ll the white male inhabitants of the Territory
above the age of 21 are entitled to vote. They are to vote by ballot,
and "the ballots cast at said election shall be indorsed 'constitution
with slavery' and 'constitution with no slavery.'" If there be a
majority in favor of the "constitution with slavery," then it is to
be transmitted to Congress by the president of the convention in its
original form; if, on the contrary, there shall be a majority in favor
of the "constitution with no slavery," "then the article providing for
slavery shall be stricken from the constitution by the president of this
convention;" and it is expressly declared that "no slavery shall exist
in the State of Kansas, except that the right of property in slaves now
in the Territory shall in no manner be interfered with;" and in that
event it is made his duty to have the constitution thus ratified
transmitted to the Congress of the United States for the admission of
the State into the Union.

At this election every citizen will have an opportunity of expressing
his opinion by his vote "whether Kansas shall be received into the
Union with or without slavery," and thus this exciting question may be
peacefully settled in the very mode required by the organic law. The
election will be held under legitimate authority, and if any portion of
the inhabitants shall refuse to vote, a fair opportunity to do so having
been presented, this will be their own voluntary act and they alone will
be responsible for the consequences.

Whether Kansas shall be a free or a slave State must eventually, under
some authority, be decided by an election; and the question can never
be more clearly or distinctly presented to the people than it is at the
present moment. Should this opportunity be rejected she may be involved
for years in domestic discord, and possibly in civil war, before she can
again make up the issue now so fortunately tendered and again reach the
point she has already attained.

Kansas has for some years occupied too much of the public attention.
It is high time this should be directed to far more important objects.
When once admitted into the Union, whether with or without slavery, the
excitement beyond her own limits will speedily pass away, and she will
then for the first time be left, as she ought to have been long since,
to manage her own affairs in her own way. If her constitution on the
subject of slavery or on any other subject be displeasing to a