The Life of Stephen A. Douglas [28]
Collamer of Vermont presented the minority report, condemning the violence of the friends of slavery, deploring the fearful results of the experiment of Squatter Sovereignty and urging speedy admission of the State. It condemned the provision of the law referring the question of slavery to the inhabitants and traced the entire trouble to that blunder.
Sumner at once denounced the report of the majority, intimated his purpose of properly setting the brand of falsehood upon it in a subsequent speech, and told them to "begin their game with loaded dice."
Douglas angrily challenged him to deny a single fact in the report and said he was ready to overwhelm him with proof. "We are ready to meet the issue," he said, "and there will be no dodging. We intend to meet it boldly; to require submission to the laws and to the constituted authorities; to reduce to subjection those who resist them, and to punish rebellion and treason. I am glad that a defiant spirit is exhibited here; we accept the issue."
Two days later Trumbull spoke in unsparing criticism of the report of the Committee. It happened that Douglas was absent when he began. Word was carried to him and he hurried to the Senate. When Trumbull closed and the usual motion to adjourn was made, he protested against it and denounced the discourtesy of discussing the report during his absence. He was vexed especially by his colleague's exasperating statement that was a "life-long Democrat and was representing the Democracy of Illinois in the Senate." He assured them that Trumbull was without party standing in that state, and proposed that they sign a joint resignation, thus submitting their quarrel to the people. But there was a deeper wound than this which still rankled, and he turned from his colleague to pour out his wrath on Sumner for the publication of the "Appeal of the Independent Democrats," and the old quarrel between them was rehearsed anew with increasing bitterness on both sides.
On the 20th he spoke for two hours and a half in defense of his report. Charges of fraud, violence or illegal voting, he said, were made in but seven of the eighteen election districts into which Kansas was divided, although ample provisions had been made for the presentation of protests to the Governor. A large majority of both branches of the legislature were elected by these eleven districts where no complaints were made. At least a quorum must have been legally elected. The minority report charged that on the day of the territorial election, "large bodies of armed men from the State of Missouri appeared at the polls in most of the districts, and by most violent and tumultuous carriage and demeanor, over-awed the defenseless inhabitants and by their own votes, elected a large majority of the members of both houses of said Assembly."
But the report contained not a word about the eleven uncontested districts affected by this invasion. In the eleven uncontested districts the judges made their returns in due form and, no protests nor charges of fraud or illegal voting being presented, the Governor granted certificates of election as a matter of course. The minority stated that in many districts protest had not been made because the inhabitants, discouraged and intimidated by the Missouri invaders, had let the matter pass. Yet at Lawrence and Leavenworth, the chief centers of the alleged Missouri violence the people were not intimidated from contesting the election, what reason was there to suppose that elsewhere, remote from the scene of trouble, they were so completely conquered that they dared not protest against their wrongs and petition for redress of their grievances?
The thirty-three judges appointed by the Government to conduct the election in the eleven districts, all swore that the returns contained a true statement of the votes polled by the lawful voters. The Governor, two weeks after giving certificates of election, issued his proclamation commanding the members to assemble on the 2d of July. He recognized the legitimacy of the legislature in his