Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The Federal Government has ever been a liberal parent to the Territories
and a generous contributor to the useful enterprises of the early settlers.
It has paid the expenses of their governments and legislative assemblies
out of the common Treasury, and thus relieved them from a heavy charge.
Under these circumstances nothing can be better calculated to retard their
material progress than to divert them from their useful employments by
prematurely exciting angry political contests among themselves for the
benefit of aspiring leaders. It is surely no hardship for embryo governors,
Senators, and Members of Congress to wait until the number of inhabitants
shall equal those of a single Congressional district. They surely ought not
to be permitted to rush into the Union with a population less than one-half
of several of the large counties in the interior of some of the States.
This was the condition of Kansas when it made application to be admitted
under the Topeka constitution. Besides, it requires some time to render the
mass of a population collected in a new Territory at all homogeneous and to
unite them on anything like a fixed policy. Establish the rule, and all
will look forward to it and govern themselves accordingly. But justice to
the people of the several States requires that this rule should be
established by Congress. Each State is entitled to two Senators and at
least one Representative in Congress. Should the people of the States fail
to elect a Vice-President, the power devolves upon the Senate to select
this officer from the two highest candidates on the list. In case of the
death of the President, the Vice-President thus elected by the Senate
becomes President of the United States. On all questions of legislation the
Senators from the smallest States of the Union have an equal vote with
those from the largest. The same may be said in regard to the ratification
of treaties and of Executive appointments. All this has worked admirably in
practice, whilst it conforms in principle with the character of a
Government instituted by sovereign States. I presume no American citizen
would desire the slightest change in the arrangement. Still, is it not
unjust and unequal to the existing States to invest some 40,000 or 50,000
people collected in a Territory with the attributes of sovereignty and
place them on an equal footing with Virginia and New York in the Senate of
the United States?
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