"What did we do when we came here? We framed a Constitution, a provisional government, and reported our doings to the United States. Right on the back of all the insults, robbery and fraud which we had endured, we still went Constitutionally to work. Afterwards they gave us a territorial government. Is there any step that we have taken that is contrary to law? There is not. They have appointed our governor, our secretaries, our judges, our marshals; they have done to us the same in this matter as they have done with other Territories. I do not believe in their right Constitutionally to appoint our officers. Still they have done it, and we have submitted to it. And they have sent some of the worst scoundrels here that ever existed on the earth. Instead of being fathers, they have tried every influence they could bring to bear in order to destroy us. Such have been our protectors! Those have been the men who have been sworn to fulfill their public duties; but they have foresworn themselves in the face of high heaven. * * * We have submitted to their sending officers here; that is all right enough if we have a mind to. We are citizens of the United States, and profess to support the Constitution of the United States; and wherein that binds us we are bound; wherein it does not, we are not bound. * * * If there is any man in this congregation, or anywhere else, that will show me any principle or authority in the Constitution of the United States that authorizes the President of the United States to send out governors and judges to this Territory, I would like to see it. I cannot find such authority. I will admit that a usage of that kind has obtained--that it is quite customary for the President of the United States, by and with the consent of the senate to appoint governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all of those officers that you have had here. But it is a thing that is not authorized by the Constitution,--much less to force them upon us by an armed soldiery. There is no such authority existing.