that it was the duty of the
Executive not only to suppress insurrectionary movements in Kansas,
but also to see to the regularity of local elections. It needs little
argument to show that the President has no such power. All government in
the United States rests substantially upon popular election. The freedom
of elections is liable to be impaired by the intrusion of unlawful votes
or the exclusion of lawful ones, by improper influences, by violence,
or by fraud. But the people of the United States are themselves the
all-sufficient guardians of their own rights, and to suppose that they
will not remedy in due season any such incidents of civil freedom is
to suppose them to have ceased to be capable of self-government. The
President of the United States has not power to interpose in elections,
to see to their freedom, to canvass their votes, or to pass upon their
legality in the Territories any more than in the States. If he had such
power the Government might be republican in form, but it would be a
monarchy in fact; and if he had undertaken to exercise it in the case of
Kansas he would have been justly subject to the charge of usurpation and
of violation of the dearest rights of the people of the United States.

Unwise laws, equally with irregularities at elections, are in periods
of great excitement the occasional incidents of even the freest and
best political institutions; but all experience demonstrates that in a
country like ours, where the right of self-constitution exists in the
completest form, the attempt to remedy unwise legislation by resort
to revolution is totally out of place, inasmuch as existing legal
institutions afford more prompt and efficacious means for the redress
of wrong.

I confidently trust that now, when the peaceful condition of Kansas
affords opportunity for calm reflection and wise legislation, either
the legislative assembly of the Territory or Congress will see that
no act shall remain on its statute book violative of the provisions
of the Constitution or subversive of the great objects for which
that was ordained and established, and will take all other necessary
steps to assure to its inhabitants the enjoyment, without obstruction or
abridgment, of all the constitutional rights, privileges, and immunities
of citizens of the United States, as contemplated by the organic law of
the Territory.

Full information in relation to recent events in this Territory will be
found in the documen