Soon after the inauguration of Buchanan, Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, was appointed by him governor of Kansas Territory. Walker was a native of Pennsylvania and a man of good repute. He had been Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, and was the author of the Tariff of 1846. When he arrived in Kansas steps had already been taken by the territorial legislature for electing members of a constitutional convention with a view to admission to the Union as a state. Governor Walker urged the Free State men to participate in this election, promising them fair treatment and an honest count of votes; but they still feared treachery and violence and fraud in the election returns. Moreover, voters were required to take a test oath that they would support the Constitution as framed. As Walker had assured them that the Constitution would be submitted to a vote of the people, they decided to take no part in framing it, but to vote it down when it should be submitted. The convention met in the territorial capital, Lecompton. While it was in session a regular election of members of the territorial legislature took place, and Governor Walker had so far won the confidence of the Free State men that they took part in it and elected a majority of the members of both branches. About one month later news came that the constitutional convention had completed its labors and had decided not to submit the constitution itself to a vote of the people, but only the slavery clause. People could vote "For the constitution with slavery," or "For the constitution with no slavery," but in no case should the right of property in slaves already in the territory be questioned, nor should the constitution itself be amended until 1864, and no amendment should be made affecting the rights of property in such slaves. Senator Douglas was in Chicago when this news arrived. He at once declared to his friends that this scheme had its origin in Buchanan's Cabinet. Governor James W. Geary, Walker's predecessor in office, had vetoed the bill calling the convention, because it contained no clause requiring submission of the constitution to the people; but it had been passed over his veto. He subsequently said, in a published letter, that the committees of the legislature having the matter in charge informed him that their friends in the South did not desire a submission clause. It was proved later that a conspiracy with this aim existed in Buchanan's Cabinet without his knowledge, and that the guiding spirit was Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Interior. The chief manager in Kansas was John Calhoun, the president of the convention, who had been designated also as the canvassing officer of the election returns under the submission clause.