SENATE.]

Admission of Michigan.

[JANUARY, 1837.

Yes, sir, the consent of Michigan is all-import- | but I feel confident I am correct. It would ant to the peace and quiet of the Union; and now, when we have obtained it, shall we cast it away by rejecting this preamble? That is the question which I shall now proceed to discuss. Why, then, should we reject this preamble, which will forever terminate the dispute between these two States? Because, says the Senator from South Carolina, (Mr. CALHOUN,) this convention of delegates, elected by the people of Michigan, was not authorized by a previous act of their State Legislature, and therefore their proceedings are a nullity. It is revolutionary, it is dangerous in itself to our rights and liberties, and still more dangerous as a precedent for future cases. If this be true, the people of Michigan are in a most unfortunate position. At the last session of Congress, if we had attempted to insert in the bill a provision to make the previous act of the Legislature necessary, it would then have been opposed as a revolutionary measure. It would have been demonstrated by Senators that the Legislature of Michigan was an unauthorized assembly, possessing no legitimate powers; that it was a body which we had never recognized; and, therefore, we could refer nothing to its decision. In making these assertions, I speak from the record.

have been a vain attempt to support this provision in the face of the vote of the Senate to which I have referred. What, sir, refer to a body whom we had solemnly declared was composed merely of private individuals the question of assent to a condition for the purpose of binding the sovereign people of Michigan! This would have been as absurd as it was inconsistent. We should then have been told that there was no mode of escaping this difficulty but by at once dispensing with every intermediate agency, and referring the question directly to the original source of power, the people of Michigan in their primary capacity. This was done, and that, too, by a unanimous vote of the Senate. On the 1st of April last, Mr. Wright moved to strike out the provision to which I have referred, and to insert in its stead that the assent required should be given by "a convention of delegates elected by the people of the said State for the sole purpose of giving the assent herein required." Every Senator then in his place voted for this amendment, and by his vote decided that it was proper to submit the question to delegates elected by the people in their primary capacity. It was thus unanimously incorporated into the law.

How does the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. CALHOUN) now attempt to evade the force of this argument? He cannot contend that the act of Congress refers to any action of the State Legislature as being necessary to the call of this convention. If he did, the act itself would stare him full in the face.

It appears from the journals that, on the 26th of January last, the Vice President communicated to the Senate "the memorial of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan," on the subject of their right to be admitted into the Union. On the motion of Mr. Hendricks, this memorial was referred, accompanied by a declaration "that the Senate regard the same in no other light than as the voluntary act of private individuals." Mr. Ruggles moved to strike out this declaration; and, on the yeas and nays, his motion was rejected by a vote of 30 to 12. Thus the Senate then solemnly determined that the Legislature of Michigan was a mere assembly of private individuals; and yet now we are told by the Senator from South Carolina, (Mr. CALHOUN,) that, because this very Legislature did not pass an act to authorize the holding of the convention, all its proceedings are void and revolutionary. How will he reconcile this inconsistency? Truly, the people of Michigan are in a deplor-thirds of the several States. able condition. They cannot avoid the whirlpool of Scylla without being engulfed in Charybdis. At the last session, their Legislature was a mere lawless assembly; but now they are so omnipotent that the sovereign people of the State cannot elect delegates to a convention without their previous authority. Let us proceed one step further with our evidence from the record. The bill for the admission of Michigan into the Union, when first reported by the committee, provided that the assent to the boundaries of the State, required by the third section, should be given by their Senators and Representative in Congress, and by the Legislature of the State. I speak from memory,

[Mr. CALHOUN here explained. He said he would not here argue the question whether Congress meant to make a previous act of the State Legislature necessary; but if it did not, the act of Congress would itself be unconstitutional, because we had recognized Michigan as a State, and Congress have no right to call a convention in a State.]

Mr. BUCHANAN resumed. I did not misunderstand the Senator. He contended that the act of Congress calling such a convention was unconstitutional; and to establish his proposition he said that Congress, under the federal constitution, could only call a convention upon the application of the Legislatures of two

Does the Senator mean seriously to contend that the mere proposition made by Congress to the people of Michigan, for the purpose of obtaining their assent to a change of boundary, is a convention called under the authority of Congress within a State? Such an argument would be a perversion of terms. If you make propositions to any foreign power, and suggest that their willingness to accept them may be ascertained by a convention of delegates elected by the people, how can this be construed into a convention called by your own sovereign authority? No, sir; this was a mere offer, on the part of the Government of the United States, to make a bargain with the people of

JANUARY, 1837.]

Admission of Michigan.

[SENATE.

Is there any doubt of this "decided expression of the voice of the majority of the people?" Can any Senator upon this floor question it? Has there been a single memorial, or even a single private letter produced, calling it in question? Nay, more: has a single voice been raised in Michigan against entering the Union on the terms proposed? Not one, to our knowledge.

Michigan. It presupposes a perfect equality, in this respect, between the parties. They had the same right to refuse that we had to offer. They may voluntarily consent to your terms, as they have done in this case, and then it becomes a contract which cannot afterwards be violated; but if they had dissented, the negotiation would have been at an end. This is what the Senator denominates a convention called by Congress within the limits of the If it were necessary to place the claims of State of Michigan. Surely no further argument Michigan upon other grounds, it might be done on this point of the case can be necessary. with great force. Suppose we were to admit Congress might have proposed to Michigan that their proceedings had been irregular, ought that the question should be decided at the that to exclude her from the Union? On this polls, by a vote of the people. It was better, subject we ought to act like statesmen acquainthowever, to submit it to a convention of dele-ed with the history of our own country. We gates, because they could deliberate. This was emphatically to be the act of the people in their sovereign capacity. It was a question whether they should be received as a member into our great family of nations upon the terms which we had proposed. It was to be the establishment of new political relations of the most important character, affecting them and their children for many generations. It was a question over which, under their own constitution, their servants, the members of the Legis-tution? and are they willing to enter the Union lature, had no control. To what other tribunal could we so properly have referred this question, as to that of a convention of delegates elected by the people?

There can, then, be no objection to the act of Congress, unless it be that the people are not competent, in the very nature of things, to give the assent required, without the intervention of the Legislature. But this would be to condemn the conduct of our ancestors. It would be at war with the most glorious events of our own history. Besides, the very conduct of the people of Michigan, upon this occasion, disproves the position. There was no tumultuous and lawless rising up of the people against a settled form of government, as one might suppose, judging from the arguments upon this floor.

They conducted the election with regularity and order, according to the established laws and usages of the State.

Hear what General Williams, the president of the convention, says upon the subject, in his communication to the President of the United States: "The convention," says he, "originated through primary meetings of the citizens of the several counties, in ample time to afford notice to the whole State. Pursuant thereto, the elections, kept open for two days, on the 5th and 6th instant, (December,) have been held in all the counties except Monroe and Macomb. These elections were fair and open, and conducted in all respects as our other elections, and the returns made to the county boards, and canvassed as prescribed by the laws of the late Territory of Michigan in similar cases. The result has been a decided expression of the voice of a majority of the people, approbatory of the resolution enclosed." VOL. XIII.-6

ought not to apply the rigid rules of abstract political science too rigorously to such cases. It has been our practice heretofore to treat our infant Territories with paternal care, to nurse them with kindness, and, when they had attained the age of manhood, to admit them into the family without requiring from them a rigid adherence to forms. The great questions to be decided are, do they contain a sufficient population? have they adopted a republican consti

upon the terms which we propose? If so, all the preliminary proceedings have been considered but mere forms, which we have waived in repeated instances. They are but the scaffolding of the building, which is of no further use after the edifice is complete. We have pursued this course in regard to Tennessee, to Arkansas, and even to Michigan. No Senator will pretend that their Territorial Legislatures had any right whatever to pass laws enabling the people to elect delegates to a convention for the purpose of forming a State constitution. It was an act of usurpation on their part. And yet we have in all these instances waived this objection, and approved the constitution thus formed. We have admitted Tennessee and Arkansas into the Union, notwithstanding this objection; and I trust we shall pursue a similar course towards Michigan, especially as there can be no doubt but that her people have assented to our terms of admission.

The case of Missouri was a very strong one. Congress agreed to admit her into the Union upon the condition that her Legislature should substantially change a provision in her constitution touching a very delicate subject. Under her constitution the Legislature had no power to make this change; nor could it have been effected without a long and troublesome process. But Congress cut the gordian knot at once, and agreed to accept the engagement of the Legislature as the voice of the people. We have never had any occasion to regret this disregard of forms.

I now come, Mr. President, to speak upon subjects concerning which I should gladly be silent. The internal concerns of the States should never be introduced upon this floor when it can be avoided; but the Senators from South

SENATE.]

Admission of Michigan.

[JANUARY, 1837.

Carolina (Mr. CALHOUN) and Ohio (Mr. MORRIS) | months. Afterwards it must have received the have thought differently, and have rendered it approbation of two-thirds of both Houses of a necessary for me to make some observations in Legislature subsequently elected. And, after reply. all these prerequisites, it must have been submitted to a vote of the people, for their ratification. It was to avoid these very difficulties that the Senate, at their last session, adopted, by a unanimous vote, the measure which the Senator now calls revolutionary, referred the decision of the question directly to the sover

First, then, I would ask, what possible connection can be imagined between the conduct of the Senatorial electors of Maryland, who refused to execute a trust for which they were elected, and that of the people of Michigan, who chose delegates to a convention upon the express invitation of an act of Congress?eign people of Michigan in their primary capacThe Maryland electors refused to perform their duty under the State constitution; but the people of Michigan did give their assent to the condition which we had prescribed to them, and upon which alone they could enter the Union. There is as great a difference between the two cases as "between a hawk and a hand-people of Michigan that they shall be punished saw." Standing here as a Senator, I have no right to pronounce judgment upon the conduct of these electors. They are responsible to the people of the State of Maryland, not to me.

The other Maryland question, to which the Senator adverted, is one of a very different character. It involves the decision of the important principle whether, under a settled form of constitutional government, the people have a right to change that form in any other manner than the mode prescribed by the constitution. If I were to admit that they did not possess this power, still the Senator is as much of a revolutionist as myself. He admits that if the Legislature of Michigan had passed a law authorizing this convention, and fixing the time and place of its meeting, then its proceedings would have been regular and valid. But who gave the Legislature of Michigan this authority? Is it contained in the constitution of the State? That is not pretended. Whence, then, shall we derive it? How does the Senator escape from this difficulty? Upon his own principles, it would have been a legislative usurpation; and yet, he says, if the Legislature had acted first, the convention would have been held under competent authority.

Now, for my own part, I should not have objected to their action. It might have been convenient, it might have been proper, for them to have recommended a particular day for holding the election of delegates and for the meeting of the convention. But it is manifest that, as a source of power to the convention, legislative action would have been absurd. The constitution of Michigan fixes the boundaries of the State. For this purpose, it refers to the act of Congress of the 11th of January, 1805, establishing the Territory. How could these boundaries be changed? If in no other manner than that prescribed in the constitution of Michigan, it would have been a tedious and troublesome process, and would have delayed, for at least two years, the admission of the State into the Union. First, such an amendment must have been sanctioned by a majority of the Senate and House of Representatives. Then it must have been published for three

ity. Then was the appropriate moment for the Senator to have objected to this course; that was the occasion on which to convince us that this was an unconstitutional and lawless proceeding. He suffered the precious moment to escape, and it is now too late to tell the

by an exclusion from the Union, because they thought proper to take us at our word. That would have been the time to have inserted an amendment in the bill requiring a previous act of the Legislature, prescribing the mode of electing the delegates. But the Senator was then silent upon this subject. There had then been no proceedings in Maryland, such as he now calls revolutionary. A word upon that subject. We are told in that sacred and venerated instrument which first proclaimed the rights of man to the world, that "all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." But suppose the case of a State whose constitution, originally good, had, from the lapse of time, and from the changes in the population of different portions of its territory, become unequal and unjust. Suppose this inequality and injustice to have gone to such an extent that the vital principle of representative republics was destroyed, and that the vote of a citizen in one county of the State was equivalent to that of six citizens in another county. Suppose that an equal disproportion existed between taxation and representation, and that, under the organic forms of the constitution, a minority could forever control the majority. Why, sir, even under such circumstances, I should bear with patience whilst hope remained. I would solicit, I would urge the minority, I would appeal to their sense of justice, to call a convention, under the forms of the constitution, for the purpose of redressing the grievances; but if, at last, I found they had determined to turn a deaf ear to all my entreaties, I should then invoke the peaceable aid of the people, in their sovereign capacity, to remedy these evils. They are the source of all power; they are the rightful authors of all constitutions. They are not forever to be shackled by their own servants, and compelled to submit to evils such as I have described, by the refusal of their own Legislature to pass a law for holding a convention. Whoever denies this position, condemns the principles of the declaration of independence and of the Ameri

JANUARY, 1837.]

Admission of Michigan.

[SENATE.

can Revolution. There is not one of the old | not belong to it, and drawing inferences as thirteen States whose Government was not foreign to his character as they were to his called into existence upon these very princi- writing. He (Mr. B.) had read that letter, but ples. It is now too late in the day, in our not since it had been the subject of animadverfavored land to contend that the people cannot sion; and it might be that his knowledge of change their forms of government at pleasure. the amiable character, purity of heart and purThe glorious experiment which we are trying pose, and modesty of deportment of the writer, in this country would prove a total failure, if had prevented him from so scanning his words we should now decide that the people, in no as to be able to find the deep mischief which situation, and under no circumstances, can hold they concealed; for certainly he had not seen a convention without the previous consent of the anarchical spirit attributed to it. In many their own Legislature. It is not my province things he agreed with him, especially in that to say whether the proper time for this peaceful which related to vested rights; in some things action of the sovereign people, in their primary he did not; but where he did not agree, it was capacity, has yet arrived, or will ever arrive, still the disagreement which left unimpeached in Maryland. That question may safely be left the high character for public and private worth to them, but I feel no terrors, my fancy con- which Mr. Dallas brought with him, as a Senajures up no spectres from such doctrines as I tor from Pennsylvania, to this chamber, and have advanced. carried back with him from this chamber to Pennsylvania.

Mr. BENTON said: Nominally, and upon record, this is a Michigan question-a question to Mr. B., with as much reluctance as he had admit the State of Michigan into the Union; in felt in adverting to Pennsylvania affairs, must fact and in substance, it is now converted into now advert to the Maryland branch of this a Pennsylvania and a Maryland question, to question. It seems that there is a movement arrest or paralyze the proceedings against the in Maryland to organize a convention, by the United States Bank charter in the former, and inherent and unalienable rights of the people, to arrest or paralyze the proceedings in favor and, without a legislative act, to alter and of a convention in the latter. This is the form change the constitution of the State. The given to it yesterday by the movement of the convention held in Michigan is one of this.. Senators from South Carolina and Ohio, (Mr. kind, and, therefore, the recognition of an act CALHOUN and Mr. MORRIS ;) so that little Michi- done by that convention is resisted on this floor, gan, which had seemed to be the subject of dis- by the friends of the anti-convention party in cussion before the Senate, was suddenly found Maryland, for fear it may operate in favor of to be nothing but the tail to the kite, dangling the convention party in that State. This is in the air below, while all eyes were fixed upon the way that Maryland politics are lugged into the imposing apparition of the two Atlantic this debate, and made part of this discussion. States, rising and hovering above. In this way, Mr. B. said he had often seen gentlemen argue the young Michigan was suddenly eclipsed and one question with an eye to another, but, usulost sight of; and the lawless and revolutionary ally, with the delicacy of not lugging in, by movement, as it was styled, in Pennsylvania, name, this other question, which had no place against the sanctity of a certain charter, and upon the record. But this delicacy has not the lawless and revolutionary movement, as it been observed upon this occasion. Michigan was stigmatized, in Maryland, in favor of a alone is in the record before us; yet Pennsylconvention of the people, became the engross-vania has been dragged in by name; Maryland ing theme of denunciation and vituperation. has been dragged in by name; and not only Greatly did Mr. B. rejoice that the Senator dragged in, but made the principal subject of from Pennsylvania (Mr. BUCHANAN) had fol- debate, and the most furious denunciations lowed no part of this unhappy example; that leveled at a portion of their citizens. The he had carefully eschewed all animadversion; advocates for the Maryland convention are, not that he had positively refused to take any part, incidentally and by way of innuendo, lashed and or to have any share, in discussing State meas- scourged here while lashing and scourging the ures here; and had confined himself to the Michigan convention, but .they are singled out, duties of defence imposed upon him by the seized upon, and dragged forcibly and violently novel and aggressive course pursued by others. into this chamber; and then denounced in such That Senator's first care was to defend a gentle-style that, no doubt, the question of the Maryman of his own State, Mr. Dallas, who had been assailed here by name; and in that he had so acted as to effect what he (Mr. B.) had thought to be impossible: he had increased his high character for private worth, and had added to the exalted opinion entertained of the goodness of his heart; for this generous defence was volunteered in favor of one with whom it was not his fortune to be on terms of intimacy. He showed the injustice done to that gentleman by attributing to his letter meanings which did

land convention is considered as completely crushed by the force which assails it here. Be it so, said Mr. B., if the people of sovereign States are willing to have their affairs governed by denunciation here. It will certainly be a one-sided game on this floor, for it was manifest that there was one party at least here who would not attack the impending measures of any State, nor attack the conduct or motives of the citizens of any State, in acting as they pleased on what concerned themselves; there