decided by only twenty-eight votes, and the question of the popular vote was carried by only the miserable majority of two votes. One did not need a very lively imagination, nor very great party animosity, for this convention, with its body-guard of federal troops, to impress him as a light-shunning conventicle of conspirators. During its last days no journal was kept, or, at least, none could be found.1

On the 7th of November the convention was done with its work. That work corresponded perfectly with what was to be expected from the first two steps it had taken, namely, the election of John Calhoun as president, and of Hand, one of the manufacturers of the Oxford poll-list, as secretary. What the party had lost by the pusillanimity of one part of its members the others had, by redoubled audacity and tenfold craft, endeavored to make up. The border counties were accorded an undue weight in the legislature, from the fact that the fraudulent polllists were made the basis of representation. That the way was paved as smooth as possible, by all sorts of provisions, for the Missourians to intrude themselves at future elections need only be mentioned in passing. The free-soil legislature elected in October was completely crippled by the provision that "all laws now in force in

1 The facts recited are all taken from the Minority Report of J. S. Morrill, Ed. Wade, H. Bennett, D. S. Walbridge and J. Ruffinton. Rep. of the Select Comm. of Fifteen, May 11, 1858. Rep. of Comm., 35th Congr., 1st Sess., vol. III, No. 377, p. 109.- The Boston Traveller was written from Lawrence on the 9th of November: "When the constitution was adopted as a whole, only twenty-seven votes were cast for it, and nine against it. It was with difficulty that a quorum could be secured to sign it, and but thirty-two names were appended to the instrument. A convention elected by a miserable minority and a constitution voted for on its final passage by a minority of the convention!"

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the territory shall continue to be of force until altered, amended or repealed by a legislature under the provisions of this constitution." The hands of the governor were tied by transferring the direction of the election and the examination of the polling-lists entirely to the president of the convention. The officers of election were not required to take the usual oath to discharge the duties of their office conscientiously. The material provision respecting slavery was, verbatim, as follows: "The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and his increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of any property whatever. The legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or without paying the owners, previous to their emancipation, a full equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to the state from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States or territories, so long as any person of the same age or description shall be continued in slavery by the laws of this state." Verily, there lacked but little here to transform the provision which, until the discovery of the "great principle" of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had governed in this matter, into its direct opposite: The abolition of slavery and of involuntary servitude is forever prohibited.

The crowning of the work was the resolutions respect

1 The Independent scarcely exaggerated when it wrote (November 19, 1857): "It (the convention) actually constituted a provisional government for Kansas, whereof its president, United States SurveyorGeneral John Calhoun, is made governor." Somewhat more detailed data regarding Calhoun's powers may be found in Congr. Globe, 1st Sess. 35th Congr., p. 161

ing the popular vote. The convention had decided in favor of a popular vote. The Washington Union of November 18 broke out into enthusiastic jubilation over this news. The problem, it exclaimed, is solved in accordance with the great principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the republicans who live by the eternalization of the troubles in Kansas are ruined.1

This must have had a startling effect on those even who despised Buchanan the politician too much to be able to hate him. The man who could have caused that to be written had no right to complain if the question was asked whether he could be taken seriously.

The Union stated that the "constitution" would be submitted to a popular vote. That was simply a lie, and the organ of the administration lied, fully conscious that it was lying. The voting formula read: "Constitu tion with slavery" or "Constitution with no slavery." Hence, so far as the constitution was concerned, no choice was left to the people; the people had to vote for it; that is, it was forced on the people by the convention; only with respect to slavery so far as could be discovered from the voting formula - was the decision to rest with the people. But the constitution, quite independently of slavery, gave occasion for very many and very weighty

1 "The vexed question is settled-the problem is solved - the dead point of danger is passed all serious trouble about Kansas affairs is over and gone. Another star is added to the republican constellation, not shining on scenes of terror, conflagration and blood, but lending its light to the peaceful pursuits of a contented and prosperous people. . . . This news, so full of hope to every American patriot, will bring sorrow only to one class of our people. The black republican politicians had all their capital staked on the chances of disorder and confusion in Kansas. The enterprise has failed, and they are ruined. The peace of the country, the prosperity of the people, and the safety of the Union is destruction to their hope."

VOTE ON THE CONSTITUTION.

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objections, and the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was not popular sovereignty only in regard to slavery, but popular sovereignty absolutely, that is, in regard to all institutions, and in accordance with this, not only Walker but Buchanan as well had promised to use all his influence to have the constitution submitted to a popular vote. If, therefore, he now approved the resolution of the convention without reserve, he became guilty of a breach of word, and made matters worse by the hypocritical untruth that his word had been fully redeemed by the convention. That the latter endeavored to have people believe that this had, indeed, been done, did not, of course, diminish his guilt.

This, however, was, so to speak, only the introduction to the gigantic fraud which the convention had hatched,. and which the organ of the administration celebrated with such hymns of praise. The voting formula itself was a contemptible lie. The "constitution with no slavery" was a deceitful mockery; the people had to choose between two slavery constitutions, for the "constitution with no slavery " provided that the slavery existing in the territory should not be touched. In one respect it was even worse than the "constitution with slavery." The latter contained provisions on the right of owners to emancipate their slaves, and these provisions were voted out of existence by the formula "constitution with no slavery." What the people were allowed to do was limited to prohibiting the further introduction of slavery; but they had to make Kansas a slave state. The convention had endeavored to veil this under a false formula; but defiant recklessness had, through their success hitherto, become the nature of the slavocracy to too great a degree for them not to be able to find people enough to announce it immediately loudly and triumphantly to the

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world. On the very day on which the convention completed its labors the real state of the case was clearly exposed in a letter from Lecompton to the Jackson Mississippian, with the most audacious frankness. Nor did the correspondent forget to call attention to the fact that, to participation in the popular vote, the condition was attached that the voter should bind himself by oath to support the federal constitution and this state constitution a really ingenious, knavish stratagem, of which Mephistopheles himself might have been proud. On the 26th of November, a day before this letter appeared in the paper named, the Charleston Mercury had, with a broad smile, informed its readers that Walker and the republicans had been completely outwitted by the Lecompton convention; the constitution recited: "And no slavery shall exist in the state of Kansas," but the only object of that provision was to give the gentlemen of the Washington Union a small plank on which they might stand in practicing their feats of jugglery.2

1" Thus you see that whilst, by submitting the question in this form, they are bound to have a ratification of the one or the other, and that while it seems to be an election between a free state and a pro-slavery constitution, it is in fact but a question of the future introduction of slavery that is in controversy; and yet it furnishes our friends in congress a basis on which to rest their vindication of the admission of Kansas as a state under it into the Union, while they would not have it, sent directly from the convention.

"It is the very best proposition for making Kansas a slave state that was submitted for the consideration of the convention." Rep. of Comm., 35th Congr., 1st Sess., vol. III, No. 377, p. 147.

2"It is clear that the pro-slavery party have completely outwitted Walker and Stanton and the whole black republican party; and that, after all, Kansas will apply to congress for admission as a slave state, with a pro-slavery constitution. . . Now, if the right of property in slaves now in this territory shall in no manner be interfered with, how is slavery abolished? It not only exists, but here is a guaranty that it shall in no manner be interfered with. We have