ed States would insist upon this condition.
On the 12th of July Mr. Buchanan wrote to Governor Walker:

"On the question of submitting the constitution to the _bona fide_
resident settlers of Kansas, I am willing to stand or fall. In
sustaining such a principle we cannot fail. It is the principle
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the principle of popular sovereignty,
and the principle at the foundation of all popular government.
The more it is discussed, the stronger it will become. Should the
convention of Kansas adopt this principle, all will be settled
harmoniously."

This promise was soon after violated, and the President declared
in an open letter:

"At the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act slavery
existed, and still exists, in Kansas, under the constitution of
the United States. This point has at last been finally decided by
the highest tribunal known to our laws. How it could ever have
been seriously doubted is a mystery."

It was known that the delegates elected would adopt a pro-slavery
constitution and ask for admission to the Union. It was equally
well known that no such constitution would be adopted by the people
of Kansas. Under these circumstances the President, pressed by
his cabinet, yielded to the demands of the south, violated his
pledges, and supported the convention in the extreme measures
adopted by it.

In the meantime the Free State party in Kansas, composed of nearly
equal proportions of Republicans and Democrats, was persuaded by
Governor Walker to take part in the regular election for the
territorial legislature. The result was, the Free State party
elected nine of the thirteen councilmen, and twenty-four of the
thirty-nine representatives. This should have settled the Kansas
controversy, and it would have done so on the principle of popular
sovereignty, but a broader constituency in the south demanded that
the doctrine of the Dred Scott case should be applied to and
enforced, not only in Kansas, but in all the states. Henceforth
the Lecompton constitution must be considered, not as a local
question, but as a national one. The imperative issue, as pithily
stated by Lincoln, was, all slave or all free states. The battle
was to commence in Kansas, but was to become national in its scope.

The constitutional convention met on the 19th of October, 1857,
within two weeks after the election of the legislature, but in its
action little interest was taken, a quorum being pr