ceases to be dangerous when Reason is left free to combat it."
If that constitutional safeguard of our rights and liberties, free speech in debate, is to be recognized anywhere, it should certainly be recognized, enforced and protected in this House. Every representative of a free constituency, if worthy of that responsible position, should speak here at all times, not with "bated breath," but openly and fearlessly, the sentiments of that constituency; for, sir, it is not alone the two hundred and thirty-four members of this House who mingle in this arena of debate; but here, within this bar, are the teeming millions of American freemen, not individually participating, as in Athens in the olden time, in the enactment of laws and the discussion and settlement of the foreign and domestic policy of the nation; but still, sir, participating in the persons of their representatives, whom they have commissioned to speak for them, in the important questions which are presented for our consideration. Here, in this august presence, before the whole American people, thus represented, stand, and must ever stand. States and statesmen, legislators and jurists, parties and principles, to be subject to the severest scrutiny and the most searching review. Here Alabama arraigns Massachusetts, as she has done through the mouth of one of her Representatives but a few weeks since; and here Massachusetts has equally the right to arraign any other State of the Confederacy. And while the Republic stands, that freedom of debate, guaranteed and protected by the Constitution, must and will be sustained and enforced on this floor.
Mr. Chairman, I feel compelled, on this occasion, therefore, by truth, and by a conscientious conviction of what I know to be the feelings of my constituents—for whom I speak as much as I do for myself—to denounce, as I do this day, the "code" of the so-called Legislature of Kansas as a code of tyranny and oppression, a code of outrage and of wrong, which would disgrace the Legislature of any State of the Union, as it disgraces the Goths and Vandals, who, after invading and conquering the Territory, thus attempted to play the despot over its people, and to make the white citizens of Kansas greater slaves than the blacks of Missouri. No man can examine the decrees of Louis Napoleon, no matter how ignorant he may have been of the procession of events in France for the past six years, without having the conviction forced upon his mind that they emanated from a usurper and a despot. The very enactments embodied in these decrees bear testimony against him. The limitations on the right of the subject; the mockery of the pretended freedom of elections which he has vouchsafed to the people; the rigid censorship of the press; the shackles upon the freedom of speech; all combine to prove that they emanate from an autocrat, who, however men may differ as to the wisdom of his statesmanship, undoubtedly governs France with a strong arm and an iron rule. And so, sir, no unprejudiced man can rise from a candid perusal of this code without being thoroughly convinced that it never emanated from a Legislature voluntarily chosen by the people whom it professes to govern but that it was dictated and enacted by usurpers and tyrants, whose leading object was to crush out some sentiment predominant amongst that people, but distasteful and offensive to these usurping legislators. I know this is a strong assertion but, in the hour of your time which I shall occupy, I shall prove this assertion from the intrinsic evidence of the code itself.
Before I proceed to make an analysis of these laws, which I hold were never legally enacted, were never fit to be made, nor fit to be obeyed by a free people, let me say a few words in regard to the manner in which they have been administered and enforced. We have heard of murder after murder in Kansas—murders of men for the singular crime of preferring freedom to slavery; but you have not heard of one single attempt by any court in that Territory to indict any one of those murderers. The bodies of Jones, of Dow, of Barber, and others, murdered in cold blood, are moldering away and joining the silent dust; while one of the murderers this very day holds a territorial office in Kansas, and another of them holds an office of influence and rank under the authority of the General Government; while neither the Territorial nor the General Government inquire into the crimes they have committed, or the justification for their brothers' blood that stains their hands.
I wish first, Mr. Chairman, to speak of the manner in which the chief justice, sitting as the supreme judicial officer of the Territory of Kansas, has performed the functions of his office. I have no imputation to make upon him as a man of moral character or of judicial ability. I know nothing in regard to either. I do not say he has willfully and corruptly violated his official oath; for I can say that authoritatively in only one way, and that is, by voting for his impeachment. I shall not comment, sir, on the extraordinary manner in which he has enforced the Kansas code, with Draconian severity, against all who advocated freedom for Kansas, but with a serene leniency towards all who did not: pushing its severest provisions to the extremest point in the one case, and forgetting, apparently, that it contains any penalties whatever in the other. But I desire to draw the attention of the House to the fact, proven by the code itself, that this "Legislature" have used every ex-
