Record Data
Transcription
Governor Walker in Washington – His Views of the Kansas Matter.
From the Evening Post.
Washington, Sunday, Dec. 13, 1857.
The writer obtained audience with Governor WALKER yesterday, and found him in good spirits and remarkably plucky. I said to him that the rumor that he had gone to Kansas had found general credence here, and many expressed the hope that the report was true. He replied that he should not return to Kansas until he could be allowed to carry out his original instructions. I said, Mr. SLIDELL, Sir, (not Mr. MASON, as reported in the New York Tribune,) announced in Executive Session of the Senate, that you cannot go back as Governor of Kansas. This stirred the little Governor, and made him flash his little eyes and knit his little brow, and raising himself on his little toes, he exclaimed, with characteristically big emphasis, “What business is it to him? I don’t receive my instructions from him! I shall steadily adhere to the great fundamental principles of the right of the people to govern themselves, and I shall not allow the threats of any man to deter me in doing so. The Democratic Party was not made for the aggrandizement of men, but for the protection and perpetuation of great principles, and I have not yet to learn, Sir, that any man has patented those principles for his own exclusive use.”
Governor WALKER informed me that he was preparing an address to the American people, in which he hoped to be able to show that the course he had pursued in Kansas was not only in harmony with the great principles recognized by all wise and good men as the true basis of Republican Government, but had also been in strict accordance with the instructions he received from the President of the United States when he accepted the commission as Governor of that Territory. He expressed the opinion already submitted in this correspondence, that the Legislature of Kansas now in session, would refer the Lecompton Constitution to a fair vote of all the qualified votes of Kansas, without delay, and report the result to Congress. He expressed that hope that they would not send the Topeka Free State Constitution to the people at the same time for ratification, on account of the old prejudice existing in Congress against it among the Democrats, which would tend to complicate matters. He desires to see the immediate question now before Congress met and disposed of, and then, under an enabling act, if the people of Kansas want the Topeka Constitution it is their right to have it. Governor WALKER was not strenuous, however, on these points.
I learn, authentically, that it is the intention of Senator DOUGLAS to submit to the Senate, tomorrow, the Tombs [Toombs] bill as an enabling act for Kansas.
Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS boasts that he intends to “wool DOUGLAS” in a speech in the Senate.
Governor WALKER, who was said to have gone to Kansas, is here in body and in spirit, and the latter is as active as ever in opposition to the President on the Kansas question. He has no present intention of leaving Washington, but will do so if he thinks he can do any good by returning to Kansas. Those who flatter themselves that the storm he has raised will not be much of a shower after all, will find themselves submerged before they are aware of it. Whatever may be the result in Congress, and that cannot be predicted at present, the news from different parts of the country shows that the people are aroused upon the question, and however members may dislike to provoke Executive displeasure, they would prefer to encounter the frown of the President rather than return to an angry constituency with their opposing votes. The whole power of Executive patronage is brought to bear upon the members. The nominations are withheld, and the President says that no man shall receive an appointment whose delegate or member shall vote against him.
It is said that there is to be course of premeditated personal attack upon Judge DOUGLAS, with the expectations of intimidating him. The assault is to commence with a Missouri Senator.
