these new elections were set aside and I the first elections were
declared valid.[542]

In complete control of the legislature, the pro-slavery party
proceeded to write slavery into the law of the Territory. In their
eagerness to establish slavery permanently, these legislative Hotspurs
quite overshot the mark, creating offenses and affixing penalties of
doubtful constitutionality.[543] Meanwhile the census of February
reported but one hundred ninety-two slaves in a total population of
eight thousand six hundred.[544] Those who had migrated from the
South, were not as a rule of the slave-holding class. Those who
possessed slaves shrank from risking their property in Kansas, until
its future were settled.[545] Eventually, the climate was to prove an
even greater obstacle to the transplantation of the slave-labor system
into Kansas.

Foiled in their hope of winning the territorial legislature, the
free-State settlers in Kansas resolved upon a hazardous course.
Believing the legislature an illegal body, they called a convention to
draft a constitution with which they proposed to apply for admission
to the Union as a free State. Robinson, the leader of the free-State
party, was wise in such matters by reason of his experience in
California. Reeder, who had been displaced as governor and had gone
over to the opposition, lent his aid to the project; and
ex-Congressman Lane, formerly of Indiana, gave liberally of his
vehement energy to the cause. After successive conventions in which
the various free-State elements were worked into a fairly consistent
mixture, the Topeka convention launched a constitution and a
free-State government. Unofficially the supporters of the new
government took measures for its defense. In the following spring,