The elective franchise would be utterly valueless, and free government itself would receive a deadly blow, if so great an outrage as this could be shielded under the cover of mere forms and technicalities.

We cannot consent in any manner to give the sanction of our respective official positions to such a transaction.

Nor can we feel justified to relieve ourselves of the proper responsibility of our offices, in a case where there is no valid return, by submitting the question to the legislative assembly, and in that very act giving the parties that might claim to be chosen by this spurious vote the power to decide upon their own election." The decisive free-State victory, the Oxford and McGee frauds,[8] 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 body reassembled according to adjournment on the 19th of October.

Elected in the preceding June without any participation by free-State voters, the members were all of the pro-slavery party, and were presided over by John Calhoun, the same man who, as county surveyor of Sangamon County, Illinois, employed Abraham Lincoln as his deputy in 1832.
At the June election, while he and his seven colleagues from Douglas County were yet candidates for the convention, they had circulated a written pledge that they would submit the constitution to the people for ratification.