James Buchanan, Buchanan's administration on the eve of the rebellion

[54] were warm advocates of its passage, could not possibly have so understood it. If they had, they would then have voluntarily voted away the rights of their own constituents. Indeed, such a construction of the act would be more destructive to the interests of the slaveholder, than the Republican doctrine of Congressional exclusion. Better, far better for him to submit the question to Congress, where he could be deliberately heard by his representatives, than to be deprived of his slaves, after he had gone to the trouble and expense of transporting them to a Territory, by a hasty enactment of a Territorial Legislature elected annually and freed from all constitutional restraints. Such a construction of the Kansas and Nebraska Act would be in direct opposition to the policy and practice of the Government from its origin. The men who framed and built up our institutions, so far from regarding the Territories to be sovereign, treated them as mere wards of the Federal Government. Congress, as a faithful and kind guardian, watched over their infancy and promoted their growth and prosperity until they attained their majority. During the period of their pupilage the persons and property of the inhabitants were protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States. When the population had so far increased as to render this expedient, Congress gave them a Territorial Government. But in conferring upon the settlers the privilege to elect members to the popular branch of the Territorial Legislature, they took care to reserve the appointment of the Governor and the members of the Council to the President and Senate. Moreover, they expressly provided, in the language of the compromise measures of 1850, ‘that all the laws passed by the Legislative Assembly and Governor shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, and if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.’ This limitation on their powers was intended to restrain them from enacting laws in conflict with the Constitution, the laws, or the established policy of the United States. It produced the happiest effect. The cases are rare, indeed, in which Congress found it necessary to exercise this disapproving power. It was not then foreseen that any political party would arise in this country, claiming the right for the majority of the first settlers of a Territory, under the plea of popular sovereignty,