In his report of June 30th, Douglas discussed the various measures that had been proposed by Whigs and Republicans, but found the Toombs bill best adapted to "insure a fair and impartial decision of the questions at issue in Kansas, in accordance with the wishes of the _bona fide_ inhabitants." A single paragraph from this report ought to have convinced those who subsequently doubted the sincerity of Douglas's course, that he was partner to no plots against the free expression of public opinion in the Territory. "In the opinion of your committee, whenever a constitution shall be formed in any Territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a State, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system imperatively demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that fundamental law, without fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those imposed by the Constitution of the United States."[574] The Toombs bill caused Republicans grave misgivings, even while they conceded its ostensible liberality. Could an administration that had condoned the frauds already practiced in Kansas be trusted to appoint disinterested commissioners? Would a census of the present population give a majority in the proposed convention to the free-State party in Kansas? Everyone knew that many free-State people had been driven away by the disorders. Douglas endeavored to reassure his opponents on these points; but his words carried no weight on the other side of the chamber. No better evidence of his good faith in the matter, however, could have been asked than he offered, by an amendment which extended the right of voting at the elections to all who had been _bona fide_ residents and voters, but who had absented themselves from the Territory, provided they should return before October 1st.[575] If, as Republicans asserted, many more free-State settlers than pro-slavery squatters had been driven out, then here was a fair concession. But what they wanted was not merely an equal chance for freedom in Kansas, but precedence. To this end they were ready even to admit Kansas under the Topeka constitution, which, by the most favorable construction, was the work of a faction.[576]