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that dissolution would be commenced by the article in the Missouri Constitution.
“ That article,” declared Mr. Adams, “is itself a dissolution of the Union.”
Time had added tenfold strength to this argument, for Congress, at the behest of the
Slave Power, had gone on violating the
Constitution.
It would now shortly seek to impose on
Kansas a constitution open to
Mr. Adams's special objection, but also far more infamous in that it not merely recognized an existing state of society, but was an instrument in the erection of slavery on virgin soil.
Senator Douglas had warned the Administration in December, 1857, that if it persisted in foisting the
1 Lecompton Constitution on the people of
Kansas, it would have to maintain it by force of arms.
You will then, he said, have nationalized this difficulty; you will have legalized civil war instead of localizing the
Kansas quarrel.
Nevertheless, on February 2,
President Buchanan sent a
2 message to Congress, denouncing the free-State inhabitants of
Kansas as rebels, and counselling a settlement of the existing distraction by making the
Lecompton Constitution the basis of admission to the
Union.
He reminded them that the Supreme Court had adjudged that “slavery exists in
Kansas by virtue of the
Constitution of the United States,”
Lib. 28.28. and that ‘
Kansas is therefore at this moment as much a slave State as
Georgia or
South Carolina.’
The popular demonstrations against this policy, the
3 resistance promised by the Legislature of
Kansas,
4 Douglas's adverse report in the Senate,
Crittenden's attempt to
5 secure submission of the
Lecompton Constitution to the popular vote—were all in vain.
The two houses disagreeing, a conference committee adopted the bill contrived by
William H. English of
Indiana, and on April
6 30 the enabling act was passed.
The first section of Article 7 of the
Constitution embedded in the act read as follows:
The right of property is before and higher than any7 constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner of a slave to such
