JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, January 28, 1858.

To the House of Representatives: 

I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of the Interior, under date of the 27th instant, with the accompanying papers, in compliance with a resolution adopted by the House on the 18th instant, requesting the President to communicate to that body “whether the census of the Territory of Minnesota has been taken in accordance with the provisions of the fourth section of the act of Congress providing for the admission of Minnesota as a State, approved February 26, 1857, and if said census has been taken and returned to him or any Department of the Government to communicate the same to this House, and if the said census has not been so taken and returned to state the reasons, if any exist to his knowledge, why it has not been done.”

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, February 2, 1858.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I have received from J. Calhoun, esq., president of the late constitutional convention of Kansas, a copy, duly certified by himself, of the constitution framed by that body, with the expression of a hope that I would submit the same to the consideration of Congress “with the view of the admission of Kansas into the Union as an independent State.”  In compliance with this request, I herewith transmit to Congress, for their action, the constitution of Kansas, with the ordinance respecting the public lands, as well as the letter of Mr. Calhoun, dated at Lecompton on the 14th ultimo, by which they were accompanied.  Having received but a single copy of the constitution and ordinance, I send this to the Senate.

A great delusion seems to pervade the public mind in relation to the condition of parties in Kansas.  This arises from the difficulty of inducing the American people to realize the fact that any portion of them should be in a state of rebellion against the government under which they live.  When we speak of the affairs of Kansas, we are apt to refer merely to the existence of two violent political parties in that Territory, divided on the question of slavery, just as we speak of such parties in the States.  This presents no adequate idea of the true state of the case.  The dividing line there is not between two political parties, both acknowledging the lawful existence of the government, but between those who are loyal to this government and those who have endeavored to destroy its existence by force and by usurpation—­between those who sustain and those who have done all in their power to overthrow the Territorial government established by Congress.  This government they would long since have subverted had it not been protected from their assaults by the troops of the United States.  Such has been the condition of affairs since my inauguration.  Ever since that period a large portion of the people