The other parts, especially the Schedule, which
recognizes the existing slavery, and that almost irremediably, the
people are not allowed to pronounce upon. They are not allowed to
pronounce upon the thousand-and-one details of the State organization;
they are fobbed off with a transparent cheat of "heads I win,--tails
you lose";--and the whole game is denominated, Popular Sovereignty.
What is worse, the President of the United States argues that this
would be a fair settlement of the question, and that in the exercise
of such a choice, the glorious doctrine of Popular Sovereignty is
amply applied and vindicated. He admits that "the correct principle,"
as in the case of Minnesota, is to refer the Constitution "to the
approval and ratification of the people"; he admits that the only
mode in which the will of the people can be "authentically
ascertained is by a direct vote"; he admits that the "friends and
supporters of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, when struggling to sustain
its provisions before the great tribunal of the American people,"
"everywhere, throughout the Union, publicly pledged their faith and
honor" to submit the question of their domestic institutions
"to the decision of the _bona-fide_ people of Kansas, without any
qualification or restriction whatever"; but then,--and here is the
subterfuge,--"domestic institutions" means only the single
institution of slavery; and the Convention, in consenting to yield
_that_ (and this only in appearance) to the arbitrament of the
people, has fully satisfied all the demands of the principle of
Popular Sovereignty! Their other questions are all "political"; the
questions as to the organization of their executive, legislative,
and judicial departments, as to their elective franchise, their
distribution of districts, their banks, their rates and modes of
taxation, etc.
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