If remedial measures for Kansas were needed at the beginning of Congress, much more were they needed now.  The bill reported by Douglas for the eventual admission of Kansas had commended itself neither to the leaders, nor to the rank and file, of the party.  There was a general disposition to await the outcome of the national party conventions, before legislating for Kansas.  Douglas made repeated efforts to expedite his bill, but his failure to secure the Democratic nomination seemed to weaken his leadership.  Pressure from without finally spurred the Democratic members of Congress to action.  The enthusiasm of the Republicans in convention and their confident expectation of carrying many States at the North, warned the Democrats that they must make some effort to allay the disturbances in Kansas.  The initiative was taken by Senator Toombs, who drafted a bill conceding far more to Northern sentiment than any yet proposed.  It provided that, after a census had been taken, delegates to a constitutional convention should be chosen on the date of the presidential election in November.  Five competent persons, appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, were to supervise the census and the subsequent registration of voters.  The convention thus chosen was to assemble in December to frame a State constitution and government.[570]

The Toombs bill, with several others, and with numerous amendments, was referred to the Committee on Territories.  Frequent conferences followed at Douglas’s residence, in which the recognized leaders of the party participated.[571] It was decided to support the Toombs bill in a slightly amended form and to make a party measure of it.[572] Prudence warned against attempting to elect Buchanan on a policy of merely negative resistance to the Topeka movement.[573] The Republican members of Congress were to be forced to make a show of hands on a measure which promised substantial relief to the people of Kansas.

In his report of June 30th, Douglas discussed the various measures that had been proposed by Whigs and Republicans, but found the Toombs bill best adapted to “insure a fair and impartial decision of the questions at issue in Kansas, in accordance with the wishes of the bona fide inhabitants.”  A single paragraph from this report ought to have convinced those who subsequently doubted the sincerity of Douglas’s course, that he was partner to no plots against the free expression of public opinion in the Territory.  “In the opinion of your committee, whenever a constitution shall be formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system imperatively demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that fundamental law, without fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United States."[574]