alternative.

It may also be observed that at this period any hope, if such had
existed, that the Topeka constitution would ever be recognized by
Congress must have been abandoned. Congress had adjourned on the 3d
March previous, having recognized the legal existence of the Territorial
legislature in a variety of forms, which I need not enumerate. Indeed,
the Delegate elected to the House of Representatives under a Territorial
law had been admitted to his seat and had just completed his term of
service on the day previous to my inauguration.

This was the propitious moment for settling all difficulties in Kansas.
This was the time for abandoning the revolutionary Topeka organization
and for the enemies of the existing government to conform to the laws
and to unite with its friends in framing a State constitution; but this
they refused to do, and the consequences of their refusal to submit to
lawful authority and vote at the election of delegates may yet prove
to be of a most deplorable character. Would that the respect for the
laws of the land which so eminently distinguished the men of the past
generation could be revived. It is a disregard and violation of law
which have for years kept the Territory of Kansas in a state of almost
open rebellion against its government. It is the same spirit which has
produced actual rebellion in Utah. Our only safety consists in obedience
and conformity to law. Should a general spirit against its enforcement
prevail, this will prove fatal to us as a nation. We acknowledge no
master but the law, and should we cut loose from its restraints and
everyone do what seemeth good in his own eyes our case will indeed be
hopeless.

The enemies of the Territorial government determined still to resist
the authority of Congress. They refused to vote for delegates to the
convention, not because, from circumstances which I need not detail,
there was an omission to register the comparatively few voters who were
inhabitants of certain counties of Kansas in the early spring of 1857,
but because they had predetermined at all hazards to adhere to their
revolutionary organization and defeat the establishment of any other
constitution than that which they had framed at Topeka. The election was
therefore suffered to pass by default. But of this result the qualified
electors who refused to vote can never justly complain.

From this review it is manifest that the Lecompton convention, according
to every