At the same election, a separate vote was ordered for legislative and executive officers under the constitution. The hope of the pro slavery party was that the Free State men, who were in a great majority in the territory, would refuse to vote at all, because of their indignation at the tricky manner of the submission, and that therefore, the Democratic Congress would admit Kansas as a slave State completely officered by pro slavery men. “It was an artful trap,” says one historian of those stirring times, “and the Free State Convention was caught in it by resolving that the party would wholly refrain from voting at that election. Thereupon Mr. Ewing bolted the convention, but only eight out of over a hundred delegates followed him. The bolters nominated a full State ticket and tickets in every county for all the offices, canvassed the Territory, and in spite of the bitterest opposition of the radical leaders and press, succeeded in bringing a large majority of the Free State party to the polls. They thus completely officered the proposed pro-slavery Government with tried and true Free State men—publicly pledged, if the State should be admitted, to immediately call another convention, form a Free State Constitution, and destroy the Lecompton Constitution and Government, root and branch. The pro-slavery leaders, finding themselves outnumbered at the polls, resorted to the most enormous and astounding frauds in the returns, and then officially proclaimed the election of the pro-slavery candidates. Thereupon Ewing went to the Territorial Legislature then in session at Lawrence, a majority of which were Free State men, and got a commission appointed to investigate and expose the election frauds. He was a member of the Board and conducted its proceedings with startling boldness and energy, resulting within a week in the discovery and seizure of the forged returns, which had been buried in a candle box under a wood pile at Lecompton on the premises of the United States Surveyor General, John Calhoun—the exposure of the forgeries—the indictment of the chief conspirators, Calhoun, McLean and others—their flight from Kansas never to return—and the abandonment by Buchanan’s administration, and his party in Congress of the Lecompton Constitution, which fell covered with execrations and infamy. This closed the long struggle to force slavery on Kansas, and the new State was thereupon admitted under a Free Constitution made by her own people.”