ry 12, 1857), the
pro-slavery party held a large political convention, in which it was
confessed that they were in a hopeless minority in the Territory, and
the general conclusion was reached that it was no longer worth while
to attempt to form a slave-State in Kansas.[1] Many of its hitherto
active leaders immediately and definitely abandoned the struggle. But
the Missouri cabal, intrenched in the various territorial and county
offices, held to their design, though their labors now assumed a
somewhat different character. They denounced Governor Geary in their
resolutions, and devised legislation to further their intrigues. By
the middle of February, under their inspiration, a bill providing for
a convention to frame a State constitution was perfected and enacted.
The Governor immediately sent the Legislature his message, reminding
them that the leading idea of the organic act was to leave the actual
_bona fide_ inhabitants of the Territory "perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way," and vetoing
the bill because "the Legislature has failed to make any provision to
submit the constitution when framed to the consideration of the people
for their ratification or rejection." The Governor's argument was
wasted on the predetermined legislators. They promptly passed the act
over his veto.

The cabal was in no mood to be thwarted, and under a show of outward
toleration, if not respect, their deep hostility found such means of
making itself felt that the Governor began to receive insult from
street ruffians, and to become apprehensive for his personal safety.
In such a contest he was single-handed against the whole pro-slavery
town of Lecompton. The foundation of his authority was gradually
sapped; and finding himself no longer sustained at Washington, where
the private appeals and denunciations of the cabal were more
influential than his official reports, he wrote his resignation on
the day of Buchanan's inauguration, and a week later left the Territory
in secrecy as a fugitive. Thus, in less than three years, three
successive Democratic executives had been resisted, disgraced, and
overthrown by the political conspiracy which ruled the Territory; and
Kansas had indeed become, in the phraseology of the day, "the
graveyard of governors."

The Kansas imbroglio was a political scandal of such large
proportions, and so clearly threatened a dangerous schism in the
Democratic party, that the