APPENDIX. 
355 
In the President’s annual message to Congress, for the current year, he 
sa/3, 44 In the counsels of Congress there was manifested extreme antagonism 
of Dpinion and action between some representatives who sought, by the 
abusive and unconstitutional employment of the legislative powers of the 
government, to interfere in the condition of inchoate states, and to impose 
their own social theories upon the latter ; and other representatives, who 
repelled the interposition of the general government in this respect, and 
maintained the self-constituted rights of the states. In truth, the thing 
attempted was in form alone the action of the general government, while 
in reality it was the endeavor, by abuse of legislative power, to force the 
ideas of internal policy, entertained by particular states, upon allied inde¬ 
pendent states. Once more the constitution and the Union triumphed sig¬ 
nally. The new territories were organized without restrictions on the dis¬ 
puted point, and were thus left to judge in that particular for themselves.” 
If it would have been an 44 abuse of legislative power ” for Congress to 
44 force the ideas of internal policy entertained by particular states ” upon 
Kansas, by what reasoning does he justify the executive in the exercise 
of that power ? That the officials of his appointment are to-day endeavor¬ 
ing to do this very thing, against the sentiment of a large majority of the 
people, cannot admit of a doubt. 
Again he says, 44 The measure of its repeal (Missouri Compromise) was 
the final consummation and complete recognition of the principle, that no 
portion of the United States shall undertake, through assumption of the 
powers of the general government, to dictate the social institutions of any 
other portion. ’ ’ 
The people of Kansas have reason to feel that the 44 complete recogni¬ 
tion ” of the principle, unless carried into practice, is of no avail to them, 
and that the recognition of this principle by Congress, while the opposite is 
acted upon by the executive, would be simple mockery. 
Once more; 44 If the friends of the constitution are to have another 
struggle, its enemies could not present a more acceptable issue than that 
of a state, whose constitution clearly embraces a republican form of govern¬ 
ment, being excluded from the Union because its domestic institutions may 
not in all respects comport with the ideas of what is wise and expedient en¬ 
tertained in some other state.” 44 If a new state, formed from the territory 
of the United States, be absolutely excluded from admission therein, that 
fact, of itself, constitutes the disruption of union between it and the other 
states. But the process of dissolution could not stop there. Would not 
a sectional decision, producing such a result by a majority of votes, either 
northern or southern, of necessity drive out the oppressed and aggrieved 
minority, and place in presence of each other two irreconcilably hostile 
confederations ? 5 ’ 
Thus it will be i»een, by the highest democratic authority in the coun¬ 
try, that the people f Kansas have a right to demand the removal of the 
