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 bona 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.