uch an incoherent and desultory manner. But
I could not forbear to claim the right of closing this debate. I thought
gentlemen would recognize its propriety when they saw the manner
in which I was assailed and misrepresented in the course of this
discussion, and especially by assaults still more disreputable in some
portions of the country. These assaults have had no other effect upon me
than to give me courage and energy for a still more resolute discharge
of duty. I say frankly that, in my opinion, this measure will be as
popular at the North as at the South, when its provisions and principles
shall have been fully developed, and become well understood. The people
at the North are attached to the principles of self-government, and
you cannot convince them that that is self-government which deprives a
people of the right of legislating for themselves, and compels them to
receive laws which are forced upon them by a Legislature in which they
are not represented. We are willing to stand upon this great principle
of self-government every-where; and it is to us a proud reflection that,
in this whole discussion, no friend of the bill has urged an argument
in its favor which could not be used with the same propriety in a free
State as in a slave State, and vice versed. No enemy of the bill has
used an argument which would bear repetition one mile across Mason and
Dixon's line. Our opponents have dealt entirely in sectional appeals.
The friends of the bill have discussed a great principle of universal
application, which can be sustained by the same reasons, and the same
arguments, in every time and in every corner of the Union.

CHARLES SUMNER,

OF MASSACHUSETTS.' (BORN 1811, DIED 1874.)

ON THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS;

SENATE, MAY 19-20, 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 necessarily 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