In 1854, the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and in effect repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories through a 'popular sovereignty' choose whether they would allow slavery within each territory. Thus Kansas became a battleground over slavery. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces flooded into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down. Such violent political confrontations ensued that Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune coined the term "Bleeding Kansas". A major confrontation during the era of "Bleeding Kansas" was the writing of a constitution that would govern Kansas. The first of four such documents was the Topeka Constitution penned by the anti-slavery forces. The Topeka constitution as drafted would have banned slavery in Kansas. In Resistance to this attempt the pro-slavery forces stayed home and refused to vote for delegates to the constitution to frame the new constitution. President James Buchanan spoke out against this, stating that in doing so, they disregarded the principle which is essential to democracy, "that a majority of those who vote, not the majority who may remain at home, from whatever cause, must decide the result of an election."
Thus, the constitution won territory-wide election and was sent to Washington with a plea to he U.S. Congress for it's acceptance. The constitution eventually died, as congress would take no action. Then pro-slavery forces met at the designated capital of Lecompton in 1857 to produce their own rival constitution. One that enshrined slavery in the states and protected the rights of slaveholders. This time, the anti-slavery forces refused to vote. Yet once again, the Lecompton Constitution was sent to Washington for approval by Congress. This time President Buchanan was the most adamant in his support of the LeCompton constitution and endorsed it even though a letter from Governor Denver advised him in the strongest terms not to support it. Denver suggested that the approval would lead to new violence in Kansas, nevertheless Buchannan chimed in and in his second annual address to congress he chided the anti-slavery forces in Kansas on this "all-important question which had alone convulsed the Territory". He explained that they were "persisting in their first error, refrained from exercising their right to vote, and preferred that slavery should continue rather than surrender their revolutionary Topeka organization."
Eventually, on January 4 1858, Kansas voters had the opportunity to vote by referendum on the Lecompton Constitution as proposed. The people of Kansas overwhelmingly voted to reject the Lecompton Constitution by a vote of 10,226 to 138. In Washington, it was also defeated by the house of Representatives. Thus, the constitution endorsed by President Buchanan was soundly defeated and debate over it ripped apart the Democratic party.
President Buchanan still would not give in, and in his 1858 annual address to congress, he expressed his belief that if only the Lecompton Constitution had been adopted, the "Kansas question would have been immediately and finally settled".
"A wiser and better spirit seemed to prevail before the first Monday of January last, when an election was held under the constitution. A majority of the people then voted for a governor and other State officers, for a Member of Congress and members of the State legislature. This election was warmly contested by the two political parties in Kansas, and a greater vote was polled than at any previous election. A large majority of the members of the legislature elect belonged to that party which had previously refused to vote. The antislavery party were thus placed in the ascendant, and the political power of the State was in their own hands. Had Congress admitted Kansas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, the legislature might at its very first session have submitted the question to a vote of the people whether they would or would not have a convention to amend their constitution, either on the slavery or any other question, and have adopted all necessary means for giving speedy effect to the will of the majority. Thus the Kansas question would have been immediately and finally settled."Three years later in 1861, Kansas would be admitted as a free state, but the 'Kansas' question would not be finally settled, not until civil war tears the country apart. Ultimately, it would Stephen Douglas, Mr 'Popular Sovereignty' himself, who would side with the Republicans to kill the Lecompton constitution.
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America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink, by Kenneth M. Stampp, Oxford University Press (1992),.pgs 323-326
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