Both Walker and Stanton being from slave-States, it may be presumed that the slavery question was considered safe in their hands.

Walker, indeed, entertained sentiments more valuable to the South in this conjuncture.

He believed in the balance of power; he preferred that the people of Kansas should make it a slave-State; he was "in favor of maintaining the equilibrium of the Government by giving the South a majority in the Senate, while the North would always necessarily have a majority in the House of Representatives." Both also entered on their mission with the feelings entertained by the President and Democratic party; namely, that the free-State men were a mischievous insurrectionary faction, willfully disturbing the peace and defying the laws.

Gradually, however, their personal observation convinced them that this view was a profound error.
[Sidenote] Walker to Buchanan, June 28, 1857.Ibid., p.

115.
[Sidenote] Walker, Testimony.Ibid., p.