nngry defiance at the South. Thus,
in the progress of events we had reached that
consummation, which the voice of the people
has now so pointedly rebuked, of the attempt,
of a portion of the States, by a sectional organ
ization aud movement, to usurp the control of
the Government of the United States.
I confidently believe that the great body of
those, who inconsiderately took this fatal step,
are sincerely attached to the Constitution and
the Union. They would, upon deliberation,
shrink with unaffected horror from any con
scious act of disunion or civil war. Rut they
have entered into a path, which leads nowhere,
unless it bo to civil war and disunion, anil
which has noother possible outlet. They have
proceeded thus far iu that direction in conse
quence of the successive stages of their pro
gress, having consisted of a series of secondary
issues, each of which professed to be confined
within constitutional and peaceful limits, but
which attempted indirectly what few men were
willing to do directly, that is, to act aggres
sively against the constitutional rights of near
ly one-lialf of the thirty-one States.
In the long series of acts of indirect aggres
sion, the first was the strenuous agitation, by
citizens of the northern States, in Congress
and out of it, of the question of negro emanci
pation in the southern States.
The second step in this path of evil consist
ed of acts of the people of the northern States
and in several instances of their governments,
aimed to facilitate the escape of persons held
to service in the southern States, and to pre
veut their extradition when reclaimed accord
ing to law and in virtue of express provisions
of the Constitution. To promote this object,
legislative enactments and other means were
adopted todake away or defeat rights, which
the Constitution solemnly guarantied. In or
der to nullify the then existiugact of Congress
concerning the extradition of fugitives from
service, laws were enacted in many States,
forbidding their officers, under the severest
penalties, to participate iu the execution of any
act of Congress whatever. In this way that
system of harmonious co-operation between the
authorities of the United States and of the sev
eral States, for the maintenance of their com
mon institutions, which existed in the early
years of the Republic, was destroyed; conflicts
of jurisdiction came to be frequent; and Con
gress found itself compelled, for the support of
the Constitution, and the vindication of its
power, to authorise the appointment of new
officers charged with the execution of its acts,
as if they and the officers of the States were
the ministers, respectively, of foreign govern
ments in a state of mutual hostility, rather
than fellow magistates of a common couutry.
peacefully subsisting under the protection of
one well-constituted Union. Thus here, also,
aggression was followed by re-action: and the
attacks upon the Constitution at this point did
but serve to raise up new barriers for its de
fence and security.
The third stage of this unhappy sectional
controversy was in connection with thu organ
ization of new territorial governments, and
the admission of new States into tho Union.
When it was proposed to admit the State of
Maine, by separatioc of territory from that of
Massachusetts, and the State of Missouri,
formed of a portion of the territory ceded by
France to the United States, representatives in
Cos gress objected to the admission of the lat
ter, unless with conditions suited to particular
views of public policy. The imposition of
such a condition was successfully resisted.
Rut, at the same period, the question was pre
sented of imposing restrictions upon the resi
due of the territory ceded by France. The
qusstion was, for the time, disposed of by the
adoption of a geographical line of limitation.
In this connection it should not be forgotten
that France, of her own accord, resolved, for
considerations of the most far sighted sagaci
ty, to cede Louisiana to the United States, and
that accession was accepted by the United
States, the latter expressly engaged that “the
inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be in
corporated into the Union of the United States
and admitted ns soon as possible, according to
the principles of the Federal Constitution, to
the enjoyment of the rights, advantages and
immunities of citizens of the United States,
ami in the meantime they shall be maintained
and protected in the enjoyment of their liber
ty, property, and tho religion which they pro
fess”—that is to say, while it remains in a ter
ritorial condition, its inhabitants are main
tained and protected in the free enjoyment of
their liberty and property with a right then to
pass into the condition of States on a footing
of perfect equality with the original States.
The enactment, which cstablishee the re
strictive geographical line, was acquiesced in
rather than approved by the States of the
Union. It stood on the statues book, however,
for a number of years: and the people of the
respective Ssntes acquiesced iu the re-anact
uient of the principle as applied to the State
of Texas; and it wns proposed to acquiesce in
ita further application to the territory acquir
ed by the Uuited States from Mexico. Rut
this proposition was successfully resisted by
COLUMBUS, GA.. DECEMBER 6. 1856.
the representatives from the northern States,
who, regardless of the statute line, insisted
upon applying restriction to the new territory
generally, whether lying north or south of it,
thereby repealing it ns a ( legislative compro
mise, and, on the part of the North, persistent
ly violating the compact, if compact there
was.
Thereupon this enactment ceased to have
binding virtue in any sense, whether as re
spects the North or the South ; and so in effect
it was treated on tho occasion of the admission
of the State of California, and the organization
of the Territories of New Mexico, Utah and
Washington.
Such was the state of this question when
the time arrived for the organization of the
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In the
progress of constitutional inquiry and reflec
tion, it had now at length come to be seen
clearly that Congress does not possess cousti
stutional power to impose restrictions of this
character upon any present or future State of
the Union. In a long series of decisions, on
the fullest argument, ami after the most delib
erate consideration, the Supreme Court of the
United S'ates had linnlly determined this point
in every form under which the question could
arise, whether a? affecting puplic or private
rights—in questions of public domain, of re
ligion, of navigation, aud of servitude.
The several Statis of the Union are, by
force of the Constitution, co-equal in domestic
legislative power. Congress cannot change a
law of domestic relation in the State of Maine,
no more can it in the State of Missouri Any
statute which proposes to do this is a mere
nullity; it takes away no right, it confers
none. It remains on the statute book unre
pcaled, it icmains there only as a monument
of error, and a beacon of warning to the le
gislator and the statesman. To repeal it w ill
be ouly to remove imperfection from the stat
ute-, without affecting, either in the sense of
permission or of prohibition, the act of the
States, or of their citizens.
Still, when the nominal restriction of this
nature, already a dead letter in law, was in
terms repealed by the last Congress, iu a clause
of the act organizing the Territories of
Kansas and Nebraska, thnt repeal was made
the occasion of a widespread and dangerous
agitation.
It was alleged that the original enactment
being a compact of perpetual moral obliga
tion, its repeal constituted an odious breach
of faith.
The act of Congress, while it remains unre
penled, more especially if it be constitutional
ly valid in the judgment of those public func
tionaries whose duty it is to pronounce on
that point, is undoubtedly binding on the con
science of each good citizen of this Republic.
Rut in what sense can it be asserted that the
ennetment in question was invested with per
petuity and entitled to the respect of a solemn
compact ? No distinct contending powers of
the government, no separate sections of the
Union, treating as such, entered into treaty
stipulations on the subject. It was a mere
clause of an net of Congress, and like any
controverted matter of legislation, received its
final shape and passed by compromise of the
conflicting opinions or sentiments of members
Congress. Rut if it had moral authority over
men’s consciences, to whom did this authority
attach ? Not those of the North, who had re
peatedly refused to coufirm it by extension, and
who had zonlously striven to establish other
and incompatible regulations upon the subject.
And if, as it thus appears, the supposed com
pact had no obligatory force as to the North,
of course it could not have had nny as to the
South, for such compacts must be mutual and
of reciprocal obligation.
It has not unfrcquently happened that law
givers, with undue estimation of the value of
tho law they give, or of the view of imparting
to it peculiar strength, make it perpetual in
terms ; but they cannot thus hind the con
science, the judgment and will of those who
may succeed them, invested with similar re
sponsibilities, and clothed with equal authori
ty. More careful investigation may prove the
law to he unsound iu principle. Experience
may show it to be imperfect in detail and im
practicable in execution. And then both rea
son and right combine not merely to justify
but to require its repeal.
The Constitution, supreme as it is over all
the departments of the government, legislative,
executive and judicial, is open to amendment
by its very terms ; and Congress or the States
may, in their discretion, propose amendments
to it, solemn compact though it iu truth is be
tween the sovereign States of the Union. In
the present instance a political enactment,
which had censed to have legal power or au
thority of any kind, was repealed. The posi
tion asssutued, that Congress had no moral
right to enact such repeal, was strange enough,
and singularly so in view of the fact that the
argument came from those who openly refused
obedience to the existing laws of the laud,
having the same popular designation and qual
ity as compromise acts—nay, more, who une
quivocally disregarded and condemned the
most positive and obligatory injunctions of the
Constitution itself, and sought, by every means
within their reach, to deprive n portion of
their fellow-citizens of the equal enjoyment of
those rights and privileges guaranteed alike to
all by the fundamental compact of our Union
The argument ngainst the repeal of the stat
ute line ist question, was accompanied by an
other of congenial character, and equally with
the former destitute of foundation in reason
and truth. It was imputed that the measure
originated in the conception of extending the
limits oi slave labor beyogd those previously
assigned to it, nud thnt such was its natural
as well as intended effect; and these baseless
assumptions were made, in the northern states,
the ground of unceasing assault upon consti
tutional right.
The repeal in terms of a statute, which whs
already obsolete, and also null for unconstitu
tionnlity could have no influence to obstruct
or promote tho propagation of conflicting views
of political or special in*#tution. When the
act organizing the Territories of Kansas and
Nebraska was passed, the inherent effect upon
that portion of the public domain thus opened
legal settlement, was to admit settlers from all
the States of the Union alike, each with his
canvictions of public policy and pronto inter
est, there to found iu their discretion, subject
to such limitations as the Constitution and acta
of Congress might prescribe, new Stat s, here
after to be admitted into the Union. It was a
free field, open alike to all, whether the stat
ute line of a-sumed restriction were repealed
or not. That repeal did not open to free com
petition of the diverse opinions aud domestic
institutions of a field, which, without such re
peal, would have been closed against them ;
it found that field of conipetion already open
ed in fact and iu law. All the repeal did wai
to relieve the statute book of un objectionable
enactment, unconstitutional in effect, and inju
riou* in terms to a large portion of the |States.
Is it the fact, in all the unsettled regions of
the United States, if emigration be left free to
act in this respect for itself, without legal pro
hibitions on either side, slave labor will spon
taneously go every where, in preference to
free labor? Is it the fact, that the peculiar
domestic institutions of the southern States
possess relatively so much of vigor, that,
wheresoever uu avenue is freely open to all the
world, tbey will penetrate to the exclusion of
those of the uorthern States ? Is it the fnct,
that the former enjoy, compared with the lat
ter such irresistibly superior vitality, indepen
dent of climate, soil, and ull other accidental
circumstances, as to be able to produce the
supposed result iu spite of the assumed moral
and natural obstacles to its accomplishment,
and of the more numerous population of the
northern States?
The argument of those, who advocate the
enactment of the new laws of restriction, mid
condemn the repeal of old ones, in effect avers
that their particular views of government have
no self-extending or self-sustaining power of
their own, nud will go nowhere unless forced
by act of Congress. And if Congress do but
pause for a moment in the policyof stern co
ercion ; if it venture to try the experiment of
leaving men to judge for themselves what instij
tutions will best suit them ; if it be not strnin
ed up to perpetual legislative exertion on this
point; if Congress proceed thus to net in the
very spirit of liberty, it is ut once charged with
aiming to extend slave labor into all the new
Territories of the Uuited States.
Os course, these imputations on the inten
tions of Congress iu this respect, conceived as
they were iu prejudice, aud disseminated in
passion, ure utterly destitute of any justifica
tion in the nature of things, nud contrary to
all the fundamental doctrines and principles of
civil liberty aud self-government.
While, therefore, in general, the people of
the Northern States have never, at any time,
arrogated, for the federal government, the
power to interfere directly with the domestic
condition of persons in the southern States,
hut on the contrary have disavowed all such
intentions, and have shrunk from conspicuous
affiliation with those few wbo-pursue their fa
natical objects avowedly through the contem
plated means of revolutionary change of the
government, and with acceptance of the ueees
sary consequences—a civil and servile war—
yet many citizens have suffered themselves to
be drawn into one evanescent political issue of
agitation after another, appertaining to the
same set ol opinions, and which subsided as
rapidly as they arose when it came to be Neen,
as it uniformly did, that they were incompati
ble with the compacts of the Constitution nud
the existence of the Union.
Thus, when the acts of some of the States to
nullify the existing extradition imposed upon
Congress the duty of passing anew one, the
country was invited by agitators to enter into
party organization for its repeal; but that ag
itation speedily censed by reason of the im
practicability of its object. So, when the stat
ute restriction upon the institution of new
States, by a geographical line, had been repeal
ed, tho country was urged to demand its resto
ration, and that project also died almost with
its birth. Then foliowed the cry of alarm from
the North against imputed southern encroach
ments; which cry sprang in reality from the
spirit of the revolutionary attack on the do
mestic institutions of the South, and, after a
troubled existence of a few months, has been
rebuked by the voice of a patriotic people.
Os this last agitation, one lamentable feature
was, that it was carried on at the immediate
expense of the peace and happiness of the peo
ple of the Territory of Kansas. That was
made the battle-field, not so much of op
posing factions or interests within itself, ns of
the conflicting passions of the whole people of
the United States. Revolutionary disorder in
Kansas had its origin in projects of interven
tion, deliberately arranged by certain members
of that Congress, which enacted the law for
the organization of the Territory. And when
propagandist colonization of Kansas had thus
been undertaken in one section of the Union,
for the systematic promotion of its peculiar
views of policy, there ensued, us a matter of
course, a counteraction with opposite views, in
other sections of the Union.
1 consequence of these and other incidents,
many acts of disorder it is undeniable, have
been perpetrated in KansHS, to tho occasional
interruption, rather than the permanent sus
pensions, of regular government. Aggressive
and nios; reprehensible incursions into the Ter
ritory were undertaken, both in the N rtli and
the .South, and entered it on its northern bor
der hy way of lowa, as well ns on the eastern
by way of Missouri; and there has existed
within it a state of insurrection against the
constituted authoiithies, not without counte
nance from inconsiderate persons in each of
the great sections of the Union. Rut the diffi
culties in that Territory have beeu extrava
gantly exaggerated for purposes of political
ug.tutiou elsewhere. The number and gravity
of the acts of violence liuve been magnified
partly by statements entirely untrue and part
ly hy reiterated accounts of the same rumors
or facts. Thus the Territory has been seem
ingly filled with extreme violence, when the
whole amount of such acts has not been greater
than what occasionally passes before us iu sin
gle cities, to the regret of all good citize s,
but without being regarded as of geuernl or
permanent political consequence.
Imputed irregularities in the elections had
in Kansas, like occasional irregularities of the
same description in the States, were beyond
the sphere of action of the Executive, lint
incident* of acutual violence or of organized
obstruction of law, pertinaciously renewed
from time to time, have been met as they oc
curred, by such meuue as were available and
as the circumstances required; and nothing
of this character now remains to effect the
general peace of the Union. The attempt of
a part of the inhabitants of the Territory to
erect a revolutionary government, though sed
ulously eucouraged aud supplied with pecunia
ry aid from active agents of disorder in some
of the States, has completely failed. Bodies
of armed men, foreign to the Territory, have
been prevented from entering or compelled to
leave it. Predatory bunds, engaged in acts of
rapine, under cover of the existing political
disturbances, have been arrested or dispersed.
And every well disposed person is now enabled
ouce more to devote himself in pence to the
pureuits of prosperous industry, for the prose
cution of which he undertook to par ticipate in
the settlement of the Territory. „
It affords me uniningled satisfaction thus to
announce the peaceful condition of thing* in
Kansas, especially considering the means to
which it was necessary to have recource for
the attainment of the end, namely, the em
ployment of a part of the military force from
its proper duty of defending the country
agaiust foreign foes or the savgage* of the
frontier, to employ it for the suppression of do
mestic insurrection, is, when the exigency oc
curs, a matter of the most earnest solicitui *.
On this occasion of imperative necessity it has
been done with the best results, and my satis
faction in the attainment of such results by
such means is greatly enhanced by the consid
eration, that, through the wisdom and energy
of the present Executive of Kansas, and the
prudence, firmness and vigilance of the milita
ry officers on duty there, trauquility has been
restored without one drop of blood having been
shed iu its accomplishment by the forces of the
Uuited States.
Ihe operation ot comparative tranquility in
that Territory furnishes the means of observ
ing calmly, and appreciating, at their just val
ue, the events which have occurred there, and
tho discussions of which the government of
Territory has been the subject.
IV e perceive that controversy concerning its
tuture domestic institutions was inevitable;
that no human prudence, no form of legisla
tion, no wisdou on the part of Congress, could
have prevented this.
It is idle to suppose that the particular
provisions of their organic law were causo of
agitation. Those provisions were but the oc
casion, or the pretext of an agitation, which
was inherent in the nature of things. Con
gress legislated upon the subject in such terms
us were most consonant with the principle of
popular sovereignty, which underlies our go
eruinent. It could not have legislated other
wise without doing violence to another great
principle of our institutions, the impercepti
ble rights of equality in the several States.
We perceive, also, that sectionvl interests and
party passious, have beeu the great impedi
ment to the salutary operation of the organic
principles adopted, and the chief cause of suc
cessive disturbance in Kansas. The assump
tion, that, because in the organization of the
Territories or Kansu* and Nebraska, Congress
abstained from imposing restraints upon them
to which certain other Territories had beeu
subject, therefore disordn r occurred in the
latter Territory, is einplm tcnlly contradicted
by the fact that none have occurred iu the for
mer. Those disorders were not the conse
quence, in Kansas, of the froedom of self-gov
ernment conceded to that Territory by Con
gress, hut of unjust interference on the part
of persons not inhabitants of the Territory.
Such interference, wherever it ties exhibited
itself, by acts of insurrectionary character, or
of obstruction to processes of law, bns been
repelled or suppressed, by ad means which the
Constitution and the laws place in tho hands
of the Executive.
In those parts of the United States where,
by reason of the inflamed state of the public
mind, false rumors and misrepresentations
have the greatest currency, it lias been as
sumed that it was the duty of the Executive
not only to suppress insurrectionary move
ments in Kansas, but also to see to the regu
larity of local elections. It needs little argu
ment to show that the President has no such
power. All government in the United States
rests substantially upou popular election.—
The freedom of elections is liable to be impaired
by the intrusion of unlawful ones, by improp
er influentes, by violence, or by frnud. But
tho people of the United States are themselves
the all-sufficient guardians of their own rights;
and to suppose that tbey will not remedy, in
duo season, any such incidents of civil free
dom, is to suppose them to have ceased to be
capable of self-government. The President of
the U. States has not power to interpose in
elections, to see their freedom, to oanvass
their votes, or to pass upon their legality in
the Territories any more than in the States.
If he had any such power the government
might be republican in form, but it would be a
monarchy in fact; and if be had untaken to
exercise it in the case of Kansas, he would
have been justly subject to the charge of usur
pation, and of violation of the dearest rights
of tho people of the United States.
Unwise laws, equally with irregularities at
elections, are, to periods of great excitement,
the occasional incident of even the freest and
best political institutions. But all experience
demonstrates that in a country like ours,
where the right of self constitutiou exists in
the completest form, the attempt to remedy un
wise legislation by resort to revolution, is to
tally out of place ; inasmuch as existing legal
institutions afford more prompt and efficacious
means for redress of wrong.
I confidentially trust that now, when the
peaceful condition of Kansas affords opportu
nity for calm reflection and wise legislation,
either the legislative assembly of the Territo
ry, or Congress, will see that no act shall re
main on its statute book violative of the pro
visions of the Constitution, or subversive of
great objects for which that was ordained and
established, and will take all othor necessary
steps to assure to its inhabitants tho enjoy
ment without obstruction or abridgement, of
all tbo constitutional rights, privileges, and
immunities of citizens of the United States, as
contemplated by the arganic law of the Terri
tory.
Full information in relation to the present
events iu this will he found iu the
documents communicated herewith from the
Departments of State and War.
I refer you to the report of the Secretary of
the Treasury for particular information con
cerning the financ *1 condit sn of the govern
ment. aud the various branches of the public
service connected with the Treasury Depart
ment.
During the last fiscal year, the receipts from
customs were, for the first time, more than
sixty-four million dollars, and from all sources
seventy three million nine hundred and eigh
teen thousand one hundred and forty-one dol
lars ; which, with the balance on hand up to
the first < f July, 1856, made the totol resources
of thu year amount to ninety-two million
eight hundred aud fifty thousand one hundred
and seventeen dollurs. The expenditures, in
cluding three million dollars in tho excutiou
of the treaty wtth Mexico, and excluding turns
paid on account of public debt, amounted to
sixty million one hundred and seventy-two
thousand four hundred and one dollars ; and,
including the lntter, to seventy-two million
nine hundred and forty-eight thousand seven
hundred aud ninety-two dollars, the payment
on this account bnving amounted to twelve
million seven hundred and seventy-six thous
and three hundred and ninety dollars.
On the 4th of March, 1853, the amount of
the public debt was sixty-nine million one
hundred and twenty-nine thoueand nine hun
dred and thirty-seven dollars. There was a
subsequent increase of two million seven hun
dred and fifty thousand dollars for tho debt of
Texas—making a total of seventy-one million
eight hundred and seventy-nine thouaeod nine
hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Os tbia the
sum es forty-five million five hundred and
twenty-five thousand three hundred and bine
teen dollars, including the prsmuim, has been
discharged, reducing tbodebt toJttirW'adiiHon
seven hundred and thirty-seven thbuiiind one
{NO. 112.