The Lecompton constitution provided for holding an election of State officers, a legislature and a member of Congress, on the first Monday of January, 1858. The President sent instructions to the Territorial governor which secured a peaceable election. A larger vote was polled than at any previous election. The party which had previously refused to vote, now changed their tactics. They elected a large majority of the members of the legislature, and the political power of the proposed new State was therefore in their hands. But for their previous factional resistance to the authority of the Territorial government, they might have attained this result at a much earlier period. On the 30th of January, 1858, the President received the so-called Lecompton constitution from the president of the convention, with a request that it be laid before Congress. And here it is necessary to pause, for the purpose of a just understanding of the grounds on which the President recommended the admission of Kansas with this constitution. He was assailed with almost every epithet of vituperation of which our language admits, as if he was responsible for and in favor of the pro-slavery feature of this constitution. A simple and truthful consideration of his official duty under the organic Act by which the Territory was organized, and a candid recital of the reasons on which he urged the admission of the State with this constitution, will enable my readers to determine with what justice he was treated in this matter.