their opponents, and on no other ground
did they retain their hold of the popular support. In his inaugural
address, Mr. Buchanan foreshadowed a complete and final adjustment of
every element of discord. He selected, for the accomplishment of his
policy, a statesman of national reputation, experienced in politics,
skilful in administration, and of well-known principles and proclivities
in the practical affairs of government. Mr. Walker accepted the place of
Territorial Governor, under the most urgent entreaties, and on repeated
and distinct pledges on the part of the President that the organization
of Kansas as a State should be unfettered and free. His personal
sympathies were strongly on the side of the party which had so long
ruled with truculent hand in the affairs of the Territory; but he was
none the less resolved that the fairly ascertained majority should have
its way.

Under assurances to that effect, the Free-State men, for the first time
since the great original fraud which had disfranchised them, consented
to enter into an electoral contest with their foes and oppressors.
The result was the return of a Free-State delegate to Congress, and a
Free-State legislature, by a majority which, after the rejection of a
series of patent and wretched frauds, was more than ten to one; and yet
the desperate game of conquest and usurpation was not closed. For, in
the mean time, a convention of delegates to frame a State Constitution
had been summoned to assemble at Lecompton. It was called by the old
spurious legislature, which represented Missouri, and not Kansas; it was
called by a legislature, which, even if not spurious, had no authority
for making such a call; it was called under provisions for a census
and registry of voters which in more than half the Territory were not
complied with; and it was elected by a small proportion of a small
minority, the Free-State men and others refusing to enter into a contest
under proceedings unauthorized at best, and as they believed illegal.
Let it be added, also, that a large number of its members were pledged
to submit the result of their doings to a vote of the people,--according
to what Mr. Buchanan, in his instructions to Governor Walker, and
Governor Walker himself, on the strength of those instructions, had
proclaimed as the policy of "the party."

This Convention, in the prosecution of its gratuitous task, devised the
scheme of a Constitution wholly in the interest of its