ntion adjourned, and made known its cunningly
devised work, the whole South instantly became clamorous to secure the
sectional advantages which lay in its technical regularity, its strong
affirmance of the "property" theory, and the extraordinary power it
gave to John Calhoun to control the election and decide the returns.
This powerful reactionary movement was not lost upon Mr. Buchanan. He
reflected it as unerringly as the vane moves to the change of the
wind. Long before the meeting of Congress, the Administration organ,
the "Washington Union," heralded and strongly supported the new
departure. When, on the 8th of December, the President's annual
message was transmitted and read, the Lecompton Constitution, as
framed and submitted, was therein warmly indorsed and its acceptance
indicated as the future Administration policy.

[Sidenote] Buchanan, Annual Message, December 8, 1857.

The language of this message discloses with what subtle ingenuity
words, phrases, definitions, ideas, and theories were being invented
and plied to broaden and secure every conquest of the pro-slavery
reaction. An elaborate argument was made to defend the enormities of
the Lecompton Constitution. The doctrine of the Silliman letter, that
"slavery exists in Kansas under the Constitution of the United
States," was assumed as a conceded theory. "In emerging from the
condition of territorial dependence into that of a sovereign State,"
the people might vote "whether this important domestic institution
should or should not continue to exist." "Domestic institutions" was
defined to mean slavery. "Free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions"--the phrase employed in the Kansas-Nebraska act--was
construed to mean a vote to continue or discontinue slavery. And "if
any portion of the inhabitants shall refuse to vote, a fair
opportunity to do so having been presented, ... they alone will be
responsible for the consequences." "Should the constitution without
slavery be adopted by the votes of the majority, the rights of
property in slaves now in the Territory are reserved.... These slaves
were brought into the Territory under the Constitution of the United
States and are now the property of their masters. This point has at
length been finally decided by the highest judicial tribunal of the
country."

However blind Buchanan might be to the fact that this extreme
interpretation shocked and alarmed the sentiment of the North; that if
made bef