WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
53
Territories privileges of this kind as favors? I insist that they have not, and that these men, if we are to have any regard to the Constitution and laws of the country, must be returned to their constituency. If, on their being returned, the people of Minnesota elect them in obedience to the Constitution, well and good. I say they have no righ,t to elect more than one member, because the Constitution and the law give them no right to more than one. If you are, through a spirit of accommodation, to disregard the Constitution and the laws of the land, I know not what limit you are to set to favoritism and to kindness. I should be very glad to extend a favor to these gentlemen, if I could; but I cannot disregard the Constitution and the law. What is the urgent necessity demanding of you this extraor- dinary stretch of power? If we do not allow Minnesota three members, will she not be represented in the Senate, and will not her Delegate continue in the other House? If he, in years past, could render to the Territory all the assistance necessary- and we have never heard of any complaint being made-cer- tainly, with the aid of two Senators, that Delegate can attend to the interests of Minnesota until her members be admitted in the other House. I never will give a vote here to extend, by construction, the powers of this body. No man ought to do it who regards the laws and the Constitution of his country. If you are to do it on the score of expediency or favor, because you suppose one State has a population much greater than is reported, do you not open a door by which you make yourselves judges of con- struction, and legislate upon false or suppositious premises, that ,vould destroy the foundations of any government on earth? The proper way is to admit the State, and let those gentlemen who have been sent here as her Representatives return, and let one member be elected by the people; or, if the census will justify it, let two be elected in separate districts. Is it any objection that this will require a little time? Shall such a con- sideration induce us to infringe the Constitution? In two years, sir, in 1860, the general census will be taken ; and surely there is no great emergency by which in.iustice will be done to Min- nesota, by allowing her only one Representative in the mean- time. Certainly I can see nothing which should warrant a departure from those sound rules which have heretofore gov- erned us. I do not see any ground on which even a single one of the persons who have been sent here from Minnesota can claim to be a member of the House of Representatives. How
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