members and of
the meagre minority they represented,--and so objectionable in many
respects, that not one in twenty of the voters of the Territory, as
Governor Walker informed the writer of this, could or would approve it.
Recognizing Slavery as an existing fact, and perpetuating it in
every event, it yet purported to submit the question of Slavery to a
determining vote of the people. This was, however, a mere pretence; for
the method proposed for getting at the sense of the people was nothing
but a pitiful juggle, according to which no one could vote on
the Slavery question who did not at the same time vote _for_ the
Constitution. No alternative or discretion was allowed to the citizens
whose Constitution it purported to be; if they voted at all on the vast
variety of subjects usually embraced in an organic law, they must vote
in favor of the measures concocted by the Convention. The entire conduct
of the election and the final adjudication of the returns, moreover,
were taken out of the hands of the officers, and from under the
operation of the laws, already established by the Territorial
authorities, to be vested exclusively in one of the Convention's own
creatures,--a reckless and unprincipled politician, whose whole previous
career had been an offence and a nuisance to the majority of the
inhabitants. Had the Convention been legitimately called and
legitimately chosen, this audacious abrogation of the Territorial laws
and of the functions of the Territorial officers would in itself have
been sufficient to vitiate its authority; but being neither legitimately
called, nor legitimately chosen, and outraging the sentiments of
nineteen twentieths of the community, the illegal election provided for
can be regarded only as the crowning atrocity of the long series of
atrocities to which Kansas has been subjected.

The most surprising thing, however, could anything surprise us in these
Kansas proceedings, is, that the President, eating all his former
promises, adopts the Lecompton Convention as a legitimate body, and
commends its swindling mode of submission as a "fair" test of the
popular will! Yet, it is sad to say, this is only following up the line
of precedents established from the beginning. 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 wo