governors for the Territory, who, starting with pro-slavery bias, all
became free-State partizans, and were successively insulted and driven
from the Territory by the pro-slavery faction when in manly protest they
refused to carry out the behests of the Missouri conspiracy. After a
three years' struggle neither faction had been successful, neither party
was satisfied; and the administration of Pierce bequeathed to its
successor the same old question embittered by rancor and defeat.

President Buchanan began his administration with a boldly announced
pro-slavery policy. In his inaugural address he invoked the popular
acceptance of the Dred Scott decision, which he already knew was coming;
and a few months later declared in a public letter that slavery "exists
in Kansas under the Constitution of the United States.... How it ever
could have been seriously doubted is a mystery." He chose for the
governorship of Kansas, Robert J. Walker, a citizen of Mississippi of
national fame and of pronounced pro-slavery views, who accepted his
dangerous mission only upon condition that a new constitution, to be
formed for that State, must be honestly submitted to the real voters of
Kansas for adoption or rejection. President Buchanan and his advisers,
as well as Senator Douglas, accepted this condition repeatedly and
emphatically. But when the new governor went to the Territory, he soon
became convinced, and reported to his chief, that to make a slave State
of Kansas was a delusive hope. "Indeed," he wrote, "it is universally
admitted here that the only real question is this: whether Kansas shall
be a conservative, constitutional, Democratic, and ultimately free
State, or whether it shall be a Republican and abolition State."

As a compensation for the disappointment, however, he wrote later direct
to the President:

"But we must have a slave State out of the southwestern Indian
Territory, and then a calm will follow; Cuba be acquired with the
acquiescence of the North; and your administration, having in reality
settled the slavery question, be regarded in all time to come as a
re-signing and re-sealing of the Constitution.... I shall be pleased
soon to hear from you. Cuba! Cuba! (and Porto Rico, if possible) should
be the countersign of your administration, and it will close in a blaze
of glory."

And the governor was doubtless much gratified to receive the President's
unqualified indorsement in reply: "On the question of submitting