eserved with
difficulty. It adopted a pro-slavery constitution, which, it was
well known, if submitted to the people, would be rejected by an
overwhelming majority, and if not submitted would be resisted, if
necessary, by open force. The President, Governor Walker, and all
parties, had promised that the constitution, when framed, would be
submitted to a popular vote. How not to do it, and yet appear to
do it, was a problem worthy of a gang of swindlers, and yet the
feeling was so strong in administration circles, that the plan
devised as below given was cordially approved by the cabinet and
acquiesced in by the President.

The constitution adopted by the convention provided: "The right
of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction,
and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase
is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any
property whatever." Another provision of the constitution was that
it could not be amended until after the year 1864, and even then
no alteration should "be made to affect the rights of property in
the ownership of slaves."

The election was to be held on December 21, 1857. The people might
vote for the "constitution with slavery" or the "constitution with
no slavery." In either event, by the express terms of the
constitution, slavery was established for a time in Kansas and the
doctrine of the Dred Scott case was to be embodied in our laws.
No opportunity was offered to the people to vote against the
constitution.

It is difficult to characterize in proper terms the infamy of these
proceedings. The Free State party would take no part in the proposed
election on December 21, and it resulted, for the constitution with
slavery, 6,226 votes, of which 2,720 were proven to be fraudulent;
for the constitution without slavery, 589. Governor Walker promptly
denounced the outrage. He said: "I consider such a submission of
the question a vile fraud, a base counterfeit, and a wretched device
to prevent the people voting even on the slavery question." "I
will not support it," he continued, "but I will denounce it, no
matter whether the administration sustains it or not."

Mr. Buchanan supported the scheme after the constitution had been
adopted by the convention. The elections in the fall preceding
were favorable to the Democrats, and Mr. Buchanan was naturally
encouraged to hope that his party had regained popular ascendancy,
but the