ertion within their power to make that judge the interested champion and advocate of the validity of their enactments. Pecuniary interest, sir, is a powerful argument with mankind generally. We all see, and we all recognize this fact as a truism which no logician denies. The administration that gives a man an extensive or a profitable contract may reasonably expect to find in him a supporter. The Legislature that confers on a man a valuable charter would have a right to feel surprised if he did not decide in favor of the legality and the constitutionality of their enactments; as well as use all of his influence in their favor, if their authority to act as grantors was disputed, and if his charter fell to the ground as worthless, in case their right to grant it was overthrown. It is true, some men are so pure as not to be affected by such things; but in the generality of cases, the human mind cannot fail to be thus influenced, even if it is not absolutely controlled.
Now, if you will turn to the concluding portion of this "code of laws," you will find one hundred and forty pages of it, over one sixth of the whole, devoted to corporations, shingled in profusion over the whole Territory, granting charters for railroads, insurance companies, toll-bridges, ferries, universities, mining companies, plank roads, and, in fact, all kinds of charters that are of value to their recipients, and more, indeed, than will be needed there for many years. No less than four or five hundred persons (not counting one hundred territorial road commissioners), have been thus incorporated, and have been made the recipients of the bounty of that legislation of Kansas, making a great portion, if not all of them, interested advocates to sustain the legality of those laws now in dispute before the American people. I need scarcely add that the name of nearly every citizen of Kansas who has been conspicuous in the recent bloody scenes in that Territory on the side of slavery, can be found among the favored grantees; and all of them know that, if that Legislature is proved to be illegal and fraudulent, their grants become valueless.
In quoting from this code of the laws of the Legislature of Kansas, I desire to state that I quote from Executive document No. 23, submitted to this House by the President of the United States, and printed by the public printer of Congress. It is entitled "Laws of the Territory of Kansas," and forms a volume of eight hundred and twenty-three pages. I notice that many members have a copy of this code before them now; and as many people as they discuss these enactments around the hearthstone at home, cannot believe that they are authentic, I will take pains to quote the section and page of every law I allude to, and will say to gentlemen upon the other side, that if they find me quoting incorrectly in a single instance, or in the minutest particular, essential or non-essential, I call upon them to correct me on the spot. I wish to lay the exact truth, no more, no less, from this official record itself, authenticated as it is by the President of the United States himself, before Congress and the American people.
You will find in this code of laws that Mr. Isaacs, the district attorney of Kansas, figures in four acts of incorporation, and cannot fail, therefore, to believe in the legality of their enactment. Mr. L. N. Reese figures in three more; Mr. L. J. Eastin in three; Stringfellow in three, of course; and R. R. Reese in five—all of them earnest defenders of the code and its provisions, as might be expected. But I desire more particularly to show you the incorporations in which the territory of Kansas have given an interest to the chief justice of the territory, Judge Lecompte, sitting though he does upon the judicial bench, to decide upon the validity of these territorial laws. You will find him, on page 788, incorporated as one of the regents of the Kansas University; but I pass by that as of very little moment. At page 760 you will find a charter for the Central Railroad Company, with a capital of $1,000,000, in which S. A. Lecompte is one of the corporators. The chief justice's name is S. D. Lecompte; and as I cannot hear of any other person of the name of Lecompte in the territory, I have no doubt that this is a misprint in the middle initial, and that his name was intended. But I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and pass over this charter. On page 769 you will find another charter, in which Chief Justice S. D. Lecompte figures as a corporator. It is the charter of the Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western Railroad, which, in the opinion of many, is destined to be a link in the great Pacific Railroad, or at least an important section in one of its branches. It is chartered with a capital of $5,000,000, and five years' time is given for the grantees to commence the work. This charter, valuable as it must become, as the territory advances in population and wealth, is presented as a free gift to Judge Lecompte and his associates by the mock Legislature of Kansas. Of course, in all these charters the directors are to open books for the subscription of stock, keeping them open "as long as they may deem proper;" no barrier existing against their subscribing the whole stock themselves, the moment that the books are opened, if they choose so to do. But I desire to draw attention particularly to another grant, to be found on page 774, in which this same impartial judge, S. D. Lecompte, with nine other persons, are incorporated as the Leavenworth and Lecompton railroad; and I ask you to notice, and explain, if
