[Sidenote: "House Journal Kansas Territory," 1856, p. 12.]
The two branches of the Legislature, the Council with the Rev. Thomas Johnson as President, and the House with Stringfellow of the "Squatter Sovereign" as Speaker, now turned their attention seriously to the pro-slavery work before them. The conspirators were shrewd enough to realize their victory. "To have intimated one year ago," said the Speaker in his address of thanks, "that such a result would be wrought out, one would have been thought a visionary; to have predicted that to-day a legislature would assemble, almost unanimously pro-slavery, and with myself for Speaker, I would have been thought mad." The programme had already been announced in the "Squatter Sovereign" some weeks before. "The South must and will prevail. If the Southern people but half do their duty, in less than nine months from this day Kansas will have formed a constitution and be knocking at the door for admission…. In the session of the United States Senate in 1856, two Senators from the slave-holding State of Kansas will take their seats, and abolitionism will be forever driven from our halls of legislation." Against this triumphant attitude Governor Reeder was despondent and powerless. The language of his message plainly betrayed the political dilemma in which he found himself. He strove as best he might to couple together the prevailing cant of office-holders against "the destructive spirit of abolitionism" and a comparatively mild rebuke of the Missouri usurpation. [Footnote: Its phraseology was adroit enough to call forth a sneering compliment from Speaker Stringfellow, who wrote to the "Squatter Sovereign": "On Tuesday the Governor sent in his message, which you will find is very well calculated to have its effect with the Pennsylvania Democracy. If he was trustworthy I would" be disposed to compliment the most of it, "but knowing how corrupt the author is, and that it is only designed for political effect in Pennsylvania, he not expecting to remain long with us, I will pass it by."—"Squatter Sovereign," July 17, 1855.]
[Sidenote: "House Journal Kansas Territory," 1855. Appendix, p. 10.]
Nevertheless, the Governor stood reasonably firm. He persisted in declaring that the Legislature could pass no valid laws at any other place than Pawnee, and returned the first bill sent him with a veto message to that effect. To this the Legislature replied by passing the bill over his veto, and in addition formally raising a joint committee "to draw up a memorial to the President of the United States respectfully demanding the removal of A. H. Reeder from the office of governor"; and, as if this indignity were not enough, holding a joint session for publicly signing it. The memorial was promptly dispatched to Washington by special messenger; but on the way this envoy read the news of the Governor's dismissal by the President.
This event appeared definitely to sweep away the last obstacle in the path of the conspirators. The office of acting governor now devolved upon the secretary of the Territory, Daniel Woodson, a man who shared their views and was allied to their schemes. With him to approve their enactments, the parliamentary machinery of the "bogus" Legislature was complete and effective. They had at the very beginning summarily ousted the free-State members chosen at the supplementary election on May 22, and seated the pro-slavery claimants of March 30; and the only two remaining free-State members resigned in utter disgust to avoid giving countenance to the flagrant usurpation by their presence. No one was left even to enter a protest.
[Sidenote: Report Judiciary Com., "House Journal Kansas Territory," 1855. Appendix, p. 14.]
This, then, was the perfect flower of Douglas's vaunted experiment of "popular sovereignty"—a result they professed fully to appreciate. "Hitherto," said the Judiciary Committee of the House in a long and grandiloquent report, "Congress have retained to themselves the power to mold and shape all the territorial governments according to their own peculiar notions, and to restrict within very limited and contracted bounds both the natural as well as the political rights of the bold and daring pioneer and the noble, hard-fisted squatter." But by this course, the argument of the committee continued, "the pillars which uphold this glorious union of States were shaken until the whole world was threatened with a political earthquake," and, "the principle that the people are capable of self-government would have been forever swallowed up by anarchy and confusion," had not the Kansas-Nebraska bill "delegated to the people of these territories the right to frame and establish their own form of government."
[Sidenote: Report Judiciary Com., "House Journal Kansas Territory," 1855. Appendix, p. 18.]
[Sidenote: Ibid., p. 18.]
What might not be expected of lawmakers who begin with so ambitious an exordium, and who lay the cornerstone of their edifice upon the solid rock of political principle? The anti-climax of performance which followed would be laughably absurd, were it not marked by the cunning of a well-matured political plot. Their first step was to recommend the repeal of "all laws whatsoever, which may have been considered to have been in force" in the Territory on the 1st day of July, 1855, thus forever quieting any doubt "as to what is and what is not law in this Territory"; secondly, to substitute a code about which there should be no question, by the equally ingenious expedient of copying and adopting the Revised Statutes of Missouri.