The Lecompton Constitution (1859) was the second of four proposed

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

s for the state of

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. Named for the city of

Lecompton Lecompton (pronounced ) is a city in Douglas County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 588. Lecompton was the ''de jure'' territorial capital of Kansas from 1855 to 1861, and the Douglas County seat f ...

where it was drafted, it was strongly pro-

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. It never went into effect.

History

Purpose

The Lecompton Constitution was drafted by

pro-slavery Proslavery is a support for slavery. It is found in the Bible, in the thought of ancient philosophers, in British writings and in American writings especially before the American Civil War but also later through 20th century. Arguments in favor o ...

advocates and included provisions to protect slaveholding in the state and to exclude free people of color from its

bill of rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...

. Slavery was the subject of Article 7, which protected the right to slave "property", and prevented the legislature from emancipating slaves without their owners' consent, and without full compensation to their owners. It was initially approved in a

rigged election Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

in December 1857, but overwhelmingly defeated in a second vote in January 1858 by a majority of voters in the Kansas Territory. The rejection of the Lecompton Constitution, and the subsequent admittance of Kansas to the Union as a free state, highlighted the irregular and fraudulent voting practices that had marked earlier efforts by

bushwhacker Bushwhacking was a form of guerrilla warfare common during the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, American Civil War and other conflicts in which there were large areas of contested land and few governmental resources to control these tra ...

s and

border ruffian Border ruffians were proslavery raiders, crossing from the slave state of Missouri into the Kansas Territory, to help ensure Kansas entered the Union as a slave state. They were a key part of the violent period called Bleeding Kansas, that pea ...

s to create a state constitution in Kansas that allowed slavery.

Predecessors

The Lecompton Constitution was preceded by the

Topeka Constitution The Topeka Constitutional Convention met from October 23 to November 11, 1855 in Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, Kansas Territory, in a building afterwards called Constitution Hall (Topeka, Kansas), Constitution Hall. It drafted the Topeka Constitution, w ...

and was followed by the Leavenworth and Wyandotte Constitutions, with the Wyandotte becoming the Kansas state constitution.Heller, Francis Howard, ''The Kansas State Constitution: A Reference Guide'', Greenwood Press, 1992, pp. 1–4. . The document was written in response to the

anti-slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...

position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of James H. Lane and other free-state advocates. The territorial legislature—which, because of widespread electoral fraud consisted, mostly of slave owners—met at the designated capital of

in September 1857 to produce a rival document. Free-state supporters, who comprised a large majority of actual settlers, boycotted the vote. President James Buchanan's appointee as territorial governor of Kansas,

Robert J. Walker Robert John Walker (July 19, 1801November 11, 1869) was an American lawyer, economist and politician. An active member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the U.S. Senate from Mississippi from 1835 until 1845, as Secretary of the ...

, although a strong defender of slavery, opposed the blatant injustice of the Constitution and resigned rather than implement it.Stampp, Kenneth M., ''America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink'', Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 167-80. This new constitution enshrined slavery in the proposed state and protected the rights of slaveholders. In addition, the constitution provided for a referendum that allowed voters the choice of allowing more slaves to enter the territory. Both the Topeka and Lecompton constitutions were placed before the people of the

Kansas Territory The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Slave and ...

for a vote, and both votes were boycotted by supporters of the opposing faction. In the case of Lecompton, however, the vote was boiled down to a single issue, expressed on the ballot as "Constitution with Slavery" v. "Constitution with no Slavery". But the "Constitution with no Slavery" clause would have not made Kansas a free state; it merely would have banned future importation of slaves into Kansas (something deemed by many as unenforceable). Boycotted by free-soilers, the referendum suffered from serious voting irregularities, with over half the 6,000 votes deemed fraudulent.Flanagan, Mike, ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Old West'', Alpha Books, 1999, p. 180. Nevertheless, both it and the Topeka Constitution were sent to Washington for approval by Congress.

Rejection

A vocal supporter of slaveholder rights, which he believed necessary to prevent Southern secession and preserve the Union, President

James Buchanan James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and repr ...

endorsed the Lecompton Constitution before Congress. While the president received the support of Southern Democrats, many Northern Democrats, led by

Stephen A. Douglas Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which wa ...

, sided with the Republicans in opposition to the constitution. Despite Douglas’s objections, the Kansas statehood bill passed the Senate on March 23, 1858 by a vote of 33 to 25. Douglas was helped considerably by the work of

Thomas Ewing Jr. Thomas Ewing Jr. (August 7, 1829 – January 21, 1896) was an attorney, the first chief justice of Kansas and leading free state advocate, Union Army general during the American Civil War, and two-term United States Congressman from Ohio, 18 ...

, a noted Kansas Free State politician and lawyer, who led a legislative investigation in Kansas to uncover the fraudulent voting ballots. A new referendum over the fate of the Lecompton Constitution was proposed, even though this would delay Kansas's admission to the Union. Furthermore, a new constitution—the anti-slavery Leavenworth Constitution—was already being drafted. On January 4, 1858, Kansas voters, having the opportunity to reject the constitution altogether in a referendum, overwhelmingly rejected the Lecompton Constitution by a vote of 10,226 to 138. In Washington, the admission of the state of Kansas with the Lecompton Constitution was rejected by the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

in 1858. Though soundly defeated, debate over the proposed constitution had ripped apart the Democratic Party.

Anson Burlingame Anson Burlingame (November 14, 1820 – February 23, 1870) was an American lawyer, Republican/American Party legislator, diplomat, and abolitionist. As diplomat, he served as the U.S. minister to China (1862–1867) and then as China's envoy to t ...

delivered a fiery speech in the House of Representatives on March 31, 1858, condemning those in favor of the Lecompton Constitution, as "An Appeal to Patriots Against Fraud and Disunion". Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861, just as soon as the pro-slavery senators who had blocked it withdrew from the Senate, because their states had seceded.

References

* Smith, Ronald D., ''Thomas Ewing Jr., Frontier Lawyer and Civil War General''. Columbia:University of Missouri Press, 2008, .

External links