detestable but too common crimes without any outside interference.

The people of Kansas have, then, "in their own way" and in strict
accordance with the organic act, framed a constitution and State
government, have submitted the all-important question of slavery to the
people, and have elected a governor, a Member to represent them in
Congress, members of the State legislature, and other State officers.
They now ask admission into the Union under this constitution, which is
republican in its form. It is for Congress to decide whether they will
admit or reject the State which has thus been created. For my own
part, I am decidedly in favor of its admission, and thus terminating
the Kansas question. This will carry out the great principle of
nonintervention recognized and sanctioned by the organic act, which
declares in express language in favor of "nonintervention by Congress
with slavery in the States or Territories," leaving "the people thereof
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." In this
manner, by localizing the question of slavery and confining it to the
people whom it immediately concerned, every patriot anxiously expected
that this question would be banished from the halls of Congress, where
it has always exerted a baneful influence throughout the whole country.

It is proper that I should briefly refer to the election held under
an act of the Territorial legislature on the first Monday of January
last on the Lecompton constitution. This election was held after the
Territory had been prepared for admission into the Union as a sovereign
State, and when no authority existed in the Territorial legislature
which could possibly destroy its existence or change its character.
The election, which was peaceably conducted under my instructions,
involved a strange inconsistency. A large majority of the persons who