EXHIBIT No. 8. "In accordance with the provisions of an act entitled An act submitting the constitution framed at Lecompton under the act of the legislative assembly of Kansas Territory, entitled An act to provide for taking a census and election of delegates to a convention,' passed February 19, A. D. 1857, the undersigned announce the following as the official vote of the people of Kansas Territory on the questions as therein submitted on the 4th day of January, 1858: "Some precincts have not yet sent in their returns, but the above is the complete vote received to this date. "JANUARY 26, 1858." "J. W. DENVER, "President of the Council. 66 Speaker of the House of Representatives. H. Rep. Com. 377-7 EXHIBIT No. 9. WASHINGTON CITY, February 16, 1858. SIR: In reply to your communication of the 15th instant, requesting me to furnish you with such facts as are legitimately connected with the application of Kansas for admission into the Union as a State of this confederacy, I submit the following statement: From the earliest settlement of Kansas Territory under the organic act, there has appeared a party which, by force or fraud or violence, has exhibited the determination to fasten their own peculiar views upon the institutions of Kansas, regardless of right or law. At the first election for members of the territorial legislature, this factious and lawless party were beaten by the party then known as the pro-slavery party, and, repudiating the legislature thus elected, these factionists and insurgents planted themselves above all law, and manifested a determination to carry out their own purposes irrespective of any legal enactment. In this position they have held themselves to the present day. The Topeka constitution and armed resistance to the execution of law resulted from this position, and, as a matter of course, there has never been any civil government actually enforced in Kansas. The result of the first territorial election is made the basis for persistent resistance to the laws. It is alleged by the discontents that the result of the first election was controlled by the citizens of Missouri, and that consequently the laws enacted by that legislature were not binding. I need not elaborate this point, for it has been fully discussed before the public. The report of Judge Douglas to the Senate during the last Congress shows very clearly that a majority of the members of each House were elected without dispute. But I think it important to call attention to one fact bearing on this point with which you may not be familiar. It is that Governor Reeder ordered the census on which this first election was based to be taken, and directed that the States from which the emigrants then in the Territory came should be reported in the returns. This record, as now on file in the secretary's office at Lecompton, shows that a large majority of the inhabitants were from slave States, only three districts of the seventeen in the whole Territory showing majorities of emigrants from the free States. Hence the right of suffrage may have been abused at certain points in the Territory on that occasion, yet I believe the result was in accordance with the will of the majority of the bona fide inhabitants of the Territory. When, under the mistakes of Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton, the democratic or law and order party was divided and defeated, and the black republicans obtained control in the existing legislature, then all scruples as to elections and law were laid aside to suit the convenience, interest, and necessity of their new position. Under the provisions of the territorial law they refused to register and vote for delegates to a constitutional convention, for the reason that the enactment was "bogus ;" and yet, under the same provisions, they have just now provided for an election of delegates to a convention to pre pare for the action of Congress a black republican constitution. The laws are good when they suit their interests and policy; the same laws are bogus" and oppressive when they result in submitting to the people of the Territory whether Kansas shall be a slave or a free State. In the one case they cannot yield to law, because they apprehend the result; in the other they have every confidence in the same law, because they know they will meet with no opposition from the friends of law and order in the Territory. The first legislative assembly of the Territory provided that, at the next general election for delegate to Congress and members of the legislature, a vote should be taken for and against a convention to adopt a constitution for the State of Kansas. The vote was almost unanimous for such a convention. This expression of the law and order party, taken in connexion with the previously expressed desire of the republican party, showed that the whole people of the Territory were desirous of changing the territorial for a State government. The legislature which was elected at the time this vote was taken, and which assembled on the second Monday of January, 1857, passed an act by which all the voters of the Territory were called upon to express their views on the tormation of a constitution, on the presumption that the whole people of the Territory desired to pass into a State government. This fact provided for a registry of voters, an election in June, and a meeting of the delegates in the month of September, 1857, to form a constitution for the State of Kansas. The registry of voters, the election in June last, and the action of the convention are more especially made the subjects of controversy and investigation. The registry is complained of as unfair and unjust, for the reason that it disfranchises the people of a large number of the counties in the Territory; and the impression is sought to be made that these disfranchised counties contain a large portion of the people of the Territory. That the rigistry of voters was, to some extent, imperfect, is conceded, but that the defects have been recklessly magnified is equally true. The complaint is not against the law, but the manner in which it was executed; and yet its execution would have been complete but for the resistance of those who now make its failure a subject of complaint. The complete and accurate execution of this law depended, in some measure, upon the action of the inhabitants themselves. It was modeled, in some measure, after what was known as the Toombs' bill," and with the aid of all the people could not have failed to accomplish the end in view. But a large number of the republican leaders took ground against its execution, alleging, as was their custom, that it was of bogus origin; they advised their partizans to withhold their names and refuse to be rigistered. This spirit of insubordination rendered the duties of the officers exceedingly difficult to execute. In several instances the officers were forcibly driven from the execution of the law, and this by the same men who afterwards make its partial execution the subject of bitter denunciation and complaint. You are already in possession of the fact that the unorganized counties were attached, for local government purposes, to the neighboring organized counties under the laws of the Territory, and thus, with few exceptions, the whole people of the Territory had the opportunity of registering their names. The law provided that every free male inhabitant, a citizen of the United States, in the Territory on the 15th day of March, 1857, and over twenty-one years of age, should be permitted to register his name, and thus qualify himself to vote at the June election for delegates to the constitutional convention. This law of the territorial legislature, like all others, was repudiated and resisted by the abolition or black republican leaders. They absolutely refused to permit a registry in every part of the Territory, or to acquiesce in the provisions of what they called a bogus law. This resistance to the law was open and public, and hence the officers entrusted with the registry of votes were unable fully and completely to discharge their duties. As conclusive proof of this, the judges of probate of Franklin, Anderson, and Allen counties, three of Governor Walker's disfranchised counties, were forcibly prevented from executing the law, and upon their attempting to do so were driven out of their counties with violence, and threatened with death if they persisted. The registry, therefore, was not complete, and its failure was not attributable to either the law or the officer, but to the stubborn refusal of the abolitionists and republicans to comply with the legal provision. Every man in the Territory could have registered his name and voted at the June election for delegates. That he did not do so was his own fault. He was not disfranchised either by the law or the officer, but by his own stubborn refusal to avail himself of the benefits of the law. He refused to exercise his proper legal rights, and for this refusal Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton put in the plea that he was disfranchised. Notwithstanding the obstacles so encountered by the officers, some nine thousand persons were registered, and were thus qualified to vote for delegates to the convention. And when it is considered that at the fall election, in October, that less than 12,000 votes were polled, after an excited contest, (embracing most of the emigrants,) every one will perceive that the March registry must have embraced most of the voters of the Territory. Many of the counties called disfranchised by Governor Walker contained no population, and had never been organized; and all of them united did not probably contain a thousand votes. Such of them as were organized could have had a registry of voters if they had desired it. As it was, Mr. Secre tary Stanton, then acting governor, took the returned registry acted upon it, and apportioned the delegate representation in the several counties. The law provided that the convention should consist of sixty delegates. These sixty delegates Mr. Stanton apportioned to the counties where the voters had been registered. It seems to me, if a large proportion of the people were disfranchised, that then would have been the time for his patriotism to have exhibited itself and suggested some mode of relief. He however acted correctly and in strict conformity with law; and it was until his sympathies were subsequently awakened to the sufferings and wrongs of the poor republicans and abolitionists, who, in his estimate, were "nineteen in twenty" of the population, that this terrible wrong of disfranchisement was discovered and published to the world. There is neither good sense, truth, or honesty in all this declamation about disfran and chised people and counties. The truth is, that the whole republican party refused to register their names and vote; and when told by their friends abroad that they had no right to complain of the composition and action of the constitutional convention, Messrs. Walker and Stanton put in this idle plea about disfranchisement, and came up here and presented it with as much gravity as if it were really entitled to consideration. At the election of delegates in June last there was no contest, and but few votes polled. Not one in three of the democratic party visited the polls. The republicans and abolitionists all refused to vote. Without a contest men cannot be induced to vote any where, for, as the result is known beforehand, men prefer to remain at home, in attendance upon their own business, rather than lose time and money where nothing is to be gained by it. The result of the election was satisfactory to the whole democratic party of the Territory, and with very few exceptions the labors of the convention were approved by that party on the 21st of December last. The failure of the convention to submit the whole constitution to a vote of the people has been the subject of constant and ungenerous criticism, and it is due to myself to say that, while I differed with a majority of my colleagues, and voted to submit the whole constitution to the people, I never doubted the right of the convention to make and adopt a constitution and send it up to Congress without the submission of any part of it to a popular vote. I met Acting Governor Stanton in Lecompton some two or three weeks after he arrived in Kansas in April last. In a conversation at my office on the constitution, and the manner of submitting it to a vote of the people, he informed me that, with the exception of the question of slavery, there could be no serious difference of opinion among the people; that the question of slavery was the only one necessary to be submitted to a vote of the people; that the constitution about to be formed by the convention, with the exception of the question of slavery, should be sent to Congress for approval without submission. These same views had been previously expressed by Mr. Stanton in a speech at Leavenworth city; and that the convention subsequently adopted the plan of which Mr. Stanton was the early advocate should not be peculiarly offensive to him. It is true that when Governor Walker arrived in Kansas he assumed a different position; but his isothermal argument, his planting himself against slavery in the Territory, his casting the weight of his great personal and official influence in the scale in favor of making Kansas a free State, lost him, at once, two-thirds or three-fourths of the democratic party, and made every effort of his towards controlling the action of the convention utterly powerless. Mr. Stanton had given direction to the public sentiment, and Governor Walker could never change it If Governor Walker had never appeared in Kansas there would have been no difficulty. The whole people would have assented to Mr. Stanton's proposition and voted for Kansas as a slave State or a free State under the proposition submitted by the convention. No man in Kansas ever spoke or thought of any other issue |