nxious to reflect the will of the
great body of the citizens. It would have been as much ashamed of it,
as any honest man would be to pass himself off as the agent of a person
whom he had never known, or who openly derided and despised him. But
this precious body--each man of whom represented thirty men besides
himself, in a voting population of 12,000--was not sensible to such
considerations. By a miserable chicane, it had got into a position to do
mischief, and it proceeded to do it, with as much alacrity and headlong
zeal as rogues are apt to exhibit when the prize is great and the
opportunity short. An election for the Legislature, held subsequently to
that for the Convention, showing a public opinion decidedly adverse to
it, the sole study of its members thenceforth seemed to be, how they
could most adroitly and effectively nullify the ascendency of the
majority. For this end alone they consulted, and caballed, and
calculated, and junketed; and the Lecompton Constitution, with the
Schedule annexed, was the worthy fruit of their labors.

It is monstrous in Mr. Buchanan to assume that a body so contrived and
so acting expressed in any sense the sovereign will of the people. But,
not to dwell upon this point, let us suppose that the Convention had
been summoned by a competent authority, that it had been fairly chosen
by its small constituency, and that its proceedings had been managed
with ordinary decorum,--would the Constitution it framed be valid, in
the face of a clear popular condemnation? We hold that it would not,
because, in our estimation, and in the estimation of every intelligent
American, the very essence of republicanism is "the consent of the
governed." It is the highest function of political sovereignty to devise
and ordain the organic law of society, the vital form of its being; and
the characteristic difference between the despotic or oligarchical and
the republican government is, that in the one case the function is
exercised by a monarch or a class, and in the other by the body of the
citizens. This distinctive feature of our politics, as opposed to
all others, regards the will of the people, directly or indirectly
expressed, as alone giving validity to law; our National Constitution,
and every one of our thirty-one State Constitutions, proceeds upon
that principle; every act of legislation in the Congress and the State
Assemblies supposes it; and every decision of every Court has that for
its basis