Kansas The Lecompton Constitution

Excerpt from Kansas the Lecompton Constitution: Speech of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, in the House of Representatives, March 20, 1858 It is not needful to speak at much length of the first important election in the Territory of Kansas, on the 3oth of March, 1855, when the people, under the organic act, were called upon to elect their first Legislature. It was an elec tion of vital, commanding importance. On that body would devolve the enactment of an entire civil, criminal, and miscellaneous code of laws, which would embody the wishes and protect the interests of the pioneer settlers of the Territory. It would also be required to enact statutes gov erning future elections, to appoint or provide for the election of the various county and township officers who were to assist in putting the ma chinery of Government in operation to establish counties and county seats; to select a site for the capital; and, in a word, by representatives fairly chosen, to concentrate the popular will into a body, which, in every free land, speaks with po tential voice, because it springs from the hearts and votes of the people for whom it acts. Need Irepeat the history of that organized invasion from a neighboring State, as large in numbers as the army with which Zachary Taylor achieved the crowning victory of his life at Buena Vista; which, with all the equipage and paraphernalia of war, surrounded the various polls, drove the actual voters from their own ballot-boxes with violence and imprecations; forced unsubservient election judges to carry out their will, or, withpistols at their breasts, gave them five minutes to die or to yield their places to their serviceable tools; stuffed the ballot-boxes with nearly five thousand fraudulent, illegal, rudian votes, elect ing an entire pro-slavery Legislature, with the exception of a single Representative from a dis tant precinct in the interior; and then returned to their Missouri homes with drums beating and banners flying, exulting over this unparalleled outrage which they hailed as a brilliant victory Though, at the risk of life, a few districts were contested, and new elections ordered, this bogus Legislature, when it met, promptly repudiated every one chosen at the second election, and in stalled in their stead the persons elected by the invading army, thus appropriately perfecting their organization. And this was the first step in the progress of affairs which has so fittingly culminated in the Lecompton juggle, which, as it did not have the people for its sponsor at the baptismal font, appears before us with John Cal houn as its foster-father, and the President as its next friend, sticking closer than a brother. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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