The most significant illustration of the underlying spirit of the struggle was that President Pierce had successively appointed three Democratic governors for the Territory, who, starting with pro-slavery bias, all became free-State partizans, and were successively insulted and driven from the Territory by the pro-slavery faction when in manly protest they refused to carry out the behests of the Missouri conspiracy.  After a three years’ struggle neither faction had been successful, neither party was satisfied; and the administration of Pierce bequeathed to its successor the same old question embittered by rancor and defeat.

President Buchanan began his administration with a boldly announced pro-slavery policy.  In his inaugural address he invoked the popular acceptance of the Dred Scott decision, which he already knew was coming; and a few months later declared in a public letter that slavery “exists in Kansas under the Constitution of the United States....  How it ever could have been seriously doubted is a mystery.”  He chose for the governorship of Kansas, Robert J. Walker, a citizen of Mississippi of national fame and of pronounced pro-slavery views, who accepted his dangerous mission only upon condition that a new constitution, to be formed for that State, must be honestly submitted to the real voters of Kansas for adoption or rejection.  President Buchanan and his advisers, as well as Senator Douglas, accepted this condition repeatedly and emphatically.  But when the new governor went to the Territory, he soon became convinced, and reported to his chief, that to make a slave State of Kansas was a delusive hope.  “Indeed,” he wrote, “it is universally admitted here that the only real question is this:  whether Kansas shall be a conservative, constitutional, Democratic, and ultimately free State, or whether it shall be a Republican and abolition State.”

As a compensation for the disappointment, however, he wrote later direct to the President: 

“But we must have a slave State out of the southwestern Indian Territory, and then a calm will follow; Cuba be acquired with the acquiescence of the North; and your administration, having in reality settled the slavery question, be regarded in all time to come as a re-signing and re-sealing of the Constitution....  I shall be pleased soon to hear from you.  Cuba!  Cuba! (and Porto Rico, if possible) should be the countersign of your administration, and it will close in a blaze of glory.”

And the governor was doubtless much gratified to receive the President’s unqualified indorsement in reply:  “On the question of submitting the constitution to the bona fide resident settlers of Kansas, I am willing to stand or fall.”