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Updated: May 16, 2025
Had Congress admitted Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, the legislature might at its very first session have submitted the question to a vote of the people whether they would or would not have a convention to amend their constitution, either on the slavery or any other question, and have adopted all necessary means for giving speedy effect to the will of the majority.
From California, 1; Illinois, 5; Indiana, 3; New Jersey, 1; New York, 2; Ohio, 6; Pennsylvania, 4. For Lecompton: California, 1; Connecticut, 2; Indiana, 3; New Jersey, 2; New York, 10; Ohio, 2; Pennsylvania, 11.
Returning home in separate squads, they were successively intercepted by the Federal dragoons acting as a posse to the Deputy United States Marshal, who arrested them on civil writs obtained in haste by an active member of the territorial cabal, and to the number of eighty-nine were taken prisoners to Lecompton.
The President's message with the Lecompton constitution was referred to the Committee on Territories and gave rise to three reports: Senator Green of Missouri presented the majority report, recommending the admission of Kansas under this constitution; Senators Collamer and Wade united on a minority report, leaving Douglas to draft another expressing his dissent on other grounds.
So this Lecompton party found the little finger of this Southern Governor to be thicker than the loins of Gov. Geary. Mr. W. stood so high in public position that no man stood higher than himself, save alone the President. He had been a Senator from Mississippi, and had been Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Pierce's Cabinet.
The plot against the freedom of Kansas was conceived in a Congressional breach of faith; it was inaugurated by invasion, bloodshed, and civil war; it was prosecuted for two years through a series of unexampled violences; and it would be strange, if it had not been consummated at Lecompton and Washington by a series of corresponding frauds.
He told Congress that it was impossible to submit the whole instrument to a vote because the free State faction, who were the majority, would vote against any Constitution, however perfect, except their own. He commended the entire regularity of the Lecompton Convention and the fairness with which the slavery question had been submitted to a vote and urged immediate admission.
Out in Kansas the proslavery men, by an unfair vote, had adopted the Lecompton Constitution favoring slavery; President Buchanan urged Congress to admit Kansas with that fraudulent constitution; Douglas opposed that constitution and voted against the admission of Kansas as a slave state; thus angering the President and the South and delighting the Republicans of the North.
I care not whether it is voted up or down." There followed one of those prolonged legislative battles for which the Congress of the United States is justly celebrated. Furious oratory, propositions, counter-propositions, projected compromises, other compromises, and at the end nothing positive. But Douglas had defeated the attempt to bring in Kansas with the Lecompton constitution.
Oxford precinct, in Johnson county, was a place of not over a dozen houses, and polled 124 votes for township officers, yet it reported 1,628 votes for the Lecompton party. When, however, Gov. Walker and Mr. Stanton came to canvass the votes they threw out this Oxford vote. They also set aside 1,200 fraudulent votes in McGee county. The vote at Kickapoo, equally fraudulent, was also set aside.
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