The King complained of a “daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the law”: so also does the President. The King adds, that it has “broke forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature”: so also does the President. The King declares that these proceedings have been “countenanced and encouraged in other of my Colonies”: even so the President declares that Kansas has found sympathy in “remote States.” The King inveighs against “unwarrantable attempts” and “unlawful combinations”: even so inveighs the President. The King proclaims that he has taken the necessary steps “for carrying into execution the laws,” passed in defiance of the constitutional rights of the Colonies: even so the President proclaims that he shall “exert the whole power of the Federal Executive” to support the Usurpation in Kansas. The parallel is complete. The Message, if not copied from the Speech of the King, has been fashioned on the same original block, and must be dismissed to the same limbo. I dismiss its tyrannical assumptions in favor of the Usurpation. I dismiss also its petition for additional appropriations, in the affected desire to maintain order in Kansas. It is not money or troops that you need there, but simply the good-will of the President. That is all, absolutely. Let his complicity with the Crime cease, and peace will be restored. For myself, I will not consent to wad the national artillery with fresh appropriation bills, when its murderous hail is to be directed against the constitutional rights of my fellow-citizens. * * * * * Next comes _the Remedy of Folly_, which, indeed, is also a Remedy of Tyranny; but its Folly is so surpassing as to eclipse even its Tyranny. It does not proceed from the President. With this proposition he is not in any way chargeable. It comes from the Senator from South Carolina, who, at the close of a long speech, offered it as his single contribution to the adjustment of this question, and who thus far stands alone in its support. It might, therefore, fitly bear his name; but that which I now give to it is a more suggestive synonym. This proposition, nakedly expressed, is, that the people of Kansas should be deprived of their arms. That I may not do the least injustice to the Senator, I quote his precise words. “The President of the United States is under the highest and most solemn obligations to interpose; and if I were to indicate the manner in which he should interpose in Kansas, I would point out the old Common Law process. I would serve a warrant on Sharp’s rifles; and if Sharp’s rifles did not answer the summons, and come into court on a day certain, or if they resisted the sheriff, I would summon the _posse comitatus_, and I would have Colonel Sumner’s regiment to be part of that _posse comitatus_.”[96]