ment it gave to a forcible resistance to the execution of that law.

I may claim, therefore, to be a Whig, a Massachusetts Whig, a Conservative Whig, a National Whig; perhaps as sound an expositor of Whig principles as if I were a member of the Whig State Central Committee itself.

The events which have occurred within a recent period, have rendered the inquiry," in what connection shall a whig hereafter endeavor to perform the duty which a good citizen owes to his country," one of exceeding interest. Notwithstanding the opposition to the Compromise Measures, as they were called, of 1850, the country was settling down to a quiet acquiescence, when in 1854 came the repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820. Some of you must well recollect the circumstances which occurred in 1819 and 1820, connected with the admission of Missouri into the Union; — the stern and determined opposition to its admission, unless coupled with a restriction of slavery within its limits. You doubtless recall the joy with which you hailed vote after vote in the House of Representatives, seeming almost to insure the triumph of freedom; and the revulsion of feeling, almost dismay, with which you learned, at last, that Missouri had been admitted without restriction, upon a compromise by which slavery was thereafter to be excluded from all territory north of 36° 30′ north latitude.

This compromise was eminently a Southern measure, carried as such measures always are, by the aid of a few Northern votes; and it was treated for the time in the slave-holding States as something more sacred than ordinary legislative enactments;-as a kind of semi-constitutional law, securing all south of 36° 30' to slavery. A proposition to repeal it would have been a crime second only to

treason. But when, after the third of a century, the time came for the enjoyment of the equivalent supposed to be secured to the non-slave-holding States, it was all at once discovered that the compromise part was not only a mere legislative act, but that it was unconstitutional legislation. Then the doctrine arose, that slavery could not be excluded by Congress from the territories; and slavery having secured the benefit, rejected the burden attached to it, by a repeal of the restriction. Until very recently I had supposed that this repeal was a project of Mr. Douglas to secure the favor of the slave-holding States, and that the President was drawn in to its support, by the fear that Douglas would take the wind out of his sails in the approaching presidential boatrace; but a friend has just furnished me a copy of a New York paper containing what appears to be an authentic statement, derived from a gentleman who has spent several years in Western Missouri, showing that Douglas is not entitled to the credit, if credit it may be called, of originating the nefarious plot. His was only a secondary agency in wickedness. It seems that the Ahabs of Western Missouri have long coveted the fertile vineyard of Kansas as an addition to their slave-holding possessions, and that they determined to possess themselves of it after the manner of their great prototype, peaceably, if they could, forcibly, if they must.

Permit me to read an extract:

"The slavery party in Missouri, under the lead of David R. Atchison, have long had their eyes upon the Kansas Territory, and were resolved upon the most desperate expedients to carry slavery there whenever it should be opened for settlement. Having no idea that it would ever be possible to procure the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise restriction, their plan was to keep every thing quiet as possible, until they could have every thing ready,

procure a territorial charter, slip over a sufficient number of their own men to elect a territorial legislature, and as soon as possible form a State government and get admitted to the Union, and before the people of the free States should suspect what was going on, establish slavery by an act of the new State legislature. In the latter part of 1853, almost a year before the passage of the Nebraska Bill, a public meeting was held in Platte county, Missouri, to consider the affairs of Kansas. Atchison made a speech, and was the master-spirit of the meeting; and it was

"Resolved, That if the Territory shall be opened to settlement, we pledge ourselves to each other to extend the institutions of Missouri over the Territory, at whatever sacrifice of blood or treasure.'

"These resolutions were published in the Platte Argus. This was long before Douglas had thought of venturing upon the repeal. The pledge there given is still operating upon those people, and its force precludes the idea that peace can ever come to Kansas, until it shall be fully admitted to the Union with its institutions all consolidated as a FREE STATE.

"This meeting attracted little public attention at the time, but it furnishes the key to all the subsequent history. Atchison has since explained the process by which he bullied and terrified Pierce and Douglas into the fatal measure of repealing the restriction. The Blue Lodges began to be formed immediately after; for it was testified before the Congressional Committee, by Jordan Davison, a Missourian and a Border Ruffian, that he was in a Blue Lodge at Pleasant Hill, Missouri, in February, 1854, the avowed object being to make Kansas a slave State, while the Nebraska Bill became a law on the 30th of June, 1854, and the Emigrant Aid Society of Boston held its first meeting on the 30th of July, 1854. A resolution was adopted on the 10th of June, at Parkville, Missouri, and within that and the following month was repeatedly adopted by other meetings both in Missouri and Kansas, debarring abolitionists' from entering Kansas, — in which term they include all friends of free labor, — declaring that the institution of slavery already existed in the Territory, and recommending to slave-holders to introduce their property as fast as possible."

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You have here what purports to be a copy of a resolution passed at a public meeting in Platte County, in 1853, and then published in the Platte Argus. It seems that there can be no mistake, and that the determination was then

formed to make Kansas a slave State at whatever sacrifice of blood and treasure. The ambition of Douglas, and the fears of the President were appealed to for aid and support by a repeal of the Compromise; and thereupon the political Nebuchadnezzars, who ought to have been turned out to grass long since, erected an image, composed mainly of brass, styling it "squatter sovereignty;"-and General Cass fell down and worshipped it.

It is not necessary to detail to you how the doctrine, that the settlers of a territory have a right to determine their own. institutions, has since been carried out in practice by those who promulgated it. The ruffians of Western Missouri, true to their determination to extend their institutions over Kansas, marched over the border well provided with bowie knives. and revolvers, voted where that served their purpose, destroyed the ballot-boxes where that was better, drove the Free State voters from the polls, and elected a majority of the territorial legislature. A more gross case of usurpation never existed. But this was only the beginning of what is not yet ended. The usurping legislature met, turned out the members who were legally elected, and proceeded to pass a set of laws which would disgrace Turkey or Algiers. The inhabitants protested, and refused to recognize the authority of the usurpers, and were maltreated, beaten, and some of them murdered. They appealed to the United States authorities for protection; and the answer received reminded me at the time of an anecdote I read several years since, and which, being professional, has dwelt upon my recollection. A lawyer named Jones, with no great knowledge of the law, had become "cock of the walk" in one of the county courts of Virginia, and managed the court at his pleasure. A young lawyer settled in the county, and having superior pro

fessional knowledge, interposed legal objections in one of Jones's suits, which the latter could not answer; and he thereupon became very much enraged, and swore profanely. The young advocate finally appealed to the court with the question, whether it was proper for Mr. Jones to swear in the presence of the court. The court held a grave consultation, and delivered judgment in this wise: "Mr. H., if you don't leave off making Mr. Jones swear so, the court will commit you." So seemed to be the answer of the general government to the appeal of the Free State settlers of Kansas for protection. "Gentlemen, if you don't leave off making these border ruffians commit all this violence, you shall be arrested for insurrection."

But the matter soon became too serious for a jest respecting it. The threats of arrest, it soon appeared, were no empty menace. To all appeals for protection, the answer was, "You must obey the laws." And what were the laws to which obedience was thus required? Permit me to give you a specimen of them.

"If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall introduce into this Territory, print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into this Territory, written, printed, published, or circulated in this Territory, any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet, or circular, containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this Territory, such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than two years.

"No person who is conscientiously opposed to holding slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit as a juror on the trial of any prosecution for any violation of any of the sections of this act.

"If any person offering to vote shall be challenged and required to take an oath or affirmation, to be administered by one of the judges of the election, that he will sustain the provisions of the above-recited acts of Con