ity for his intended neutrality; that is, not to oppose, even by words, the action of the Lecompton convention if it treated the right of the people, guarantied by the Kansas-Nebraska bill and recognized by the Dred Scott decision, of self-determination in organizing the state, as exhausted by the election of a constitutional convention.

The Washington Union of July 7 published an article which was construed to mean that the administration decidedly refused to comply with this desire. When, however, it was examined more closely the doubt could not but suggest itself whether the refusal was to be as decided and unconditional as might appear from the first impression. A direct, popular vote on the constitution, the article said, was certainly not, under all circumstances, an absolute requirement. If no great differences of opinion existed, either in the convention or among the popula tion, it might properly be dispensed with, as has frequently been done without objection. But the previous history of Kansas showed that there, there was no other means to surely ascertain the will of the people. No matter what the constitution might contain, it would always be called a fraud by its opponents, if not approved directly by the people. It would be asked what reason the convention could have had for refusing the popular vote asked for, except the conviction that its work did not meet the will of the people, and this it would be difficult to answer. The controversy would be continued and the will of the majority finally prevail.

If the Union had stopped here, the article would have met with the entire approval of all who honestly desired the settlement of the controversy on the basis of the principle of popular sovereignty. But the organ of the administration raised the further question, Who was the people, that is, what conditions had to be fulfilled to

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have the right of suffrage at the popular voting on the constitution, and its answer was that this was to be determined by the constitutional convention. This may have been quite right theoretically, although, to say the least, it might be a matter for discussion whether it was not rather congress that should determine it, when there was question of transforming a territory into a state. But, in this particular case, it was perhaps expedient to leave that undecided, since the territorial legislature had ordered the elections to a constitutional convention, not by virtue of an enabling act, but proprio motu, and congress reserved full liberty to decide whether, and for what reasons, it would refuse its sanction to the whole proceeding. But the history of Kansas was verily rich enough in examples to show that the settlement of such questions could be most effectually abused in the interest of party, and that a repetition of such foul practices was not to be apprehended of this convention would have been, considering the history of its origin and its composition, an altogether too bold assumption. Must that history and composition not rather awaken the suspicion that the Union wanted to give a friendly hint to the convention as to how, without too gross a disregard of the principle of popular sovereignty, still to do a great deal in the interest of the slavocracy? This suspicion could be allayed all the less by making a show of moral indignation, as the sentence on the right of suffrage in Buchanan's inaugural address sounded very differently. And if a hint were not intended, it was still to be expected that the passage in the

1It is the imperative and indispensable duty (!) of the government of the United States to secure to every resident inhabitant (!) the free and independent expression of his opinion by his vote. This sacred right of each individual (!) must be preserved. Statesm.'s Man., III, p. 2222.

article in the Union would be looked upon as one, and this not by the atrabilious republicans only. But if it was considered such a hint in Lecompton and in the slavocratic camp in general, the further question readily suggested itself, whether the declaration that a popular vote was not necessary under all circumstances, might not be made use of as a back door through which the president, by the employment of proper pressure, might be forced out of the rest of his virtuous reasoning.

If a document emanating directly from the president. but which saw the light only subsequently became known now, such interpretation of the Union article would have been excluded, and the course of events perhaps greatly modified, since it might have been represented to the president in time, i. e., before his disgraceful and fatal change of front had become an accomplished fact, that he had, so to speak, nailed himself fast. He wrote to Walker on the 12th of July, exhorting him not to allow himself to be forced from the programme drawn up, since on that ground he was "irresistible," and announcing his own resolve to "stand or fall" with the demand that the constitution should be submitted to a vote of the people.1

1 "The point on which your and our success depends is the submission of the constitution to the people of Kansas. . . On the question of submitting the constitution to the bona fide resident settlers of Kansas, I am willing to stand or fall. In sustaining such a principle we cannot fall. It is the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill; the principle of popular sovereignty, and the principle at the foundation of all popular government. . . . Should you answer the resolution of the latter (Mississippi), I would advise you to make the great principle of the submission of the constitution to the bona fide residents of Kansas conspicuously prominent. On this you will be irresistible.” Rep. of Comm., 36th Congr., 1st Sess., vol. V, No. 648. pp. 112, 113.

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It by no means required any extraordinary courage to remain true to this resolve. There was still enough honor left in the slavocratic camp to approve it without reserve. Thus, for instance, in an article in the Richmond Examiner, of the 14th of July, the schemes of the "Ultras" were branded in terms as scathing as the most radical of republicans could have employed. Besides, the reports of Walker from Kansas were very satisfactory so far as this question was concerned. The governor was not without anxiety, but it was in the new "revolutionary movements of the free-state people that he saw reason for serious apprehension. It seemed to him that Lane's agitation for a certain military organization of the party and the intention of the citizens of Lawrence to constitute themselves a state under the Topeka constitution, by dint of obstinacy, might again lead to deeds of violence. at any moment. He was, therefore, not satisfied with

"A paltry fraud, a political juggle, a legal swindle, upon the people of Kansas - insisted upon, demanded, clamored for, by the chivalry,' par excellence, by the pink and pick politicians of the south!

"Our tools in the convention will frame a constitution for Kansas; it will be such as the people would repudiate;' 'we will take care to prevent the people from voting upon it; we will juggle it through with a show of mock formalities;' and 'we will accomplish by chicane what we could not have accomplished by straightforward, honest, democratic practice.' Such is the position of the peculiar champions of the south; such the attitude in which they are striving to place the south before the Union and before the world; such the humiliating depths of dishonor - with faith violated, pledges broken, and reputation blasted in which they would sink the noble democracy of the slaveholding states. The fraud is infamous enough in itself, but it is doubly so in being in violation of express pledges given by the democracy of the Union, and participated in, in the most solemn manner, by the ultras themselves." The Washington Union had the boldness to give its commentary of the 18th of July the following heading: "Will the south countenance the fraud?"

an express warning, in his proclamation of July 15 to the citizens of Lawrence, but he asked the president, in accordance with the obligation entered into with him, in the negotiations above referred to, to place at his dis posal a sufficient number of troops, as a posse comitatus. The troops which on account of the Mormon troubles were to have marched to Utah, were, therefore, left in the territory, and the free-state people gave no occasion for an appeal again to powder and lead, while the matter of the constitution was, in Walker's opinion, proceeding most satisfactorily. That in the democratic convention of July 3, in Lecompton, no one had alleged the possibility of making Kansas a domain of slavery, he thought he might construe to mean that it was universally recognized as impossible that Kansas could be made a slave state "in consequence of the laws of climate and the well known will of the people." And on the 15th of July he reported to Cass that frequent conversations with the majority of the delegates to the convention made the adoption of a constitution patterned after those of different slave states seem to him highly probable: security of the right of property in slaves who were such at the time, prohibition of the further importation of slaves, complete exclusion of all free persons of color, and the strictest execution of the fugitive slave law. At a popular vote such a constitution would probably be adopted by a large majority, as free-state democrats and the pro-slavery party could urite on that platform: "Indeed, 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."

1

In his letter of July 12 already mentioned, Buchanan 1 Sen. Doc., 35th Congr., 1st Sess., vol. I, No. 8, p. 132.