They had, in fact, repealed the Missouri Compromise and justified it everywhere on the ground that the people of the Territories had the right to form all their institutions according to their will. The President's later doctrine was in error, radical, fundamental, subversive of the platform on which he was elected. His suggestion that the Convention, throughout the territorial legislature, had the implied sanction of Congress, was without foundation. The Toombs bill expressly authorizing the calling of a Convention had recently passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House, clearly indicating that Congress disapproved it. The legislature could not give consent for Congress which it had itself refused. The Administration of Jackson solemnly decided in the case of Arkansas that a Territory had no right to hold a Constitutional Convention until Congress passed an act authorizing it. The Lecompton Convention differed from the Topeka Convention only in this; that the latter was called in opposition to the will of the legislature, while the former was sanctioned by it. But that body was utterly without authority in the matter until Congress empowered it to act. When the delegates to this Convention were elected everyone supposed that their work would be submitted to a vote. The President and his Cabinet so understood it. Governor Walker so understood it and pledged his own word and that of the President that it would be submitted. A form of submission had been devised such that all men might come forward freely and vote for the Constitution and no man was permitted to vote against it. This resembled the French election when the First Consul sent the soldiers to the polls telling them to vote just as they pleased; but adding, "if you vote for Napoleon all is well; if you vote against him you will be shot." The objection to submitting the Constitution to a vote was that it would be voted down. "Sir," he said, "my honor is pledged; and before it shall be tarnished I will take whatever consequences personal to myself may come; but never ask me to do an act which the President in his message has said is a forfeiture of faith, a violation of honor. * * * I will go as far as any of you to save the party. I have as much heart in the great cause that binds us together as any man living. I will sacrifice anything short of principle and honor for the peace of the party; but if the party will not stand by its principles, its faith, its pledges, I will stand there and abide whatever consequences may result from the position. * * * It is none of my business which way the slavery clause is decided. I care not whether it is voted up or voted down."