sent having been induced to sign the constitution. When
the document was published the whole country was amazed to see what
perversity and ingenuity had been employed to thwart the unmistakable
popular will. Essentially a slave-State constitution of the most
pronounced type, containing the declaration that the right of property
in slaves is "before and higher than any constitutional sanction," it
made the right to vote upon it depend on the one hand on a test oath
to "support this constitution" in order to repel conscientious
free-State voters, and on the other hand on mere inhabitancy on the
day of election to attract nomadic Missourians; it postponed the right
to amend or alter for a period of seven years; it kept the then
existing territorial laws in force until abrogated by State
legislation; it adopted the late Oxford fraud as a basis of
apportionment; it gave to Calhoun, the presiding officer, power to
designate the precincts, the judges of election, and to decide finally
upon the returns in the vote upon it, besides many other questionable
or inadmissible provisions. Finally the form of submission to popular
vote to be taken on the 21st of December was prescribed to be,
"constitution with slavery" or "constitution with no slavery," thus
compelling the adoption of the constitution in any event.

[Sidenote] Walker, Testimony, Report Covode Committee, p. 110.

[Sidenote] Martin, Testimony, Report Covode Committee, p. 159.

[Sidenote] Ibid., pp. 170-1.

There is a personal and political mystery underlying this transaction
which history will probably never solve. Only a few points of
information have come to light, and they serve to embarrass rather
than aid the solution. The first is that Calhoun, although the friend
and protege of Douglas, and also himself personally pledged to
submission, came to the Governor and urged him to join in the new
programme as to slavery,--alleging that the Administration had changed
its policy, and now favored this plan,--and tempted Walker with a
prospect of the Presidency if he would concur. Walker declared such a
change impossible, and indignantly spurned the proposal. The second is
that one Martin, a department clerk, was, after confidential
instructions from Secretary Thompson and Secretary Cobb, of Buchanan's
Cabinet, sent to Kansas in October, ostensibly on department business;
that he spent his time in the lobby and the secret caucuses of the
convention. Martin testifi