hat "vast
moneyed corporation," created for the purpose of controlling the
domestic institutions of a distinct political community fifteen
hundred miles away.[552] This was as flagrant an act of intervention
as though France or England had interfered for a similar purpose in
Cuba, for "in respect to everything which affects its domestic policy
and internal concerns, each State stands in the relation of a foreign
power to every other State." The obvious retort to this extraordinary
assertion was, that Kansas was only a Territory, and not a State.
Douglas then made this "mammoth moneyed corporation" the scapegoat for
all that had happened in Kansas. The Missouri Blue Lodges were
defensive organizations, called into existence by the fear that the
"abolitionizing" of Kansas was the prelude to a warfare upon slavery
in Missouri. The violence and bloodshed in Kansas were "the natural
and inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of
emigration."[553]

Such _ex post facto_ assertions did not mend matters in Kansas,
however much they may have relieved the author of the report. It
remained to deal with the existing situation. The report took the
ground that the legislature of Kansas was a legal body and had been so
recognized by Governor Reeder. Neither the alleged irregularity of the
elections, nor other objections, could diminish its legislative
authority. Pro-tests against the election returns had been filed in
only seven out of eighteen districts. Ten out of thirteen councilmen,
and seventeen out of twenty-six representatives, held their seats by
virtue of the governor's certificate. Even if it were assumed that the
second elections in the seven districts were wrongly invalidated by
the legislature, its action was still the action of a lawful
legislature, possessing in either house a quorum of duly certificated
members. This was a lawyer's plea. Technically it was unanswerable.

Having taken this position, Douglas very properly refused to pass
judgment on the laws of the legislature. By the very terms of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, Congress had confided the power to enact local
laws to the people of the Territories. If the validity of these laws
should be doubted, it was for the courts of justice and not for
Congress to decide the question.[554]

Throughout the report, the question was not once raised, whether the
legislature really reflected the sentiment of a majority of the
settlers of Kansas. Douglas assumed