statute-book; and although he did not vote for it, he explained to the country why he did not, and expressed his regret that his absence had prevented him from recording his vote in favor of it. "From the plain language of the Constitution, as I have read it, how is it possible for one still claiming to follow the path of the Constitution, to assert that Congress has no power to legislate in relation to the subject anywhere? He informs us, however, that by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the full power of the inhabitants of a territory to legislate on all subjects not inconsistent with the Constitution, was granted by Congress. If Congress attempted to make such a grant; if Congress thus attempted to rid themselves of a trust imposed upon them, they exceeded their authority. They could delegate no such power. The territorial legislature can be but an instrument, through which the Congress of the United States execute their trust in relation to the territories. Therefore it was, that notwithstanding the exact language of that bill which the senator has read, the Congress of the United States did assume, and did exercise, the power to repeal a law passed in that very territory of Kansas, which they clearly could not have done if they had surrendered all control over its legislation. Whether the senator voted for that report or not, I do not know; I presume he did; but whether he did or not, does not vary the question, except so far as it affects himself. The advocates of the Kansas-Nebraska bill were generally the men who most promptly claimed the repeal of those laws, because they said they were a violation of those rights which every American citizen possessed under the Constitution. "But the senator says territorial laws can only be set aside by an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. If so, then they have a power not derived from Congress; they are not the instruments of Congress. But in the course of the senator's remarks, and quite inconsistent with this position, he announced that they possessed no power save that which they derived from the organic act and the Constitution. They can derive no power from the Constitution save as territories of the United States, over which the States have given the power of a trustee to the Congress; and being the delegate of the Congress, they have such powers as Congress has thought proper to give, provided they do not exceed such powers as the Congress possesses. How, then, does the Senator claim that they have a power to legislate which Congress cannot revise; and yet no power to legislate at all save that which they derive from their organic act?