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 of Kansas have been in a state
of rebellion against the gove