s in
enforcing the laws, a strong detachment of the Army was stationed in
the Territory, ready to aid the marshal and his deputies when lawfully
called upon as a _posse comilatus_ in the execution of civil and
criminal process. Still, the troubles in Kansas could not have been
permanently settled without an election by the people.

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among freemen. Under
this conviction every proper effort was employed to induce the hostile
parties to vote at the election of delegates to frame a State
constitution, and afterwards at the election to decide whether Kansas
should be a slave or free State.

The insurgent party refused to vote at either, lest this might be
considered a recognition on their part of the Territorial government
established by Congress. A better spirit, however, seemed soon after
to prevail, and the two parties met face to face at the third election,
held on the first Monday of January, 1858, for members of the
legislature and State officers under the Lecompton constitution. The
result was the triumph of the antislavery party at the polls. This
decision of the ballot box proved clearly that this party were in the
majority, and removed the danger of civil war. From that time we have
heard little or nothing of the Topeka government, and all serious danger
of revolutionary troubles in Kansas was then at an end.

The Lecompton constitution, which had been thus recognized at this State
election by the votes of both political parties in Kansas, was
transmitted to me with the request that I should present it to Congress.
This I could not have refused to do without violating my clearest and
strongest convictions of duty. The constitution and all the proceedings
which preceded and followed its formation were fair and regular on their
face. I then believed, and experience has proved, that the interests of
the people of Kansas would have been best consulted by its admission
as a State into the Union, especially as the majority within a brief
period could have amended the constitution according to their will and
pleasure. If fraud existed in all or any of these proceedings, it was
not for the President but for Congress to investigate and determine the
question of fraud and what ought to be its consequences. If at the first
two elections the majority refused to vote, it can not be pretended
that this refusal to exercise the elective franchise could invalidate
an election fairl