President James Buchanan decided to end the troubles in Kansas by urging Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution. Kansas voters, however, soundly rejected this constitution by a vote of 10,226 to 138. As Buchanan directed his presidential authority to promoting the Lecompton Constitution, he further angered the Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Prompting their break with the administration, the Douglasites saw this scheme as an attempt to pervert the principle of popular sovereignty on which the Kansas–Nebraska Act was based. Nationwide, conservatives were incensed, feeling as though the principles of states' rights had been violated. Even in the South, ex-Whigs and border state Know-Nothingsmost notably John Bell and John J. Crittenden (key figures in the event of sectional controversies)urged the Republicans to oppose the administration's moves and take up the demand that the territories be given the power to accept or reject slavery.