President Buchanan, for reasons not apparent, did not transmit the Minnesota constitution—the Democratic version—to the Senate till near the middle of January, 1858. A fortnight later the bill to admit was reported from the committee on territories. The same kind of opposition now broke out as had impeded the progress of the Minnesota enabling act a twelvemonth before. Southern senators were loath to see a new Northern state come in, even with a Democratic delegation awaiting admission to both houses. They were also technical and persistent about holding to the traditional custom of admitting states alternately slave and free. It was the turn for a slave state to come in, and Kansas with her infamous “Lecompton” slave constitution was knocking at the door. To give the right of way to the “English bill” admitting Kansas, dilatory measures were successfully resorted to. A debate covering twenty-three pages of the “Congressional Globe” took place on the question whether the Senate would consider the Minnesota bill. That having been agreed to on the 24th of March, days of tedious wrangling followed upon objections raised by opponents. The election, it was argued, was void for frauds committed; aliens had been allowed to vote; the still incompleted census was farcical; some assistant marshals had destroyed the returns they should have given in; in some instances there was not one tenth as many people found in precincts as had voted. The right of the state to three, two, or even any representative in Congress was questioned. Minnesota was still a territory, and territories had no right to representation in the Senate or in the House, except by a delegate having no vote. There had been no legal convention, it was said, and no legitimate constitution had been adopted by the people. The debate went on till April 8, when, the English bill admitting Kansas having been put through the Senate, the opposition ceased and the Minnesota bill passed with but three dissenting votes, out of fifty-two. The palaver occupies nearly one hundred pages of the “Globe.” The bill now went to the House, and there the English bill stood in its way till the 4th of May. The pro-slavery opposition at once showed itself under cover of the same objections which had been so tediously debated in the Senate. There had been no proper convention, the election was void for frauds, the territorial legislature in session was presuming to act as a state legislature, and the like. In the course of a wrangle on the matter of alien voting, a Missouri member in a heated moment revealed the actual ground of the opposition. He said, “I warn gentlemen of the South of the consequences.... The whole territories of the Union are rapidly filling up with foreigners. The great body of them are opposed to slavery. Mark my words; if you do it, another slave state will never be formed out of the territories of this Union.” There was also an attack on the bill from an unexpected quarter.