THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION Constitutional Convention Called by the Legislature.

Pro-slavery Convention at Lecompton.

Lecompton Constitutional Convention.

The Lecompton Constitution.

Douglas's Speech on Lecompton.

Lecompton Constitution Declared Adopted.

The Lecompton Constitution in Congress.

While the town of Lawrence was undergoing burning and pillage, Governor Shannon wrote to Colonel Sumner to say that as the marshal and sheriff had finished making their arrests, and he presumed had by that time dismissed the posse, he required a company of United States troops to be stationed at Lawrence to secure "the safety of the citizens in both, person and property," asking also a like company for Lecompton and Topeka.

Governor Shannon, not yet notified of his removal, reported to General Smith that Lecompton was threatened with an attack.

Lieutenant-Colonel P. St. George Cooke, upon whom this active field work devolved, because of the General's ill health, concentrated his little command between Lawrence and Lecompton, where he could to some extent exert a salutary check upon the main bodies of both parties, and where he soon had occasion to send a remonstrance to the acting Governor that his "militia" was ransacking and burning houses.

The day following his interview with General Smith found him at Lecompton, the capital of the Territory, where the other territorial officials, Woodson, Calhoun, Donaldson, Sheriff Jones, Lecompte, Cato, and others, constituted the ever-vigilant working force of the Atchison cabal, precisely as had been so truthfully represented to him by General Smith, and as he had so graphically described in his letter to Marcy of the day before.

While he was preaching and printing his sage admonitions about peace and prosperity at Lecompton, and laboring to change the implements of civil war into plowshares and pruning-hooks, the Missouri raid against Lawrence, officially called into the field by Woodson's proclamation, was about to deal out destruction to that town.

This news reached Governor Geary about midnight of his second day in Lecompton.

Since the Missourians had officially reported themselves to him as subject to his orders, the Governor supposed that his injunctions, conveyed to them in writing and print, and borne by the secretary and the adjutant-general of the Territory, would suffice to send them back at once to their own borders, and he returned to Lecompton to take up his thorny duties of administration.

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.

For the purpose of obtaining information which was considered of great value to the Territory, the Governor invited to Lecompton, Captain [Samuel] Walker, of Lawrence, one of the most celebrated and daring leaders of the anti-slavery party, promising him a safe-conduct to Lecompton and back again to Lawrence.

For the purpose of obtaining information which was considered of great value to the Territory, the Governor invited to Lecompton, Captain [Samuel] Walker, of Lawrence, one of the most celebrated and daring leaders of the anti-slavery party, promising him a safe-conduct to Lecompton and back again to Lawrence.

Through the Governor's intervention, a pacific meeting occurred, a better understanding took place, mutual concessions were made, and pledges of friendship were passed; and, late in the afternoon, Walker left Lecompton in company with and under the safeguard of Colonel Titus.

" CHAPTER VI THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION

In such a contest he was single-handed against the whole pro-slavery town of Lecompton.

On the 2d and 3d of July the "National Democratic" or pro-slavery party of the Territory met in convention at Lecompton.

" The delegates to the constitutional convention, chosen in June, met according to law at Lecompton, September 7, and, having spent five days in organization, adjourned their session to October 19.

" The decisive free-State victory, the Oxford and McGee frauds, and the Governor's fearless action in exposing and rejecting them, called forth universal comment; and under the new political conditions which they revealed, created intense interest in the further proceedings of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention.

That was before, or certainly not long after, the probable receipt of this letter in Kansas, for the Governor left the Territory (November 16) about one week after the adjournment of the Lecompton Convention.

The question becomes still more pressing owing to Governor Walker's testimony that when he reached Washington, "the President himself distinctly and emphatically assured me that he had not authorized anybody to say that he had approved of that [Lecompton] programme."