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whether of the State or the municipality, it might be further required that

4. The jurisdiction, as to public officers, should be confined to a single court, so as to avoid a conflict of jurisdiction and of opinion.

5. No injunction to be allowed, as to any public matter or public officer, but on a hearing before a general term, from which an appeal should lie immediately to the Court of Appeals. Some such provisions as these, with such details as may be found advisable, seem to me indispensable for restoring the impaired confidence of the people in the judiciary, as well as for restraining that most essential and valuable department of polity within its proper and prescribed limits. It will be all the stronger, in real authority and in moral weight, by being thus restored and restrained.

I cannot pass from this subject without calling your attention to some other points connected with it; and, first, as to the mode of ascertaining and declaring the result of the election of judges. The choice in these elections is, as in respect of other elective officers, by pluralities; but no commission is issued to the elected, and they enter upon and hold office under a mere canvasser's certificate. In case of a doubt or dispute, no magistrates are authorised to determine the prima facie title.

It would seem not unreasonable, with regard to such important officers, chosen for a long term of years, if only to guard against surprise, that something more than a mere plurality— some appreciable and significant proportion of all the votes cast at such election-should be required as necessary to a choice, while both dignity and responsibility would seem to demand that every incumbent of a seat on the bench of the State, should be provided with a commission under the seal of the State; and, in local tribunals, from some court of record.

Again, the laws, as administered in criminal cases, do not appear to discriminate sufficiently between degrees of criminality, or do not leave a sufficient latitude for doing so to the judges. Hence, constant appeals to the Executive for the interposition of his prerogative of mitigating sentences. The listening to and determining of such appeals, is among the most laborious and most painful duties of the Executive; yet a duty fully assumed, with all others belonging to the office, and not, therefore, to be shrunk from. But if it should appear to you that the cause of justice as well as of humanity might be promoted by allowing criminal courts a wider latitude in the application of specific penalties to specific offences, I willingly persuade myself that it might be an additional motive for adopting such a course, that it would, in the future, relieve, measurably, the Executive of the State from these most painful and yearly accumulating applications.

The gold medal voted to Dr. Kane had not been completed when the sad intelligence came to us of the sudden death, in a foreign land, of him whom the Legislature of this State designed tó honor. It has since been delivered, by my private secretary, to the father of Dr. Kane-the afflicted inheritor of the well earned trophies of a gallant son, too early lost.

The medal voted to Commander Harstene is in readiness to be delivered to him at the Capitol, whenever his public duties. will permit him to attend and receive it, of which he has been officially advised.

The condition of Kansas continues to absorb public interest. It is to the shame of Truth alike and of Liberty, that it must be said, that in the treatment of this question there has been studied disingenuousness and deliberate perversion of facts. Even the President of the United States, after having pledged himself, as the party he represents had pledged themselves, that no Constitution should be deemed obligatory which had not been submitted to the people for ratification; and still professing to uphold and stand by what it so delusively characterises as popular sovereignty, nevertheless affirmed, in his message, that it has "been fairly and explicitly referred to the people whether they will have a Constitution with or without slavery," while in that same message it is stated that slavery, and the right of property in slaves, exist in Kansas "under the Constitution of the United States;" and when by the very form in which the question is submitted, the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slaves, must be accepted, whatever the vote or the wishes of the people as to slavery may be. What grosser mockery of substantial popular sovereignty can well be devised, than the submission of only a single section of a Constitution, involving all the rights. and the liberties of the people? And what more palpable abuse of language than to speak of such a submission as "fair?" Of what free State in this Union would the people submit to be thus cheated of their right to decide upon a Constitution in all its parts? Or what theory of freedom can consist with such a dishonest scheme for forcing an obnoxious instrument upon an unwilling people?

In view of these most unwarrantable proceedings, and after the emphatic and repeated declarations by the President of the United States, and after the yet more extraordinary opinions, not judicial decisions, nor entitled to any respect as such, pronounced by some of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States as to the constitutionality of slavery, I feel called upon by what I owe, not less to the well-ascertained sentiment of the people of this State, than to my own self-respect, to repeat here, what in my first message I assumed as the deliberate conviction of the free States, that "slavery in the States where it exists, exists by virtue of the local law alone, and that

it neither exists nor is confirmed there, nor anywhere, by the force and effect of the Constitution of the United States.

I have faith in the principles at issue in this controversy so strong as to feel assured that the freemen of Kansas will not submit to the great wrongs meditated against them; and my faith is alike strong that the men of the free States will sustain the cause of freedom of Kansas as though it were their own, and at their own doors.

Since the last session of the Legislature the Lemmon slave case, involving the claim of slaveholders to bring slaves into this State, in violation of its express legislation, has been brought under the consideration of the Suprenie Court of the first judicial district.

The case was heard before the five judges of that district, and I am gratified to be able to state that, with one dissenting voice, the court expressed its judgment in favor of the constitutional power of the State to legislate as to the condition of all persons within its jurisdiction, and to banish forever from its territory all vestige of human slavery. The dissenting justice has not made public the grounds or the extent of his disagreement with the majority of the court.

The

The counsel of the State of Virginia having intimated his intentions to appeal from this decision, I recommend to the Legislature to make such provision for the further maintenance of the rights of the State, as the importance of the question requires. I have thus frankly communicated to you my views on the great public interests committed to our common charge. path before us is plain, though not free from difficulties and embarrassments; but looking with a steadfast eye to duty, and relying with steadfast hearts upon the continued aid and guidance of that gracious Being, who, in the past, has, in so signal a manner, blessed our people, we cannot mistake, and must not suffer ourselves to be diverted from it.

ALBANY, January 5th, 1858.

JOHN A. KING.

Mr. Paterson offered the following resolution, viz:

Resolved, That 3,000 extra copies of the message of the Governor be printed; 1,000 copies for the use of the Governor, and the remainder for the Senate.

Ordered, That said resolution be referred to the committee on public printing.

Mr. Diven offered the following joint resolution, viz:

Resolved, (if the Assembly concur,) That so much of the Governor's message as relates to the position of the General Government in reference to the Territory of Kansas, be referred to a joint committee of the Senate and Assembly.

Ordered, That said resolution be laid on the table.

The President presented a communication from the State Engineer and Surveyor.

(See Doc. No. 9.)

On motion of Mr. Noxon, said communication was referred to the committee on railroads.

On motion of Mr. Halsted, the Senate adjourned.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1857.

The Senate met pursuant to adjournment.

Prayer by Rev. Dr. Wyckoff.

The journal of yesterday was read and approved.

Mr. Foote presented a petition of Dan Ladd of Lebanon, Madison county, for payment of damage caused by the construction of the Chenango canal; which was read and referred to the committee on claims.

Mr. Boardman presented a petition of citizens of Seneca county, for the suspension of navigation on the canals on the Sabbath; which was read and referred to the committee on canals.

The President announced the following standing committees of the Senate:

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