than that presented by the question of slavery. There is no material difference between free State constitutions, especially in those which have been framed or modified in the last quarter of a century. A free State constitution of this day is an instrument well understood in all its parts. The free State side of the Lecompton constitution is as good a free State constitution as can be found in the Union. It differs but slightly from the Topeka constitution, or of any of the free States north or west. The great question, and the only question, was that of slavery. The people of Kansas, but for the opposition of Governor Walker, would most willingly have determined the question upon the proposition submitted by the convention. The New York Tribune, well known as the leading organ of the republican party, in several of its numbers, took the ground that if the Lecompton convention desired to settle, fairly and forever, the vexed question of slavery, that it could be done by submitting the Topeka and Lecompton constitutions, a free State and slave State constitution, to the fair vote of the people, and allow them to determine as between the two.

This was practically done, for the convention submitted to the people substantially the Topeka and a slave State constitution. The republicans, influenced to a great extent by Governor Walker, refused to vote for their free State side of the constitution, and consequently the slavery side was adopted.

It is alleged that the constitution does not embody the will of the majority of the people, and for that reason the State should not be admitted. But it is not pretended that a majority have not manifested an earnest desire to change from a Territorial to a State government, or that a large majority of the people have not to some extent recognized the new constitution. It is true that, if the ex parte vote cast by the republicans on the fourth of January against the constitution, could be treated as reliable, and as affecting the formation of the constitution, the objection would be forcible; nor do I pretend to say that, if all the imhabitants had come to the polls on the 21st of December and voted on the slavery article, the result would have been in favor of the slavery side of the constitution; but this I do know, that the ascendency of the republicans in Kansas, if they have the ascendency at all, is not by any means so complete as they pretend. They report over 10,000 votes against the constitution at the election on the 4th of January last, and I should have been no more surprised at a report of 15,000 or 20,000; but for State officers their highest vote, including the 631 illegally cast under Stanton commissioners, and reported to Governor Denver, is but 7,059; whilst the vote for the two sides of the Lecompton constitution on the 21st day of December was 6,794, and the legally cast democratic vote for State officers on the 4th of January is 6,581, as counted on the 14th of January.

I am perfectly aware of the broad allegations of fraud which have been made against the vote of the 21st of December, whilst but little has been said in relation to the frauds committed at the territorial election against the constitution on the 4th of January. I do not care to trouble you with these details, for I know they have no proper bearing upon the question of the legality and regularity of the appli

cation of the Territory for admission as a State; but the vote against the constitution in Leavenworth and other counties looks quite as much like fraud as could by possibility have been committed under any circumstances whatever.

There were nearly 14,000 votes polled for State offices under the constitution, exhibiting almost an unanimons desire on the part of the people of Kansas to be relieved, by the establishment of a State government, from the vexations and troubles which have surrounded them since the organization of the Territory.

They know that, if Kansas be admitted into the Union as a State, all redress of grievances and shaping of their own institutions will be left on their own hands. They have no idea that the Missouri compromise was repealed to enable them to determine any other than the slavery question; all other questions were within their control before. This question they have had, and will continue to have, an opportunity to control, and they can see in the continuation of the struggle nothing but strife and loss and vexation to themselves for the benefit of political agitators, who neither share their troubles nor participate in their losses.

These are the considerations which pertain to the constitution, the action of the people of Kansas, and the action sought from the Congress of the United States. But alleged frauds at the election on the 4th of January, under the constitution, and my own action, or supposed action, upon the returns of that election, are made to bear upon the application of Kansas for admission as a State. I have said in this all that I can think belongs to the subject as presented to Congress, and shall say through the public press what I know of the election of January 4, under the constitution, and what will be my action. thereon, with which matters I cannot perceive that Congress has anything to do.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. CALHOUN, President of Constitutional Convention of Kansas.

Hon. JAMES L. GREEN,

United States Senate.

THE MINORITY REPORT OF THE SELECT

COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN.

The undersigned members of the Select Committee of Fifteen of the House of Representatives appointed to investigate certain matters in relation to Kansas, disagreeing with the views and conclusions of the majority in the written statement submitted by them, will, with the permission of the House, present a counter statement.

After a protracted struggle in the House, commencing on Friday, February 5, the following resolution was adopted:

"Resolved, That the message of the President concerning the constitution framed at Lecompton, in the Territory of Kansas, by a convention of delegates therein, and the papers accompanying the same, be referred to a select committee of fifteen, to be appointed by the Speaker; that said committee be instructed to inquire into all the facts connected with the formation of said constitution, and the laws under which the same was originated, and into all such facts and proceedings as have transpired since the formation of said constitution having relation to the question of propriety of the admission of said. Territory into the Union under said constitution, and whether the same is acceptable and satisfactory to a majority of the legal voters of Kansas; and that the said committee have power to send for persons and papers."

The circumstances under which this order of the House was passed are fresh in our memories, and well calculated to make an impression upon the country. The subject of Kansas affairs from the start has been surrounded with many difficulties. The President, who is charged by the Constitution to give to Congress information from time to time, has essayed to perform this duty, but with so little success that the House deemed something more required—so little in fact that of five governors selected by himself, or his predecessor, for the Territory of Kansas, there is not one that is not now at open issue with the President's statements and conclusions; and these persons, having all been deprived of office by executive power, guilty of the delusion of carrying out their written instructions instead of the higher law of party, may have been referred to among those described in the late message as "in a state of rebellion against the government under which they lived."

Some of the men who have held the office of governor of Kansas have been statesmen of ripe experience, and from their official relation and personal observation were as well qualified to present a statement of the true condition of affairs as any men in the nation, from the highest to the lowest. The statements of these men cannot be invalidated by charging them with a complicity in "abolition movements." Their birthplaces and party associations will challenge all allowances for any leaning as against the President of their choice. If they testify against him, it must be on compulsion. While we

listen to the eager statements and elaborate arguments of the President, venerable for his age and length of service, we ought not to turn a deaf ear to the reluctant facts and logic extortel from those in the full vigor of manhood, and with the largest opportunities for accurate information. But the majority of the committee have promptly defeated all resolutions presented to obtain further evidence from this source, although the witnesses were at hand, and might have been examined with little delay and little expense. The majority appear to have adopted a fixed line of argument in behalf of the Lecompton constitution, and all facts which might obstruct that line of argument they appear to have regarded as irrelevant; therefore unnecessary to them, and, if so, useless to the minority.

The House decided we should inquire into all the facts, proceedings, and laws relating to the propriety of the admission of Kansas into the Union, and, also, whether the constitution is "acceptable and satisfactory to a majority of the legal voters;" but the majority assume that there are no facts or proceedings embraced which are not already in possession of the House-resting the case, not upon its equity or propriety, but upon the allegation that the record is complete, and refuse to change or set it aside for any fraud, whether proven or not. They seem to assume there is a bond which, prima facie, gives to them the pound of flesh, and, refusing all inquiry into its validity, inexorably demanded the penality, and to be cut of nearest the heart of Kansas. This assumption, like the refusal to submit the constitution of Kansas to a full and fair vote of the people, is a confession that a thorough investigation would show this extraordinary document was not legally formed, made, or adopted; and that, instead of being acceptable and satisfactory to a majority, it is hated, scorned, and will be resisted by the people of Kansas to the last extremity, and therefore ought to be rejected. With the power accorded to the committee by the House to send for persons and papers, we might have established this beyond all cavil, though now established beyond all legal or moral doubt; but the minority, at the first step, were voted down by the majority, as they were upon all the main issues or resolutions presented save one, which called for a statement made by John Calhoun of little consequence and no legal authority, and supposed to be favorable to the views of the majority. This statement, the records show, the majority were ready to receive and have used-loose, irresponsible, and ex parte as it was-while they refused to summon the same witness, and have him examined under the sanction of an oath. Can it be possible they would have us give credit to the statements of a witness whose oath they decline?

If this witness had been sworn, he would have been called upon to testify whether the constitution had not been subjected to as great manipulation while in his hands as the returns of Delaware Agency. There was, at the time, as much mystery hanging over his non publication of the constitution as there has been ever since over his nonpublication of the returns of the January election. Proved to be a particeps criminis in one fraud, where he was not even less suspected than the other, we are not satisfied that the Lecompton constitution,

as presented, is the one, in all its parts, which was agreed to by the delegates while assembled in convention.

The action of the majority of this committee will doubtless be explained by themselves, but it does not appear to us as defensible, nor can we believe it will prove more acceptable and satisfactory to the House than was the action of the Lecompton convention to a majority of the people of Kansas. Instead of investigating the facts for the action of the House, the majority tender their views, and these they ask the House, without investigation, to adopt. Foreign as we conceive this to be from our duty, we are compelled to follow the example thus set. The questions of inquiry upon the application of new States have been

1. In relation to the sufficiency of population. Here, while this may be conceded, we emphatically deny that any such sufficiency have had any part or lot in the Lecompton constitution.

2. Is the constitution republican in its form? This we deny, on the ground that no constitution can be republican which was neither made by nor embodies the will of the majority. The third query, as propounded by Mr. Buchanan in the case of Michigan, is

3. "Are they waiting to enter the Union on the terms we propose? No! Fifteen thousand voters can be counted to-day in Kansas who look upon the terms with abhorence; and if there be twenty-five hundred in favor of it, they have only said so when coupled with the land grab in the ordinance, which we do not "propose."

There is no an

thority for saying that any body in Kansas is waiting to enter on our terms. The majority of this committee slur this inquiry, and place instead another, touching" the regularity of the proceedings." That is equally fatal to their argument, as it suggests the need of an enabling act on the part of Congress. No such act was passed.

In the case of Michigan, already referred to, Mr. Buchanan said: "No senator will pretend that their Territorial legislature had any right whatever to pass laws enabling the people to elect delegates to a convention for the purpose of forming a State constitution. It was an act of usurpation on their part."

So far as "regularity" is concerned, the action of the Territorial legislature is illegitimate without the authority of Congress. Irregularities are indeed overlooked when the people are waiting to enter the Union on the terms proposed, and when the constitution embodies the sense of the majority, but never otherwise; and ten times never when the "regularity" is confined to that hammered out of persistent links of fraud.

The President, in his recent message, assumes to draw a dividing line between the parties in Kansas, styling one as "loyal" and the other as "enemies to the Territorial government," meaning thereby to cast odium upon those who prefer a free State constitution to the constitution with slavery. It is not a little remarkable that all the proceedings of the pro-slavery party in Kansas, in the eye of the President, are marked by entire regularity, and without any "official information," or sign of fraud or violence, while the free State party cannot give vent even to the "still small voice" of petition without eliciting an Executive proclamation of insurrection. While he elevates