With my deep convictions of duty I could have pursued no other course.
It is true that as an individual I had expressed an opinion, both before
and during the session of the convention, in favor of submitting the
remaining clauses of the constitution, as well as that concerning
slavery, to the people. But, acting in an official character, neither
myself nor any human authority had the power to rejudge the proceedings
of the convention and declare the constitution which it had framed to be
a nullity. To have done this would have been a violation of the Kansas
and Nebraska act, which left the people of the Territory "perfectly
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way,
subject only to the Constitution of the United States." It would
equally have violated the great principle of popular sovereignty, at
the foundation of our institutions, to deprive the people of the power,
if they thought proper to exercise it, of confiding to delegates elected
by themselves the trust of framing a constitution without requiring them
to subject their constituents to the trouble, expense, and delay of a
second election. It would have been in opposition to many precedents in
our history, commencing in the very best age of the Republic, of the
admission of Territories as States into the Union without a previous
vote of the people approving their constitution.

It is to be lamented that a question so insignificant when viewed in its
practical effects on the people of Kansas, whether decided one way or
the other, should have kindled such a flame of excitement throughout
the country. This reflection may prove to be a lesson of wisdom and of
warning for our future guidance. Practically considered, the question is
simply whether the people of that Territory should first come into the
Union and then change any provision in their constitution not agreeable
to themselves, or accomplish the very same object by remaining out of