convention, and the formation of a constitution.  The law was minute and fair in its provisions, so nearly resembling the bill of the Senate that the one was probably copied from the other.  It seemed to secure to every legal voter every desirable opportunity to exercise his right.  One of the parties of the territory, however, denying the legal existence of the legislature, chose to abstain from voting.  The other elected the delegates who formed the constitution.  The validity of the instrument he has been denied, because it was not submitted for popular ratification.  He held this position to be wholly untenable, and could but regard it as a gross departure from the principle of popular sovereignty.  A people—­he used the word in its strict political sense—­having the right to make for themselves their fundamental law, may either assemble in mass convention for that purpose, or may select delegates and limit their power to the preparation of an instrument to be submitted to a popular decision; or they may appoint delegates with full powers to frame the fundamental law of the land.  Whether they adopt one mode or the other is a question with which others have no right to interfere, and he who claims for Congress the power to sit in judgment on the manner in which a people may form a constitution, is outside of the barrier which would restrain him from claiming for Congress the right to dictate the instrument itself.  If the right existed to form a constitution at all, the power of Congress in relation to the instrument was limited to the simple inquiry:  is it republican?  In this view of the case it would not matter to him the ninety-ninth part of a hair whether a people should chose to admit or exclude slave property.  Their right to enter the Union would be a thing apart from that consideration.

He had felt great doubt as to the propriety of admitting Kansas, and had only yielded those doubts to the peculiar necessities which seemed to make the case exceptional.  The inhabitants of the territory had however decided not to enter the Union upon the terms proposed, and he thought their decision was fortunate.  They had not the requisite population; their resources were too limited to give assurance that they would be able to bear the expenses of their government and properly to perform the duties of a State.  But more than this, their legislative history shows that they are wanting in the essential characteristics of a community; whichever party has had the control of the legislature, has manifested by its acts not a desire to promote the public good, and protect individual rights, but a purpose to war upon their political opponents as a hostile power.  The political party with which he most sympathized had marked its legislation by requiring test oaths, offensive to all our notions of political freedom; and the other party had assumed to take from the territorial executive the control of the militia and to place it in irresponsible hands,