[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.