Marcus Parrott wrote from Washington, D.C., to his brother, Edwin Parrott, regarding recent dramatic political events. Marcus referred to Democrat Stephen Douglas' "breaking" with President Buchanan. Both men supported popular sovereignty in Kansas, as well as the solidarity of the Union. However, the President, unwilling to override the work of what he considered a legitimate Lecompton Constitutional Convention or to cancel a local election result, asked Congress to approve the Lecompton Constitution, make Kansas momentarily a slave state, and thus enable the people there to make any new constitution they wished. But Douglas, outraged by such a distortion of his vision of popular sovereignty , broke with Buchanan and joined with the Republicans to defeat the admission of Kansas.