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 cooeperation 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 reendorsement 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 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.  The more it is discussed