Far different was the election of members of the territorial legislature in the following spring.  On all hands it was agreed that this legislature would determine whether Kansas should be slave or free soil.  It was regrettable that Governor Reeder postponed the taking of the census until February, since by mid-winter many settlers, who had staked their claims, returned home for the cold season, intending to return with their families in the early spring.  This again was a characteristic feature of frontier history.[537] In March, the governor issued his proclamation of election, giving only three weeks’ notice.  Of those who had returned home, only residents of Missouri and Iowa were able to participate in the election of March 30th, by hastily recrossing into Kansas.  Governor Reeder did his best to guard against fraud.  In his instructions to the judges of election, he warned them that a voter must be “an actual resident”; that is, “must have commenced an active inhabitancy, which he actually intends to continue permanently, and must have made the Territory his dwelling place to the exclusion of any other home."[538] Still, it was not to be expected that bona fide residents could be easily ascertained in communities which had sprung up like mushrooms.  A hastily constructed shack served all the purposes of the would-be voter; and, in last analysis, judges of elections had to rest content with declarations of intentions.  Those who crossed into Kansas after the governor’s proclamation and endeavored to continue actual inhabitancy, were with difficulty distinguished from those who now crossed for the first time, under a similar pretext.  As Douglas subsequently contended with much force, the number of votes cast in excess of the census returns did not in itself prove wholesale fraud.[539]

Under such liability to deception and misjudgment, the territorial authorities held the election which was likely to determine the status of Kansas with respect to slavery.  Both parties were playing for great stakes; passion and violence were the almost inevitable outcome.  Both parties contained desperadoes, who invariably come to the surface in the general mixing which occurs on the frontier.  Both parties committed frauds at the polls.  But the most serious gravamina have been laid at the door of those Blue Lodges of Missouri which deliberately sought to secure the election of pro-slavery candidates by fair means or foul.  The people of western Missouri had come to believe that the fate of slavery in their own Commonwealth hinged upon the future of Kansas.  It was commonly believed that after Kansas, Missouri would be abolitionized.  It was, therefore, with the fierce, unreasoning energy of defenders of their own institutions, that Blue Lodges organized their crusade for Kansas.[540] On election day armed bands of Missourians crossed into Kansas and polled a heavy vote for the pro-slavery candidates, in the teeth of indignant remonstrances.[541]