did they retain their hold of the popular support.  In his inaugural address, Mr. Buchanan foreshadowed a complete and final adjustment of every element of discord.  He selected, for the accomplishment of his policy, a statesman of national reputation, experienced in politics, skilful in administration, and of well-known principles and proclivities in the practical affairs of government.  Mr. Walker accepted the place of Territorial Governor, under the most urgent entreaties, and on repeated and distinct pledges on the part of the President that the organization of Kansas as a State should be unfettered and free.  His personal sympathies were strongly on the side of the party which had so long ruled with truculent hand in the affairs of the Territory; but he was none the less resolved that the fairly ascertained majority should have its way.

Under assurances to that effect, the Free-State men, for the first time since the great original fraud which had disfranchised them, consented to enter into an electoral contest with their foes and oppressors.  The result was the return of a Free-State delegate to Congress, and a Free-State legislature, by a majority which, after the rejection of a series of patent and wretched frauds, was more than ten to one; and yet the desperate game of conquest and usurpation was not closed.  For, in the mean time, a convention of delegates to frame a State Constitution had been summoned to assemble at Lecompton.  It was called by the old spurious legislature, which represented Missouri, and not Kansas; it was called by a legislature, which, even if not spurious, had no authority for making such a call; it was called under provisions for a census and registry of voters which in more than half the Territory were not complied with; and it was elected by a small proportion of a small minority, the Free-State men and others refusing to enter into a contest under proceedings unauthorized at best, and as they believed illegal.  Let it be added, also, that a large number of its members were pledged to submit the result of their doings to a vote of the people,—­according to what Mr. Buchanan, in his instructions to Governor Walker, and Governor Walker himself, on the strength of those instructions, had proclaimed as the policy of “the party.”

This Convention, in the prosecution of its gratuitous task, devised the scheme of a Constitution wholly in the interest of its members and of the meagre minority they represented,—­and so objectionable in many respects, that not one in twenty of the voters of the Territory, as Governor Walker informed the writer of this, could or would approve it.  Recognizing Slavery as an existing fact, and perpetuating it in every event, it yet purported to submit the question of Slavery to a determining vote of the people.  This was, however, a mere pretence; for the method proposed for getting at the sense of the people was nothing but a pitiful juggle, according to which no one could vote on the Slavery question who did not