and suitable guarantees against fraud and illegal voting, to authorize the people of Kansas to form a constitution and State government at this time. While the Senate bill, now pending before the House, is fair and impartial in all its provisions, with ample and satisfactory safe-guards against illegal and fraudulent voting, the bill from the House to reorganize the Territory contains no such provisions and affords no such assurances. It leaves the qualifications of the voters at the first election the same as they were under the Kansas-Nebraska act, with this difference, that it denies the privilege of voting and holding office to all men of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath their intention to become citizens, and who shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, but who shall have failed from any cause to have completed their naturalization. The provision is, "that any white male inhabitant, being a citizen of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of said Territory at the time of the passage of this act, shall be entitled to vote at the first election." No penalties or punishments. are provided for illegal voting; none for fraud in conducting the elections; none for violence at the polls; and none for destroying the ballot-boxes. All these things may be done with impunity; for, while the election must be held in pursuance of the existing laws of the Territory, which are recognized as being in force, the bill expressly provides that no criminal prosecution shall hereafter be instituted in any of the courts of the United States or of said Territory for any violation or disregard of said legislative enactment at any time. Under this bill any number of persons from Missouri or Iowa, from South Carolina. or Massachusetts, or from any other part of the world, may enter the Territory on election day and take possession of the polls, and vote as many times as they choose, and drive every legal voter from the polls with entire impunity; for the bill declares that no criminal prosecutions shall ever be instituted in the courts of the United States or of said Territory for violating or disregarding the ONLY LAW which provides penalties and punishments for such outrages in the Territory of Kansas.

No measure can restore peace to Kansas which does not effectually protect the ballot-box against fraud and violence, and impart equal and exact justice to all the inhabitants. Under existing circumstances, your committee are unable to devise any measure which will more certaily accomplish these desirable objects than the bill which has twice passed the Senate, and now only awaits the concurrence of the House of Representatives, with the approval of the President, to become the law of the land.

For these reasons your committee recommend that the bill from the House of Representatives be laid on the table, as a test vote on its rejection, inasmuch as the objections apply to all the leading features and material provisions of the bill, and renders it incapable of amendment without preparing an entire new bill.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

AUGUST 11, 1856.

VIEWS OF THE MINORITY.

Mr. Collamer, from the Committee on Territories, to whom was referred a bill from the House of Representatives, "An act to reorganize the Territory of Kansas and for other purposes," submits the following views:

In all legislation, the true, actual condition of the country to which it is to apply, should be, and must be, regarded, in order to ascertain what will be the probable effect of such legislation. What is the present condition of Kansas, for which legislation is now proposed, and what is the legislation adapted to that condition? If its condition is peaceful and prosperous, let it proceed under the laws which has produced, and is advancing, such prosperity. If, on the other hand, it is convulsed with violence, confusion and blood, then it must be equally clear that legislation should change and correct the measures and causes which have produced this condition.

A brief and summary statement of affairs will be amply sufficient for the present purpose. The Territory, on the 30th of March, 1855, the day for the election of the territorial legislature, was invaded by armed bands of men from Missouri, who dispersed themselves into the different election districts, and by force, violence, and intimidation, drove the inhabitants from the polls, and by their own votes, elected the members of the legislature in all of the election districts but one. This legislature, so elected by force and fraud, by the people of Missouri, convened and presumed to legislate for the Territory of Kansas, and to appoint officers to execute their laws. The object of this atrocious invasion and usurpation was open, avowed, and well-known to all; that is, to establish and sustain the institution of domestic slavery in that Territory, thus acknowledging that, if left to themselves, the inhabitants would not receive and promote it. The laws adopted by this usurping legislature were framed, in all their aspects, to secure the same purpose for which it had been elected-to oppress, harass, and exclude all those opposed to slavery then in said Territory, to procure their departure, and to deter all others, entertaining such views, from entering the Territory for settlement.

Under the color of the laws, thus made, the officers of the Territory, and people under their countenance and direction, have performed acts of violence and atrocity shocking to every sentiment of justice and humanity. The Executive of the nation declares that

those laws shall be enforced with the whole power of the government, and the people are informed by the commander of the army there that he cannot protect them even from the lawless acts of the territorial militia and the marshal's and sheriff's posse, because they act under color of law, at the same time it is insisted that if they attempt to protect themselves, it must be treated as resistance to lawful authority.

A large part of the people there justly regard the acts of that usurping legislature as utterly void, and they formed a State constitution to present to Congress for admission as a State, which was adopted by the votes of a large majority of the inhabitants of said Territory, and measures were taken to organize a provisional government under the same, subject to the action of Congress thereon. Congress having yet taken no definitive action, when the people attempted again to hold a meeting, peaceably and unarmed, further to forward that object, they were forcibly dispersed by the United States dragoons. The men who were most active in this matter of a State constitution have been arrested and indicted, and are now held in durance as guilty of treason, or constructive treason, and guarded by United States soldiers, under the command of the President of the United States. These proceedings have naturally led to some violent acts of resistance and retaliation, and bad men from a distance have gathered there to take advantage of these scenes of violence to gratify their lawlessness and cupidity. Those laws, and the acts done under color of them, have, in a great measure, had their designed effect, and driven large numbers of the free State and other peaceable people from the Territory. The people of Missouri and others uniting in their purposes, have forcibly turned back large parties of emigrants from the free States, attempting to enter the Territory by the national highway, the Missouri river, and large numbers, in armed bands, are now gathered along the borders of the Territory to guard it against the access of said emigrants by land.

From this condition of that country, so anomalous and unprecedented, so inconsistent with this enlightened age, so injurious to the government of this country, under whose jurisdiction it exists, and so dangerous in its continuance and tendencies, leads us to inquire what cause has produced it. Nothing of this kind has ever before existed. in relation to any one of our numerous Territories. The cause is perfectly obvious to every man in our country. It is the novel attempt and experiment to invite people to settle that country under a proclamation to them that they should have it for free or for slave labor as they should themselves determine. In order to enter upon this experiment, Congress, in 1854, vacated the Missouri compromise line, which sequestered all the country north of 36° 30' to be free from slavery forever. They destroyed that statute of compromise and repose which was the bond of peace for more than the third of a century. They broke up that condition of quietness on the subject of slavery in the Territories, in relation to all which such arrangements had been madeas that all parties had submitted to acquiesce. Congress, in the Nebraska-Kansas bill, not only provided that when admitted as States they should be admitted as free or slave States as they should desire,

as had been done in New Mexico, but they proceeded to repeal the Missouri compromise line, which prohibited slavery, and declared that the people should be "perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way." This was the cause of all the trouble which has since transpired there. The invasion from Missouri, and all the violence and outrage done under color of the laws, so produced, as before stated, are but efforts to establish slavery as a domestic institution "perfectly free and in their own way."

Palliation or excuse for this violence and lawlessness is much urged by the President and in the Senate by heaping unfounded execration on the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society; but southern emigrants, actually hired by slaveholders' associations, find no difficulty in entering the Territory, and are employed as marshal's posse, under pay. How little of ground existed for the excuses of Missouri violence in the efforts of the Massachusetts Aid Society now most fully appears, when it has been shown by the official census of the Territory, taken the month before the invasion, that of all the adult freemen then in the Territory, amounting to near three thousand, only 163 were from all the New England States.

The condition of the Territory is well calculated to convince every impartial and candid man that it is entirely preposterous to submit any matter affecting the subject of slavery to any vote to be taken by the people now in the Territory.

The free State people have, to a large extent, been driven off. They for some months have been, and they now are, prevented from entering or returning. Those now there may be, and probably will be, run out whenever it is ascertained that such is necessary to determine an election for slavery. Anything like a discussion of that subject is utterly impracticable there, with personal safety. Freedom of the press is prohibited, and the free State presses are, "under color of law," declared nuisances, and destroyed by the marshal and his posse.

The next inquiry is, what is the mode of redress? The President insists that he has no power to inquire into the origin of the Kansas laws, but will do his duty in executing them. He, however, in his message of the 24th of January last, on this subject, represents that matter as proper to be inquired into and decided by the House of Representatives, when deciding on the validity of the election of a delegate chosen under such laws.

The House of Representatives have, accordingly, inquired into the matter with great care, and having found the legislature was elected by a military invasion and fraud, have declared their acts void, and the delegate chosen in virtue thereof has been refused a seat. Still the President does not submit to the decision, nor does he recommend to Congress to make further inquiry. In the Senate it is insisted that these laws are prima facie, good and absolutely binding on the Executive and the courts until superseded or repealed by the territorial legislature or by Congress, and yet the Senate entirely decline or neglect to take any measures to inquire as to the truth, that they may afford relief.

The usurpers, therefore, continue in power in Kansas, sustained by the President, and again it is inquired what is the redress?

The Senate has passed a bill for pacification. Its essential features are that certain of the most obnoxious laws of Kansas shall cease, but those in power there shall remain, and the people now there, in the condition now existing, and after all the preparations before described shall, by vote, fix forever the condition of the Territory, as to slavery, by now making a State constitution. It must be obvious that this is but to give to violence, outrage, and atrocity, the reward of all its effort by the consummation of its wishes, domestic slavery forever.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill to admit Kansas under the State constitution adopted by a large majority of its people. This the Senate rejected, again insisting on submitting the matter to the people now there to vote on a constitution in the present condition of the Territory by those they may permit to remain until next November.

The House has now passed a bill, the leading and essential provisions of which are that the Missouri compromise line shall be restored, and the actual inhabitants in the Territory shall proceed to elect a legislature for the Territory.

These are its leading provisions, and all the other details and particulars which it includes are but collateral, and if they are unsatisfactory, they are only proper matter of amendment, but constitute no ground for rejecting the bill. This applies to a large part of the committee's report. It finds fault with provisions which are merely collateral details, and yet no amendment is proposed. If the now proposed boundaries include any part of the Cherokee lands or of New Mexico which ought not to be included, let it be amended. If the criminal laws of Kansas (which really have never been used but to promote the cause of slavery and prosecute and persecute pretended political offenders) should not all be declared inoperative, then adopt the proper amendments. If apparent inconsistencies or incongruities are found in the bill, it should be amended, not rejected on that account. If the bill contains no sufficient security against illegal voting, let them be inserted. If there be serious objection to the provisions in the bill in relation to permitting the slaves now in the Territory, and their children, to be held there or removed until January, 1858, let the same be stricken out or amended. It is no reasonable objection to restoring the Missouri compromise, which was agreed to because it was not, and is not, extended to the Pacific, which never was agreed to.

The essential principle of this bill is the restoration of the Missouri compromise line. Deprived of this it loses all vitality, is eviscerated, and becomes utterly valueless and detrimental. It proposes that the people now there shall proceed to the election of a legislature. This would appear to regard them as suitable to be entrusted with the power of election, and, if so, why not permit them to form a State constitution? The people there may safely be left to the election of a territorial legislature when Congress shall have re-established the law forever forbidding slavery in the Territory, but at the same time they are so conditioned as to be entirely unfitted to the fair and impartial decision of the question of slavery at this time.

The plausible experiment of settling the subject of slavery in a Territory by submitting it to the people who shall thereafter go in to