On the 24th of January, 1856, President Pierce sent a special message to Congress on the subject of the disturbance in Kansas. He alluded to the "angry accusations that illegal votes had been polled," and to the "imputations of fraud and violence"; but he relied upon the fact that the governor had admitted some members and rejected others and that each legislative assembly had undoubted authority to determine, in the last resort, the election and qualification of its own members. Thus a principle intended to apply to a few exceptional cases of dispute was stretched to cover a case where all the seats had been obtained by fraud and usurpation. "For all present purposes," he added feebly, the "legislative body thus constituted and elected was the legitimate assembly of the Territory." This message was referred to the Senate Committee on Territories. On the 12th of March, Senator Douglas submitted a report from the committee, and Senator Collamer, of Vermont, submitted a minority report. This was the occasion of the first passage-at-arms between Douglas and his new colleague. The report was not merely a general endorsement of President Pierce's contention that it was impossible to go behind the returns of the Kansas election, as certified by Governor Reeder, but it went much further in the same direction, putting all the blame for the disorders on the New England Emigrant Aid Company, and practically justifying the Missourians as a people "protecting their own firesides from the apprehended horrors of servile insurrection and intestine war." Logically, from Douglas's new standpoint, the New Englanders had no right to settle in Kansas at all, if they had the purpose to make it a free state. To this complexion had the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" come in the short space of two years.