. Constitutions have been adopted, undoubtedly, without a
distinct submission of them to the ratification of the people; but in
such cases there has been no serious agitation of the public mind, no
important conflict or division of opinion, rendering such ratification
necessary,--and, in the absence of dispute, the general assent of the
community to the action of its delegates might fairly be presumed. But
in no case, in which great and debatable questions were involved, has
any Convention dared to close its labors without providing for their
reference to the popular sanction; much less has there been any instance
in which a Convention has dared to make its own work final, in the
face of a known or apprehended repugnance of the constituency. The
politicians who should have proposed such a thing would have been
overwhelmed with unmeasured indignation and scorn. No sentiment more
livingly pervades our national mind, no sentiment is juster in itself,
than that they who are to live under the laws ought to decide on the
character of the laws,--that they whose persons, property, welfare,
happiness, life, are to be controlled by a Constitution of Government,
ought to participate in the formation of that government.

Conscious of this truth, and of its profound hold on the popular heart,
Mr. Buchanan instructed Governor Walker to see the Kansas Constitution
submitted to the people,--to protect them against fraud and violence in
voting upon it,--and to proclaim, in the event of any interference with
their rights, that the Constitution "would be and ought to be rejected
by Congress." Walker was voluble in proclamations to that end. The
trainers of the Constitution, aware of its invalidity without the
sanction of the people, provided for its submission to "approval"
or "disapproval," to "ratification" or "rejection"; and yet, by the
paltriest juggle in recorded history, devised, in the same breath, a
method of taking the vote, which completely nullified its own terms.
No man was allowed to "disapprove" it, no man was allowed to "reject"
it,--except in regard to a single section,--and before he could vote for
or against that, he was obliged to vote in favor of all the rest. If
there had been a hundred thousand voters in the Territory opposed to
the Constitution, and but one voter in its favor, the hundred thousand
voters could not have voted upon it at all, but the one voter
could,--and the vote of that one would have been construed