which has divided that Territory, but he did hold up for the future the brightest hopes of an honest and equitable adjustment of all the past difficulties.  He selected and commissioned Robert J. Walker, as Governor, for the express purpose of “pacifying Kansas.”  Pretending to overlook the past causes of trouble, he announced that everything would now be set right by new elections, in which the whole people should have full opportunity of declaring their will.  Mr. Walker went to Kansas with a full determination to carry out this amiable promise of the President.  Both he and his secretary, Mr. Stanton, labored strenuously to convince the people of the Territory of his honest purposes, and, by dint of persuasions, pledges, assurances, and oaths, at length succeeded in procuring a pretty general exercise of the franchise.  The result was a signal overthrow of the minority which had so long ruled by fraud and violence; and the sincerity of the President is tested by the fact, avouched by both Walker and Stanton, that, from the moment of the success of the Free-State party, he was wroth towards his servants.  Stanton was removed and Walker compelled to resign, though their only offence was a laborious prosecution of the President’s own policy.  Ever since then, he has strained every nerve, and at this moment is straining every nerve, to defeat the well-known legally demonstrated wish of the majority.  In the face of his own plighted word, and of the emphatic assurances of his agents, sanctioned by himself, he insists upon imposing on them officers whom they detest and an instrument of government which they spurn.  These people of Kansas,—­who were to be “pacified,”—­to be conciliated,—­to be guarantied a just administration,—­are denounced in the most virulent and abusive terms as refractory, and are threatened with the coercion of a military force, because they are unwilling to submit to outrage!

The excuse offered by the President for this perfidious course is the Lecompton Constitution, which he professes to consider a legal instrument, framed by a legal Convention, and approved by a legal election of the people,—­and which is therefore not to be set aside except by the same sovereign power by which it was created.  It would be a good excuse, if it were not a transparent and monstrous quibble from beginning to end.  The Lecompton Constitution has no one element of legality in it; from the Whereas, to the signatures, it is an imposture;—­for neither had the Legislature, that called the Convention in which it was made, lawful authority to do so,—­nor was that Convention lawfully constituted,—­nor was the alleged adoption of it by the people more than a trick.