The Washington Union

MR. HARRIS'S RESOLUTION—POLITICAL LEDGERDEMAIN.

We do not complain that the republicans are factious, tricky, and wilful upon the question which is now before Congress. It is their stock in trade; it is their capital. They got up the quarrel four years ago upon it, and have prosecuted it ever since with bitterness, perseverance, and a total disregard of consequences. They ridiculed and abused our platform at Cincinnati. They traduced and vilified our candidates, local and national. They went into the canvass of 1856 upon this Kansas programme. It is the soul of their party. Without it they have no party. They live to-day; they are scattered and disgraced to-morrow. We do not expect them to give up all they possess—to surrender their whole.

But we are equally surprised and mortified at the attitude of those democrats who have heretofore stood by the cause of the democracy through all its trials; who have shared in its triumphs and its honors, and who are now promoted to be the engineers and firemen of the opposition. Foremost amongst the renegades is Mr. Harris, of Illinois. Acting in concert with Mr. Grow, the republican leader, who yielded the floor to him, the former, at the long session on Friday, submitted the following resolution, and moved the previous question upon it:

"Resolved, That the message of the President enclosing the constitution framed at Lecompton, in the Territory of Kansas, by a convention of delegates thereof, and the papers accompanying the same, be referred to a select committee of fifteen, to be appointed by the Speaker, and that said committee be instructed to inquire into all the facts connected with the formation of said constitution and the laws under which the same was originated, and into all such facts and proceedings as have transpired since the formation of said constitution having relation to the question of the propriety of the admission of said Territory into the Union under said constitution, and whether the same is acceptable and satisfactory to a majority of the legal voters of Kansas, and that said committee have power to send for persons and papers."

The purpose of this side blow is obvious enough.

The Lecompton constitution was not before the House. The reference proposed, in point of fact, was the President's message. Without a word of debate—without a moment for examination or deliberation upon the message or the constitution itself—Mr. Harris, a professed advocate of non-intervention—a professed democrat—a professed disciple of territorial and State sovereignty, in league with the opposition, receiving and giving counsel—moves a resolution by which it is proposed to ascertain, through a committee of Congress, whether the constitution just ratified "is acceptable and satisfactory to a majority of the legal voters of Kansas." Mr. Harris did not leave his resolution open for discussion, that its monstrous pretensions might be exposed. No; that would not do. The House and the country would be told that his measure was intended only by legerdemain to defeat the admission of the new State: What process, for instance, would the committee adopt to ascertain the will of the majority of the people of Kansas? Would they subpoena them to answer? Would they sit in judgment upon their right to vote? Would they require an oath with the answer? Did faction ever originate a more unmitigated scheme of nonsense and trash than that which conceived the idea of despatching a committee of Congress to procure an expression of the will of the people of a State upon matters purely local? Was it necessary to the execution of this work, too, that the voice of the House should be suppressed; that the committee should spring from an ambush, to do impossible things, in violation of the rights of a distant people, in contempt of every maxim of practical life, and of the principles of the democratic party? Above all, was it necessary that this movement, which has the allegiance of every republican in the House, should be headed by a professed democrat, and supported by a little corporal's guard of followers, of the same character? We appeal to the democracy of the country to vindicate its honor and its name from the blot which now rests upon them by this act of folly and treachery on the part of Mr. Harris and his associates.