“When I entered upon the duties of the Presidential office, on the fourth of March last, what was the condition of Kansas? This Territory had been organized under the Act of Congress of 30th May, 1854, and the government in all its branches was in full operation. A governor, secretary of the Territory, chief justice, two associate justices, a marshal, and district attorney had been appointed by my predecessor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and were all engaged in discharging their respective duties. A code of laws had been enacted by the Territorial legislature, and the judiciary were employed in expounding and carrying these laws into effect. It is quite true that a controversy had previously arisen respecting the validity of the election of members of the Territorial legislature and of the laws passed by them; but at the time I entered upon my official duties, Congress had recognized this legislature in different forms and by different enactments. The delegate elected to the House of Representatives, under a Territorial law, had just completed his term of service on the day previous to my inauguration. In fact, I found the government of Kansas as well established as that of any other Territory. Under these circumstances, what was my duty? Was it not to sustain this government? to protect it from the violence of lawless men, who were determined either to rule or ruin? to prevent it from being overturned by force? in the language of the Constitution, to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed?’ It was for this purpose, and this alone, that I ordered a military force to Kansas to act as a posse comitatus in aiding the civil magistrate to carry the laws into execution. The condition of the Territory at the time, which I need not portray, rendered this precaution absolutely necessary. In this state of affairs, would I not have been justly condemned had I left the marshal and other officers of a like character impotent to execute the process and judgments of courts of justice established by Congress, or by the Territorial legislature under its express authority, and thus have suffered the government itself to become an object of contempt in the eyes of the people? And yet this is what you designate as forcing ‘the people of Kansas to obey laws not their own, nor of the United States’; and for doing which you have denounced me as having violated my solemn oath. I ask, what else could I have done, or ought I to have done? Would you have desired that I should abandon the Territorial government, sanctioned as it had been by Congress, to illegal violence, and thus renew the scenes of civil war and bloodshed which every patriot in the country had deplored? This would, indeed, have been to violate my oath of office, and to fix a damning blot on the character of my administration.