The master-stroke of the convention, however, was the provision for submitting the constitution to the vote of the people.Voters were not permitted to accept or reject the instrument; all votes were to be for the constitution either "with slavery" or "with no slavery." But the document itself recognized slavery as already existing and declared the right of slave property like other property "before and higher than any constitutional sanction."Other provisions made emancipation difficult by providing in any case for complete monetary remuneration and for the consent of the owners.There were numerous other provisions offensive to free-state men.It had been rightly surmised that they would take no part in such an election and that "the constitution with slavery" would be approved.The vote on the constitution was set for the 21st of December.For the constitution with slavery 6226votes were recorded and 569 for the constitution without slavery.
While these events were taking place, Walker went to Washington to enter his protest but resigned after finding only a hostile reception by the President and his Cabinet.Stanton, who was acting Governor in the absence of Walker, then called together the free-state Legislature, which set January 4, 1858, as the date for approving or rejecting the Lecompton Constitution.At this election the votes cast were 138 for the constitution with slavery, 24 for the constitution without slavery, and 10,226against the constitution.But President Buchanan had become thoroughly committed to the support of the Lecompton Constitution.Disregarding the advice of the new Governor, he sent the Lecompton Constitution to Congress with the recommendation that Kansas be admitted to the Union as a slave State.
Here was a crisis big with the fate of the Democratic party, if not of the Union.Stephen A.Douglas had already given notice that he would oppose the Lecompton Constitution.In favor of its rejection he made a notable speech which called forth the bitterest enmity from the South and arrayed all the forces of the Administration against him.Supporters of Douglas were removed from office, and anti-Douglas men were put in their places.In his fight against the fraudulent constitution Douglas himself, however, still had the support of a majority of Northern Democrats, especially in the Western States, and that of all the Republicans in Congress.A bill to admit Kansas passed the Senate, but in the House a proviso was attached requiring that the constitution should first be submitted to the people of Kansas for acceptance or rejection.This amendment was finally accepted by the Senate with the modification that, if the people voted for the constitution, the State should have a large donation of public land, but that if they rejected it, they should not be admitted as a State until they had a population large enough to entitle them to a representative in the lower House.The vote of the people was cast on August 2, 1858, and the constitution was finally rejected by a majority of nearly twelve thousand.Thus resulted the last effort to impose slavery on the people of Kansas.
Although the war between slavery and freedom was fought out in miniature in Kansas, the immediate issue was the preservation of slavery in Missouri.This, however, involved directly the prospect of emancipation in other border States and ultimate complete emancipation in all the States.The issue is well stated in a Fourth of July address which Charles Robinson delivered at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1855, after the invasion of Missourians to influence the March election of that year, but before the beginning of bloody conflict:
"What reason is given for the cowardly invasion of our rights by our neighbors? They say that if Kansas is allowed to be free the institution of slavery in their own State will be in danger....
If the people of Missouri make it necessary, by their unlawful course, for us to establish freedom in that State in order to enjoy the liberty of governing ourselves in Kansas, then let that be the issue.If Kansas and the whole North must be enslaved, or Missouri become free, then let her be made free.Aye! and if to be free ourselves, slavery must be abolished in the whole country, then let us accept that due.If black slavery in a part of the States is incompatible with white freedom in any State, then let black slavery be abolished from all.As men espousing the principles of the Declaration of the Fathers, we can do nothing else than accept these issues."The men who saved Kansas to freedom were not abolitionists in the restricted sense.Governor Walker found in 1857 that a considerable majority of the free-state men were Democrats and that some were from the South.Nearly all actual settlers, from whatever source they came, were free-state men who felt that a slave was a burden in such a country as Kansas.For example, during the first winter of the occupation of Kansas, an owner of nineteen slaves was himself forced to work like a trooper to keep them from freezing; and, indeed, one of them did freeze to death and another was seriously injured.
In spite of all the advertising of opportunity and all the pressure brought to bear upon Southerners to settle in Kansas, at no time did the number of slaves in the Territory reach three hundred.The climate and the soil made for freedom, and the Governors were not the only persons who were converted to free-state principles by residence in the Territory.
