the rights of American citizens? Talk of obedience to law! Would you, would any American, obey such laws so imposed? Where were the spirit of our Revolutionary fathers if such oppression could be submitted to? Where is our Republican Government if such rights can be taken can be taken away?"

"But what was done in opposition? There was no armed resistance, no collision with assumed authority. The people of Kansas simply denied the legality of the enactments and the obligation of obedience, and then, falling back on inherent rights, went through the preliminaries of a State organisation, and applied to Congress for relief. That relief has not been yet afforded. And what has since transpired? A third, fourth and fifth armed invasion has taken place, each with increased aggravation of outrage. Pillage, and plunder, and murder, have increased from day to day. Large bodies of armed men from distant and adjoining States are in the Territory, with no attempt at becoming settlers, without means of honest support, living by the pillage of those who differ from themselves in sentiment, and perpetrating cruelties unknown even in Government troops have been used to overawe all attempts at resistance, and moved about so as to expose unprotected towns to violence. A fourfold process of oppression has been used to ruin and drive out those whose only crime is the claiming of rights guaranteed to them by the very law which invited them to Kansas. First, innumerable indictments for imaginary crimes are made out by a corrupt judiciary against all Free State men of influence, while the worst of crimes, by men of opposite politics, have gone unnoticed. Secondly, armed hordes of ruffians, under pretence of maintaining 'law and order,' patrol the country, committing all the outrages which have

war.

been described. Thirdly, the United States dragoons are made use of by the local authorities to suppress any risings for self-defence, and kept out of the way when attacks are to be made. And, lastly, 'Vigilance Committees' are appointed to drive off, with threats of 'Lynch law,' all those who, by the other methods, have not been subdued. All this has been going on for months. And recent accounts announce that the sufferers themselves are driven by desperation to armed defence, and the hostile bands. are now watching each other, and meeting in deadly conflict. Civil war is begun."

A SPEECH

DELIVERED BY

THE HON. CHARLES SUMNER,

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

On the 19th and 20th May, 1856.

Mr. PRESIDENT:

You are now called to redress a great transgression. Seldom in the history of nations has such a question been presented. Tariffs, army bills, navy bills, land bills, are important, and justly occupy your care; but these all belong to the course of ordinary legislation. As means and instruments only, they are ne-. cessarily subordinate to the conservation of Government itself. Grant them or deny them, in greater or less degree, and you will inflict no shock; the machinery of Government will continue to move; the State will not cease to exist. Far otherwise is it with the eminent question now before you, involving, as it does, Liberty in a broad Territory, and also involving the peace of the whole country with our good name in history for evermore.

Take down your map, sir, and you will find that the Territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east, and the Pacific on the west; from the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the north, and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south, constituting the precise territorial centre of the whole vast Continent. To such advantages of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a healthgiving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American Institutions. A few short months only have passed since this spacious mediterranean country was open only to the savage, who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and now it has already drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens crowded within her historic gates, when her sons, under Miltiades, won Liberty for mankind on the field of Marathon; more than Sparta contained when she ruled Greece, and sent forth her devoted children, quickened by a mother's benediction, to return with their shields or on them; more than Rome gathered on her seven hills, when, under her kings, she commenced that sovereign sway, which afterwards embraced the whole earth; more than London held, when, on the fields of Crecy and Agincourt, the English banner was carried victoriously over the chivalrous hosts of France.

Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a Crime has been committed, which is without example in the records of the Past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish governors will you find its parallel; and yet there is an ancient instance, which may show at least the

path of justice. In the terrible impeachment by which the great Roman orator has blasted through all time the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and which still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arresting the sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, is, that away in Sicily he had scourged a citizen of Rome -that the cry "I am a Roman citizen" had been interposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant governor. Other charges were, that he had carried away productions of art, and that he had violated the sacred shrines. It was in the presence of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded; in a temple of the Forum; amidst crowds, such as no orator had ever before drawn together, thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to the house-tops and neighbouring slopes; and under the anxious gaze of witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience grander far, of higher dignity, of more various people and of wider intelligence the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in every land, where eloquence has been studied, or where the Roman name has been recognised. has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with condemnation of the criminal. Sir, speaking in an age of light and in a land of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are justly placed among the highest triumphs of civilisation, I fearlessly assert that the wrongs of much abused Sicily, thus memorable in history, were small by the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where the very shrines of popular institutions, more sacred than any heathen altar, have been desecrated; where the ballot-box, more precious than any work, in ivory or marble, from the cunning hand of art, has been plundered; and where