THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION
The year 1857 brings us to a decided change in the affairs of Kansas,
but with occurrences no less remarkable. Active civil war gradually
ceased in the preceding autumn--a result due to the vigorous and
impartial administration of Governor Geary and the arrival of the
inclement winter weather.
[Sidenote] Geary to Marcy, Jan. 19, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 17,
1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. VI., p. 131.
[Sidenote] Geary, Veto Message, Feb. 18, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc.
No. 17, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. VI., p. 167.
On the evening of the day the Legislature met (January 12, 1857), the
pro-slavery party held a large political convention, in which it was
confessed that they were in a hopeless minority in the Territory, and
the general conclusion was reached that it was no longer worth while
to attempt to form a slave-State in Kansas.[1] Many of its hitherto
active leaders immediately and definitely abandoned the struggle. But
the Missouri cabal, intrenched in the various territorial and county
offices, held to their design, though their labors now assumed a
somewhat different character. They denounced Governor Geary in their
resolutions, and devised legislation to further their intrigues. By
the middle of February, under their inspiration, a bill providing for
a convention to frame a State constitution was perfected and enacted.
The Governor immediately sent the Legislature his message, reminding
them that the leading idea of the organic act was to leave the actual
_bonâ fide_ inhabitants of the Territory "perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way," and vetoing
the bill because "the Legislature has failed to make any provision to
submit the constitution when framed to the consideration of the people
for their ratification or rejection." The Governor's argument was
wasted on the predetermined legislators. They promptly passed the act
over his veto.
The cabal was in no mood to be thwarted, and under a show of outward
toleration, if not respect, their deep hostility found such means of
making itself felt that the Governor began to receive insult from
street ruffians, and to become apprehensive for his personal safety.
In such a contest he was single-handed against the whole pro-slavery
town of Lecompton. The foundation of his authority was gradually
sapped; and finding himself no longer sustained at Washington, where
the private appeals and denunciations of the cabal were more
influential than his official reports, he wrote his resignation on
the day of Buchanan's inauguration, and a week later left the Territory
in secrecy as a fugitive. Thus, in less than three years, three
successive Democratic executives had been resisted, disgraced, and
overthrown by the political conspiracy which ruled the Territory; and
Kansas had indeed become, in the phraseology of the day, "the
graveyard of governors."
The Kansas imbroglio was a political scandal of such large
proportions, and so clearly threatened a dangerous schism in the
Democratic party, that the new President, Buchanan, and his new
Cabinet, proceeded to its treatment with the utmost caution. The
subject was fraught with difficulties not of easy solution. The South,
to retain her political supremacy, or even her equality, needed more
slave-States to furnish additional votes in the United States Senate.
To make a slave-State of Kansas, the Missouri Compromise had been
repealed, and a bogus legislature elected and supported by the
successive Missouri invasions and the guerrilla war of 1856. All these
devices had, however, confessedly failed of their object. Northern
emigration and anti-slavery sentiment were clearly in possession of
Kansas, and a majority of voters stood ready upon fair occasion to
place her in the column of free-States. It had become a game on the
chess-board of national politics. The moving pieces stood in Missouri
and Kansas, but the players sat in Washington. In reality it was a
double game. There was plot and under-plot. Beneath the struggle
between the free-States and the slave-States were the intrigue and
deception carried on between Northern Democrats and Southern
Democrats. The Kansas-Nebraska act was a double-tongued statute, and
the Cincinnati platform a Janus-faced banner. Momentary victory was
with the Southern Democrats, for they had secured the nomination and
election of President Buchanan--"a Northern man with Southern
principles."
[Sidenote] Walker to Cass, July 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8,
1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 32.
[Sidenote] Walker to Cass, Dec. 15, 1857. Ibid., p. 122.
Determined to secure whatever prestige could be derived from high
qualification and party influence, Buchanan tendered the vacant
governorship of Kansas to his intimate personal and political friend,
Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, a man of great ability and national
fame, who had been Senator and Secretary of the Treasury. Walker,
realizing fully the responsibility and danger of the trust, after
repeated refusals finally accepted upon two distinct conditions: first,
that General Harney should be "put in special command in Kansas with a
large body of troops, and especially of dragoons and a battery," and
retained there subject to his military directions until the danger
was over; and second, that he "should advocate the submission of the
constitution to the vote of the people for ratification or rejection."
[Sidenote] March 7, 1856. June 25, 1856.
This latter had now become a vital point in the political game. The
recent action of the Territorial Legislature and Geary's already
mentioned veto message were before the President and his Cabinet.[2]
But much more important than these moves in Kansas was the prior
determination of prominent Washington players. During the Kansas civil
war and the Presidential campaign of the previous year, by way of
offset to the Topeka Constitution, both Senator Douglas and Senator
Toombs wrote and introduced in the Senate bills to enable Kansas to
form a State constitution. The first by design, and the second by
accident, contained a clause to submit such constitution, when formed,
to a vote of the people. Both these bills were considered not only by
the Senate Committee on Territories, of which Douglas was chairman,
but also by a caucus of Democratic Senators. Said Senator Bigler: "It
was held, by those most intelligent on the subject, that in view of
all the difficulties surrounding that Territory, [and] the danger of
any experiment at that time of a popular vote, it would be better that
there should be no such provision in the Toombs bill; and it was my
understanding, in all the intercourse I had, that that convention
would make a constitution and send it here without submitting it to
the popular vote."[3]
[Sidenote] Douglas, Milwaukee Speech, October 13, 1860.
This Toombs bill was, after modification in other respects, adopted by
Douglas, and duly passed by the Senate; but the House with an
opposition majority refused its assent. All these preliminaries were
well known to the Buchanan Cabinet, and of course also to Douglas. It
is fair to assume that under such circumstances Walker's emphatic
stipulation was deliberately and thoroughly discussed. Indeed,
extraordinary urging had been necessary to induce him to reconsider
his early refusals. Douglas personally joined in the solicitation.
Because of the determined opposition of his own family, Walker had
promised his wife that he would not go to Kansas without her consent;
and President Buchanan was so anxious on the point that he personally
called on Mrs. Walker and persuaded her to waive her objections.[4]
Under influences like these Walker finally accepted the appointment,
and the President and Cabinet acquiesced in his conditions without
reserve. He wrote his inaugural address in Washington, using the
following language: "I repeat then as my clear conviction that unless
the convention submit the constitution to the vote of the actual
resident settlers, and the election be fairly and justly conducted,
the constitution will be and ought to be rejected by Congress."
[Sidenote] Douglas, Milwaukee Speech, October 13, 1860.
He submitted this draft of his inaugural to President Buchanan, who
read and approved the document and the promise. Secretary Cass wrote
his official instructions in accordance with it. On Walker's journey
West he stopped at Chicago and submitted his inaugural to Douglas, who
also indorsed his policy. The new Governor fondly believed he had
removed every obstacle to success, and every possibility of
misunderstanding or disapproval by the Administration, such as had
befallen his predecessors. But President Buchanan either deceived him
at the beginning, or betrayed him in the end.
[Sidenote] Walker, Testimony, Covode Committee Report, p. 109.
With Governor Walker there was sent a new Territorial secretary.
Woodson, who had so often abused his powers during his repeated
service as acting Governor, was promoted to a more lucrative post to
create the vacancy. Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, formerly a
representative in Congress, a man of talent and, as the event proved,
also a man of courage, was made secretary. Both Walker and Stanton
being from slave-States, it may be presumed that the slavery question
was considered safe in their hands. Walker, indeed, entertained
sentiments more valuable to the South in this conjuncture. He believed
in the balance of power; he preferred that the people of Kansas should
make it a slave-State; he was "in favor of maintaining the equilibrium
of the Government by giving the South a majority in the Senate, while
the North would always necessarily have a majority in the House of
Representatives." Both also entered on their mission with the feelings
entertained by the President and Democratic party; namely, that the
free-State men were a mischievous insurrectionary faction, willfully
disturbing the peace and defying the laws. Gradually, however, their
personal observation convinced them that this view was a profound
error.
[Sidenote] Walker to Buchanan, June 28, 1857. Ibid., p. 115.
[Sidenote] Walker, Testimony. Ibid., p. 107.
[Sidenote] Walker, Inaugural, May 27, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8,
1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 11.
Governor Walker arrived in the Territory late in May, and it required
but short investigation to satisfy him that any idea of making Kansas
a slave-State was utterly preposterous. Had everything else been
propitious, climate alone seemed to render it impossible. But popular
sentiment was also overwhelmingly against it; he estimated that the
voters were for a free-State more than two to one. All the efforts of
the pro-slavery party to form a slave-State seemed to be finally
abandoned. If he could not make Kansas a slave-State, his next desire
was to make her a Democratic State. "And the only plan to accomplish
this was to unite the free-State Democrats with the pro-slavery party,
and all those whom I regarded as conservative men, against the more
violent portion of the Republicans." He, therefore, sought by fair
words to induce the free-State men to take part in the election of
delegates to the constitutional convention. His inaugural address,
quoting the President's instructions, promised that such election
should be free from fraud and violence; that the delegates should be
protected in their deliberations; and that if unsatisfactory, "you may
by a subsequent vote defeat the ratification of the constitution."
[Illustration: ROBERT J. WALKER.]
[Sidenote] Walker, Topeka Speech, June 6, 1857, in "Washington
Union" of June 27, 1857.
This same policy was a few weeks later urged at Topeka, where a mass
meeting of the free-State men was called to support and instruct
another sitting of the "insurrectionary" free-State Legislature
elected under the Topeka Constitution. The Governor found a large
assemblage, and a very earnest discussion in progress, whether the
"Legislature" should pursue only nominal action, such as would in
substance amount to a petition for redress of grievances, or whether
they should actually organize their State government, and pass a
complete code of laws. The moderate free-State men favored the former,
the violent and radical the latter, course. When their mass meeting
adjourned, they called on the Governor at his lodgings; he made a
speech, in which he renewed the counsels and promises of his inaugural
address. "The Legislature," said he, "has called a convention to
assemble in September next. That constitution they will or they will
not submit to the vote of a majority of the then actual resident
settlers of Kansas. If they do not submit it, I will join you,
fellow-citizens, in lawful opposition to their course. And I cannot
doubt, gentlemen, that one much higher than I, the Chief Magistrate
of the Union, will join you in that opposition." His invitation to
them to participate in the election of a convention produced no
effect; they still adhered to their resolve to have nothing to do
with any affirmative proceedings under the bogus laws or Territorial
Legislature. But the Governor's promise of a fair vote on the
constitution was received with favor. "Although this mass convention,"
reports the Governor, "did not adopt fully my advice to abandon the
whole Topeka movement, yet they did vote down by a large majority the
resolutions prepared by the more violent of their own party in favor
of a complete State organization and the adoption of a code of State
laws."
[Sidenote] Walker to Cass, July 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8,
1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 27.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 29.
[Sidenote] Walker to Cass, July 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8,
1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 30.
If the Governor was gratified at this result as indicative of probable
success in his official administration, he rejoiced yet more in its
significance as a favorable symptom of party politics. "The result of
the whole discussion at Topeka," he reported, "was regarded by the
friends of law and order as highly favorable to their cause, and as
the commencement of a great movement essential to success; viz., the
separation of the free-State Democrats from the Republicans, who had
to some extent heretofore cooperated under the name of the free-State
party." Another party symptom gave the Governor equal, if not greater,
encouragement. On the 2d and 3d of July the "National Democratic" or
pro-slavery party of the Territory met in convention at Lecompton. The
leaders were out in full force. The hopelessness of making Kansas a
slave-State was once more acknowledged, the Governor's policy
indorsed, and a resolution "against the submission of the constitution
to a vote of the people was laid on the table as a test vote by
forty-two to one." The Governor began already to look upon his
counsels and influence as a turning-point in national destiny.
"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; and that the course pursued
by me is the only one which will prevent the last most calamitous
result, which, in my opinion, would soon seal the fate of the
republic."
[Sidenote] F.P. Stanton's Speech, Philadelphia, February 8, 1858.
Pamphlet.
In his eagerness to reform the Democratic party of Kansas, and to
strengthen the Democratic party of the nation against the assaults and
dangers of "abolitionism," the Governor was not entirely frank; else
he would at the same time have reported, what he was obliged later to
explain, that the steps taken to form a constitution from which he
hoped so much were already vitiated by such defects or frauds as to
render them impossible of producing good fruit. The Territorial law
appointing the election of delegates provided for a census and a
registry of voters, to be made by county officers appointed by the
Territorial Legislature. These officers so neglected or failed to
discharge their duty, that in nearly half the organized counties of
the interior no attempt whatever was made to obtain the census or
registration; and in the counties lying on the Missouri border, where
the pro-slavery party was strong, the work of both was exceedingly
imperfect, and in many instances with notorious discrimination against
free-State voters. While the disfranchised counties had a comparatively
sparse population, the number of voters in them was too considerable
to be justly denied their due representation.[5] The apportionment of
delegates was based upon this defective registration and census, and
this alone would have given the pro-slavery party a disproportionate
power in the convention. But at the election of delegates on the 15th
of June, the free-State men, following their deliberate purpose and
hitherto unvarying practice of non-conformity to the bogus laws,
abstained entirely from voting. "The consequence was that out of the
9250 voters whose names had been registered ... there were in all
about 2200 votes cast, and of these the successful candidate received
1800."
[Sidenote] Walker to Buchanan, June 28, 1857. Report Covode
Committee, p. 118.
"The black Republicans," reported the Governor, "would not vote, and
the free-State Democrats were kept from voting by the fear that the
constitution would not be submitted by the convention, and that by
voting they committed themselves to the proceeding of the convention.
But for my inaugural, circulated by thousands, and various speeches
all urging the people to vote, there would not have been one thousand
votes polled in the Territory, and the convention would have been a
disastrous failure."
But this was not the only evil. The apportionment of the members of
the Territorial Legislature to be chosen the ensuing autumn was also
based upon this same defective registry and census. Here again
disproportionate power accrued to the pro-slavery party, and the
free-State men loudly charged that it was a new contrivance for the
convenience of Missouri voters. Governor Walker publicly deplored all
these complications and defects; but he counseled endurance, and
constantly urged in mitigation that in the end the people should have
the privilege of a fair and direct vote upon their constitution. That
promise he held aloft as a beacon-light of hope and redress. This
attitude and policy, frequently reported to Washington, was not
disavowed or discouraged by the President and Cabinet.
The Governor, however, soon found a storm brewing in another quarter.
When the newspapers brought copies of his inaugural address, his
Topeka speech, and the general report of his Kansas policy back to the
Southern States, there arose an ominous chorus of protest and
denunciation from the whole tribe of fire-eating editors and
politicians. What right had the Governor to intermeddle? they
indignantly demanded. What call to preach about climate, what business
to urge submission of the constitution to popular vote, or to promise
his own help to defeat it if it were not submitted; what authority to
pledge the President and Administration to such a course! The
convention was sovereign, they claimed, could do what it pleased, and
no thanks to the Governor for his impertinent advice. The Democratic
State Convention of Georgia took the matter in hand, and by resolution
denounced Walker's inaugural address, and asked his removal from
office. The Democratic State Convention of Mississippi followed suit,
and called the inaugural address an unjust discrimination against the
rights of the South, and a dictatorial intermeddling with the high
public duty intrusted to the convention.
Walker wrote a private letter to Buchanan, defending his course, and
adding: "Unless I am thoroughly and cordially sustained by the
Administration here, I cannot control the convention, and we shall
have anarchy and civil war. With that cordial support the convention
(a majority of whose delegates I have already seen) will do what is
right. I shall travel over the whole Territory, make speeches, rouse
the people in favor of my plan, and see all the delegates. But your
cordial support is indispensable, and I never would have come here,
unless assured by you of the cordial coöperation of all the Federal
officers.... The extremists are trying your nerves and mine, but what
can they say when the convention submits the constitution to the
people and the vote is given by them? But we must have a slave-State
out of the south-western 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."[6]
The Governor had reason to be proud of the full and complete
reëndorsement which this appeal brought from his chief. Under date of
July 12, 1857, the President wrote in reply: "On the question of
submitting the constitution to the _bonâ 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. The more it is discussed the stronger it
will become. Should the convention of Kansas adopt this principle, all
will be settled harmoniously, and with the blessing of Providence you
will return triumphantly from your arduous, important, and responsible
mission. The strictures of the Georgia and Mississippi Conventions
will then pass away and be speedily forgotten. In regard to Georgia,
our news from that State is becoming better every day; we have not yet
had time to hear much from Mississippi. Should you answer the
resolution of the latter, I would advise you to make the great
principle of the submission of the constitution to the _bonâ fide_
residents of Kansas conspicuously prominent. On this you will be
irresistible."[7]
The delegates to the constitutional convention, chosen in June, met
according to law at Lecompton, September 7, and, having spent five
days in organization, adjourned their session to October 19. The
object of this recess was to await the issue of the general election
of October 5, at which a full Territorial Legislature, a delegate to
Congress, and various county officers were to be chosen.
[Sidenote] Wilder, p. 133.
By the action of the free-State men this election was now made a
turning-point in Kansas politics. Held together as a compact party
by their peaceful resistance to the bogus laws, emigration from the
North had so strengthened their numbers that they clearly formed a
majority of the people of the Territory. A self-constituted and
self-regulated election held by them for sundry officials under their
Topeka Constitution, revealed a numerical strength of more than seven
thousand voters. Feeling that this advantage justified them in
receding from their attitude of non-conformity, they met in convention
towards the end of August, and while protesting against the "wicked
apportionment," resolved that "whereas Governor Walker has repeatedly
pledged himself that the people of Kansas should have a full and fair
vote, before impartial judges, at the election to be held on the first
Monday in October, ... we the people of Kansas, in mass convention
assembled, agree to participate in said election."
[Sidenote] Oct. 5, 1857.
Governor Walker executed his public promises to the letter. A movement
of United States troops to Utah was in progress, and about two
thousand of these were detained by order until after election day.
Stationed at ten or twelve different points in the Territory, they
served by their mere presence to overawe disorder, and for the first
time in the history of Kansas the two opposing parties measured their
strength at the ballot-box. The result was an overwhelming triumph for
the free-State party. For delegate in Congress, Ransom, the Democratic
candidate, received 3799 votes; Parrott, the Republican candidate,
7888--a free-State majority of 4089. For the Legislature, even under
the defective apportionment, the council stood 9 free-State members
to 4 Democrats, and the House 24 free-State members to 15 Democrats.
[Sidenote] Stanton, Speech at Philadelphia, February 8, 1858.
[Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, October 19, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc.
No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 103.
[Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, Oct. 22, 1857. Ibid., pp. 104-6.
[Sidenote] Walker, Proclamation, October 19, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc.
No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 104.
That the pro-slavery cabal would permit power to slip from their grasp
without some extraordinary effort was scarcely to be expected. When
the official returns were brought from the various voting-places to
the Governor's office, there came from Oxford, a single precinct in
Johnson County, "a roll of paper, forty or fifty feet long, containing
names as thickly as they could be written," and a large part of which
were afterwards discovered to have been literally copied from an old
Cincinnati directory. This paper purported to be a return of 1628
votes for the eleven pro-slavery candidates for the Legislature in
that district, and if counted it would elect eight members of the
House and three of the council by a trifling majority, and thereby
change the political complexion and power of the Legislature.
Inspection showed the document to be an attempt to commit a stupendous
fraud; and after visiting the locality ("a village with six houses,
including stores, and without a tavern") and satisfying himself of the
impossibility of such a vote from such a place, Governor Walker
rejected the whole return from Oxford precinct for informality, and
gave certificates of election to the free-State candidates elected as
appeared by the other regular returns. A similar paper from McGee
County with more than 1200 names was treated in like manner. Judge
Cato issued his writ of mandamus to compel the Governor to give
certificates to the pro-slavery candidates, but without success. The
language of Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton in a proclamation
announcing their action deserves remembrance and imitation. "The
consideration that our own party by this decision will lose the
majority in the legislative assembly does not make our duty in the
premises less solemn and imperative. The elective franchise would be
utterly valueless, and free government itself would receive a deadly
blow, if so great an outrage as this could be shielded under the cover
of mere forms and technicalities. We cannot consent in any manner to
give the sanction of our respective official positions to such a
transaction. Nor can we feel justified to relieve ourselves of the
proper responsibility of our offices, in a case where there is no
valid return, by submitting the question to the legislative assembly,
and in that very act giving the parties that might claim to be chosen
by this spurious vote the power to decide upon their own election."
The decisive free-State victory, the Oxford and McGee frauds,[8] and
the Governor's fearless action in exposing and rejecting them, called
forth universal comment; and under the new political conditions which
they revealed, created intense interest in the further proceedings of
the Lecompton Constitutional Convention. That body reassembled
according to adjournment on the 19th of October. Elected in the
preceding June without any participation by free-State voters, the
members were all of the pro-slavery party, and were presided over by
John Calhoun, the same man who, as county surveyor of Sangamon County,
Illinois, employed Abraham Lincoln as his deputy in 1832.
At the June election, while he and his seven colleagues from Douglas
County were yet candidates for the convention, they had circulated a
written pledge that they would submit the constitution to the people
for ratification. This attitude was generally maintained by them till
the October election. But when by that vote they saw their faction
overwhelmed with defeat, they and others undertook to maintain
themselves in power by an unprecedented piece of political jugglery.
Calhoun, who was surveyor-general of the Territory, employed a large
number of subordinates, and was one of the most able and unscrupulous
leaders in the pro-slavery cabal. A large majority of the convention
favored the establishment of slavery; only the question of a popular
vote on ratification or rejection excited controversy.
An analysis shows that the principle of delegated authority had become
attenuated to a remarkable degree. The defective registration excluded
a considerable number (estimated at about one-sixth) of the legal
voters. Of the 9250 registered, only about 2200 voted, all told. Of
these 2200, only about 1800 votes were given for the successful
candidates for delegate. Of the whole sixty delegates alleged to have
been chosen, "but forty-three," says a Committee Report, "participated
in the work of the convention. Sessions were held without a quorum,
and the yeas and nays often show that but few above thirty were
present. It is understood, and not denied, that but twenty-eight of
these--less than half of a full house of sixty--decided the
pro-slavery or free-State question; and upon the question of
submission of their work to the will of the people, the pro-slavery
party carried the point by a majority of two votes only. It is quite
in keeping with the character of this body and its officers to find
the journal of its proceedings for the last days missing."[9]
Their allotted task was completed in a short session of about three
weeks; the convention adjourned November 7, forty-three of the fifty
delegates present having been induced to sign the constitution. When
the document was published the whole country was amazed to see what
perversity and ingenuity had been employed to thwart the unmistakable
popular will. Essentially a slave-State constitution of the most
pronounced type, containing the declaration that the right of property
in slaves is "before and higher than any constitutional sanction," it
made the right to vote upon it depend on the one hand on a test oath
to "support this constitution" in order to repel conscientious
free-State voters, and on the other hand on mere inhabitancy on the
day of election to attract nomadic Missourians; it postponed the right
to amend or alter for a period of seven years; it kept the then
existing territorial laws in force until abrogated by State
legislation; it adopted the late Oxford fraud as a basis of
apportionment; it gave to Calhoun, the presiding officer, power to
designate the precincts, the judges of election, and to decide finally
upon the returns in the vote upon it, besides many other questionable
or inadmissible provisions. Finally the form of submission to popular
vote to be taken on the 21st of December was prescribed to be,
"constitution with slavery" or "constitution with no slavery," thus
compelling the adoption of the constitution in any event.
[Sidenote] Walker, Testimony, Report Covode Committee, p. 110.
[Sidenote] Martin, Testimony, Report Covode Committee, p. 159.
[Sidenote] Ibid., pp. 170-1.
There is a personal and political mystery underlying this transaction
which history will probably never solve. Only a few points of
information have come to light, and they serve to embarrass rather
than aid the solution. The first is that Calhoun, although the friend
and protégé of Douglas, and also himself personally pledged to
submission, came to the Governor and urged him to join in the new
programme as to slavery,--alleging that the Administration had changed
its policy, and now favored this plan,--and tempted Walker with a
prospect of the Presidency if he would concur. Walker declared such a
change impossible, and indignantly spurned the proposal. The second is
that one Martin, a department clerk, was, after confidential
instructions from Secretary Thompson and Secretary Cobb, of Buchanan's
Cabinet, sent to Kansas in October, ostensibly on department business;
that he spent his time in the lobby and the secret caucuses of the
convention. Martin testifies that these Cabinet members favored
submission, but that Thompson wished it understood that he was
unwilling to oppose the admission of Kansas "if a pro-slavery
constitution should be made and sent directly to Congress by the
convention." A wink was as good as a nod with that body, or rather
with the cabal which controlled it; and after a virtuous dumb-show of
opposition, it made a pretense of yielding to the inevitable, and
acted on the official suggestion. This theory is the more plausible
because Martin testifies further that he himself drafted the slavery
provision which was finally adopted. The third point is that the
President inexcusably abandoned his pledges to the Governor and
adopted this Cobb-Thompson-Calhoun contrivance, instead of keeping his
word and dismissing Calhoun, as honor dictated. This course becomes
especially remarkable in view of the fact that the change did not
occur until after Walker's rejection of the fraudulent Oxford returns,
which action placed the legislative power of the Territory in the
hands of the newly elected free-State Legislature, as already related.
On the same day (October 22, 1857) on which Walker and Stanton issued
their proclamation rejecting the fraudulent returns, President
Buchanan wrote another highly commendatory letter to Governor Walker.
As it has never before been published, its full text will have special
historical interest.
WASHINGTON CITY,
22d October, 1857.
MY DEAR SIR: I have received your favor of the tenth instant by
Captain Pleasonton and am rejoiced to learn from you, what I had
previously learned from other less authentic sources, that the
convention of Kansas will submit the constitution to the people.
It is highly gratifying that the late election passed off so
peacefully; and I think we may now fairly anticipate a happy
conclusion to all the difficulties in that Territory. Your
application for a month's leave of absence has been granted to
commence after the adjournment of the convention. During its
session your presence will be too important to be dispensed with.
I shall be glad to see you before you publish anything. The whole
affair is now gliding along smoothly. Indeed, the revulsion in the
business of the country seems to have driven all thoughts of
"bleeding Kansas" from the public mind. When and in what manner
anything shall be published to revive the feeling, is a question
of serious importance. I am persuaded that with every passing day
the public are more and more disposed to do you justice. You
certainly do injustice to Harris, the editor of the "Union." In
the beginning I paid some attention to the course of the paper in
regard to yourself, and I think it was unexceptionable: I know he
stood firm amidst a shower of abuse from the extremists. I never
saw nor did I ever hear of the communication published in the
"Union" to which you refer, and Harris has no recollection of it.
I requested him to find me the number and send it to me; but this
he has not done. He is not responsible in any degree for the
non-publication of the letters to which you refer.[10] I knew
nothing of them until after the receipt of yours; and upon inquiry
I found their publication had been prevented by Mr. Cobb under a
firm conviction that they would injure both yourself and the
Administration.
Whether he judged wisely or not I cannot say, for I never saw
them. That he acted in fairness and friendship I have not a doubt.
He was anxious that General Whitfield should publish a letter and
prepared one for him, expecting he would sign it before he left.
He sent this letter after him for his approval and signature; but
it has not been returned. I know not what are its contents.
General W. doubtless has the letter in his possession. Beyond all
question, the motives of Mr. Cobb were proper. Mrs. Walker and
Mrs. Bache have just left me after a half hour's very agreeable
conversation. Mrs. Walker desires me to inform you the family are
all well and sends her love.
From your friend, very respectfully,
JAMES BUCHANAN.
Hon. ROBERT J. WALKER.[11]
[Sidenote] Report Covode Committee, p. 111.
The question naturally occurs, for whom did Calhoun speak when he
approached Governor Walker, offering him the bribe of the Presidency
and assuring him that the Administration had changed its mind? That
was before, or certainly not long after, the probable receipt of this
letter in Kansas, for the Governor left the Territory (November 16)
about one week after the adjournment of the Lecompton Convention. The
question becomes still more pressing owing to Governor Walker's
testimony that when he reached Washington, "the President himself
distinctly and emphatically assured me that he had not authorized
anybody to say that he had approved of that [Lecompton] programme." On
whose authority, then, did Calhoun declare that the Administration had
changed its mind?
[Illustration: FREDERICK P. STANTON.]
[Sidenote] John Bell, Senate Speech, March 18, 1858.
This query brings us to another point in President Buchanan's letter
of October 22, in which he mentions that Secretary Cobb, of his
Cabinet, had without his knowledge suppressed the publication of
certain letters in the "Washington Union." These were, as we learn
elsewhere, the letters in which some of the Kansas pro-slavery leaders
repeated their declaration of the hopelessness of any further contest
to make Kansas a slave-State. Why this secret suppression by Secretary
Cobb? There is but one plausible explanation of this whole chain of
contradictions. The conclusion is almost forced upon us that a Cabinet
intrigue, of which the President was kept in ignorance, was being
carried on, under the very eyes of Mr. Buchanan, by those whom he
himself significantly calls "the extremists"--a plot to supersede his
own intentions and make him falsify his own declarations. As in the
case of similar intrigues by the same agents a few years later, he had
neither the wit to perceive nor the will to resist.
[Sidenote] Stanton, Philadelphia Speech, Feb. 8, 1858.
The protest of the people of the Territory against the extraordinary
action of the Lecompton Convention almost amounted to a popular
revolt. This action opened a wide door to fraud, and invited Missouri
over to an invasion of final and permanent conquest. Governor Walker
had quitted the Territory on his leave of absence, and Secretary
Stanton was acting Governor. "The people in great masses," he says,
"and the Legislature that had been elected, with almost a unanimous
voice called upon me to convene the Legislature, in order that they
might take such steps as they could to counteract the misfortune which
they conceived was about to befall them in the adoption of this
constitution," As already stated, Stanton had come to Kansas with the
current Democratic prejudices against the free-State party. But his
whole course had been frank, sincere, and studiously impartial, and
the Oxford fraud had completely opened his eyes. "I now discovered for
the first time to my entire satisfaction why it was that the great
mass of the people of the Territory had been dissatisfied with their
government, and were ready to rebel and throw it off."
Having, like Walker, frequently and earnestly assured the people of
their ultimate right to ratify or reject the work of the convention,
he was personally humiliated by the unfairness and trickery of which
that body was guilty. Under the circumstances he could not hesitate in
his duty. By proclamation he convened the new Legislature in extra
session.
The members respected the private pledge they had given him to engage
in no general legislation; but provided by law for an investigation of
the Oxford and McGee frauds, and for an election to be held on January
4, 1858 (the day fixed by the Lecompton Constitution for the election
of State officers and a State legislature), at which the people might
vote for the Lecompton Constitution or against it. Thus in the course
of events two separate votes were taken on this notorious document.
The first, provided for in the instrument itself, took place on the
21st of December, 1857. Detachments of troops were stationed at
several points; the free-State men abstained from voting; the election
was peaceable; and in due time Calhoun proclaimed that 6143 ballots
had been cast "for the constitution with slavery," and 589 "for the
constitution with no slavery." But the subsequent legislative
investigation disclosed a gross repetition of the Oxford fraud, and
proved the actual majority, in a onesided vote, to have been only
3423. The second election occurred on January 4, 1858, under authority
of the legislative act. At this election the pro-slavery party voted
for the State officers, but in its turn abstained from voting on the
constitution, the result being--against the Lecompton Constitution,
10,226; for the Lecompton Constitution with slavery, 138; for the
Lecompton Constitution without slavery, 24.[12]
This emphatic rejection of the Lecompton Constitution by a direct vote
of the people of Kansas sealed its fate. We shall see further on what
persistent but abortive efforts were made in Congress once more to
galvanize it into life. The free-State party were jubilant; but the
pro-slavery cabal, foiled and checked, was not yet dismayed or
conquered. For now there was developed, for the first time in its full
proportions, the giant pro-slavery intrigue which proved that the
local conspiracy of the Atchison-Missouri cabal was but the image and
fraction of a national combination, finding its headquarters in the
Administration, first of President Pierce, and now of President
Buchanan; working patiently and insidiously through successive efforts
to bring about a practical subversion of the whole theory and policy
of the American Government. It linked the action of Border Ruffians,
presidential aspirants, senates, courts, and cabinets into efficient
coöperation; leading up, step by step, from the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, through the Nebraska bill, border conquest, the Dred Scott
decision, the suppression of the submission clause in the Toombs bill,
and the extraordinary manipulation and machinery of the Lecompton
Constitution, towards the final overthrow of the doctrine that "all
men are created equal," and the substitution of the dogma of property
in man; towards the judicial construction that property rights in
human beings are before and above constitutional sanction, and that
slavery must find protection and perpetuity in States as well as in
Territories.
[Sidenote] Cass to Stanton, December 2, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc.
No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., pp. 112-13.
[Sidenote] Cass to Stanton, December 8, 1857. Ibid., p. 113.
[Sidenote] Cass to Denver, December 11th, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No.
8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. I., p. 120.
The first weather-sign came from Washington. On the day after Acting
Governor Stanton convened the October Legislature in special session,
and before news of the event reached him, Secretary Cass transmitted
to him advance copies of the President's annual message, in which the
Lecompton Constitution was indorsed in unqualified terms. A week later
he was admonished to conform to the views of the President in his
official conduct. At this point the State Department became informed
of what had taken place, and the acting Governor had short shrift. On
December 11 Cass wrote to J.W. Denver, Esq.: "You have already been
informed that Mr. Stanton has been removed from the office of
Secretary of the Territory of Kansas and that you have been appointed
in his place." Cass further explained that the President "was
surprised to learn that the secretary and acting Governor had, on the
1st of December, issued his proclamation for a special session of the
Territorial Legislature on the 7th instant, only a few weeks in
advance of its regular time of meeting, and only fourteen days before
the decision was to be made on the question submitted by the
convention. This course of Mr. Stanton, the President seriously
believes, has thrown a new element of discord among the excited people
of Kansas, and is directly at war, therefore, with the peaceful policy
of the Administration. For this reason he has felt it his duty to
remove him."
Walker, already in Washington on leave of absence, could no longer
remain silent. He was as pointedly abandoned and disgraced by the
Administration as was his subordinate. In a dignified letter
justifying his own course, which, he reminded them, had never been
criticized or disavowed, he resigned the governorship. "From the
events occurring in Kansas as well as here," he wrote, "it is evident
that the question is passing from theories into practice; and that as
governor of Kansas I should be compelled to carry out new
instructions, differing on a vital question from those received at the
date of my appointment. Such instructions I could not execute
consistently with my views of the Federal Constitution, of the Kansas
and Nebraska bill, or with my pledges to the people of Kansas." "The
idea entertained by some that I should see the Federal Constitution
and the Kansas-Nebraska bill overthrown and disregarded, and that,
playing the part of a mute in a pantomime of ruin, I should acquiesce
by my silence in such a result, especially where such acquiescence
involved, as an immediate consequence, a disastrous and sanguinary
civil war, seems to me most preposterous."[13]
The conduct and the language of Walker and Stanton bear a remarkable
significance when we remember that they had been citizens of slave
States and zealous Democratic partisans, and that only hard practical
experience and the testimony of their own eyes had forced them to join
their predecessors in the political "graveyard." "The ghosts on the
banks of the Styx," said Seward, "constitute a cloud scarcely more
dense than the spirits of the departed Governors of Kansas, wandering
in exile and sorrow for having certified the truth against falsehood
in regard to the elections between Freedom and Slavery in Kansas."
----------
[1] January 12, 1857, Wilder, p. 113. Bell, Speech in Senate, March
18, 1858. Appendix "Globe," p. 137.
[2] Geary to Marcy, Feb. 21, 1857, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 17, 1st Sess.
35th Cong. Vol. VI., p. 178.
[3] Bigler, Senate Speech, Dec. 9, 1857. "Globe," p. 21. See also
Bigler, Dec. 21, 1857. "Globe," p. 113.
[4] Walker, Testimony before the Covode Committee. Reports of
Committees H.R. 1st Sess. 36th Cong. Vol. V., pp. 105-6.
[5] "These fifteen counties in which there was no registry gave a
much larger vote at the October election, even with the six months'
qualification, than the whole vote given to the delegates who signed
the Lecompton Constitution on the 7th November last."--[Walker to
Cass, December 15, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess. 35th Cong.
Vol. I, p. 128.]
[6] Walker to Buchanan, June 28, 1857. Report Covode Committee, pp.
117-19.
[7] Buchanan to Walker, July 12, 1857. Report Covode Committee, p.
112.
[8] The ingenuity which evolved 1600 Kansas votes from an old
Cincinnati directory and 1200 more from an uninhabited county, was not
exhausted by that prodigious labor. The same influences, and perhaps
the same manipulators, produced a companion piece known by the name
of the "candle-box fraud." At the election of January 4, 1858, for
officers under the Lecompton Constitution, the returns from Delaware
Agency underwent such suspicious handling that an investigating
commission of the Legislature, by aid of a search-warrant, found them
secreted in a candle-box buried under a woodpile near Calhoun's
"surveyor-general's office" at Lecompton. A forged list of 379 votes
had been substituted for the original memorandum of only forty-three
votes which had been cut from the certificate of the judges; the votes
on the forged list being intended for the pro-slavery candidates.
During the investigation Calhoun was arrested, but liberated by Judge
Cato on _habeas corpus_, after which he immediately went to Missouri,
and from there to Washington. The details and testimony are found in
House Com. Reports, 1st Sess. 35th Cong. Vol. III, Report No. 377.
[9] Minority Report, Select Com. of Fifteen. Report No. 377, page 109,
Vol. III., H.R. Reports, 1st Sess. 35th Cong.
This "missing link," no less than the remaining portion of the journal
printed in the proceedings of the investigating committee, is itself
strong circumstantial proof of the imposture underlying the whole
transaction. Many sections of the completed constitution are not even
mentioned in the journal; it does not contain the submission clause of
the schedule, and the authenticity of the document rests upon the
signature and the certificate of John Calhoun without other
verification.
[10] "Dr. Tebbs and General Whitfield a month since left very strong
letters for publication with the editor of the 'Union' which he
promised to publish. His breach of this promise is a gross outrage. If
not published immediately our success in convention materially depends
on my getting an immediate copy at Lecompton. My friends here all
regard now the 'Union' as an enemy and encouraging by its neutrality
the fire-eaters not to submit the constitution. Very well, the facts
are so clear that I can get along without the 'Union,' but he had no
right to suppress Dr. Tebbs's letter. I shall in due time expose that
transaction."--Extract from a letter of Robert J. Walker to James
Buchanan, dated October, 1857.
[11] For this autograph letter and other interesting manuscripts, we
are indebted to General Duncan S. Walker, a son of the Governor, now
residing in Washington, D.C.
[12] Under an Act of Congress popularly known as the "English Bill,"
this same Lecompton Constitution was once more voted upon by the
people of Kansas on August 2, 1858, with the following result: for the
proposition, 1788; against it, 11,300.--Wilder, "Annals of Kansas,"
pp. 186-8.
[13] Walker to Cass, Dec. 16, 1857. Senate Ex. Doc. No. 8, 1st Sess.,
35th Cong. Vol. I., pp. 131, 130.