While the debate shifted to the national scene, delegates for the territory's third constitutional convention were elected on March 9 and assembled in Leavenworth on March 25, Although similar to the Topeka Constitution, the Leavenworth document was more radical. The word "white" did not appear in this proposed document, and it would not have excluded free "Negroes and mulattoes" from the state.
The Leavenworth Constitution was ratified on May 18, But serious efforts on its behalf ended with the defeat of the Lecompton document in August. Read the Leavenworth Constitution With the free state faction firmly in control, the territorial legislature approved the convening of a fourth and final constitutional convention.
In early June delegates were elected to gather at Wyandotte on July 5. Thirty-five Republicans and seventeen Democrats were chosen to attend the convention. This was the first time delegates carried the now familiar political party labels, the Republican party having been formed in the territory just a few weeks before. By this time the issue of slavery was all but decided in the territory, so the decision to make Kansas "free" was no surprise. The delegates did not adopt a clause excluding blacks as had been proposed earlier, but they failed to remove "white" from several significant parts of the document.
Read the Wyandotte Constitution In addition to the more mundane tasks of little controversy, the Wyandotte convention had to resolve some other controversial issues. The first three constitutions written in Kansas adopted the boundary lines for Kansas Territory. The eastern, southern, and northern borders were the same as they are today. The western border, however, extended as far as the Continental Divide and included the Pikes Peak gold fields.
Although not a major issue at earlier assemblies, at Wyandotte the boundary question caused much controversy. Many delegates saw this huge territory as a disadvantage and sought to fix the western border far to the east of the Rockies.
Democratic delegates also wanted the state's northern border extended to the Platte River. Republicans united to defeat this effort. The old northern border was retained and the western border was fixed at degrees west longitude the 25th Meridian. Kansas emerged from the convention with its present rectangular shape.
There was some support among the male delegates for granting equal voting rights to Kansas women. When only a pro-slavery constitution was presented to voters, the antislavery faction again refused to participate in the election and the pro-slavery constitution was sent to Buchanan for congressional approval.
Meanwhile, the territorial legislature in Kansas called for a referendum on the entire constitution and, with antislavery partisans participating this time, the result was a large majority against the Lecompton Constitution.
Amidst the ensuing national firestorm, Buchanan characteristically decided his course by applying a narrow legalistic logic to the case. Since the first election had been legal, neither the president nor a territorial legislature had authority to intervene and so he submitted the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution to Congress.
The following message was received from the President of the United States by Mr. Henry, his secretary:. I have received from J. Calhoun, esq. Calhoun, dated at Lecompton on the 14th ultimo, by which they were accompanied. The enemies of the territorial government determined still to resist the authority of Congress.
They refused to vote for delegates to the convention, not because, from circumstances which I need not detail, there was an omission to register the comparatively few voters who were inhabitants of certain counties of Kansas in the early spring of , but because they had predetermined, at all hazards, to adhere to their revolutionary organization, and defeat the establishment of any other constitution than that which they had framed at Topeka. The election was, therefore, suffered to pass by default; but of this result the qualified electors who refused to vote can never justly complain.
From this review, it is manifest that the Lecompton convention, according to every principle of constitutional law, was legally constituted and was invested with power to frame a constitution.
The sacred principle of popular sovereignty has been invoked in favor of the enemies of law and order in Kansas. But in what manner is popular sovereignty to be exercised in this country, if not through the instrumentality of established law? In certain small republics of ancient times the people did assemble in primary meetings, passed laws, and directed public affairs.
In our country this is manifestly impossible. Popular sovereignty can be exercised here only through the ballot- box; and if the people will refuse to exercise it in this manner, as they have done in Kansas at the election of delegates, it is not for them to complain that their rights have been violated. The question of slavery was submitted to an election of the people of Kansas on the 21st December last, in obedience to the mandate of the Constitution.
Here, again, a fair opportunity was presented to the adherents of the Topeka constitution, if they were the majority, to decide this exciting question "in their own way," and thus restore peace to the distracted Territory; but they again refused to exercise their right of popular sovereignty, and again suffered the election to pass by default. The people of Kansas have, then, "in their own way," and in strict accordance with the organic act, framed a constitution and State government; have submitted the all-important question of slavery to the people, and have elected a governor, a member to represent them in Congress, members of the State legislature, and other State officers.
They now ask admission into the Union under this constitution, which is republican in its form. It is for Congress to decide whether they will admit or reject the State which has thus been created. For my own part, I am decidedly in favor of its admission, and thus terminating the Kansas question. This will carry out the great principle of non-intervention recognized and sanctioned by the organic act, which declares in express language in favor of "non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States or Territories," leaving "the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.
It is proper that I should briefly refer to the election held under an act of the territorial legislature, on the first Monday of January last, on the Lecompton constitution. This election was held after the Territory had been prepared for admission into the Union as a sovereign State, and when or change its character. The election, which was peaceably conducted under my instructions, involved a strange inconsistency.
Robinson , who had been elected Territorial Governor at the Topeka convention, was arrested for treason for his role in undermining the Lecompton legislature. Seizing the moment, a group of predominately slaveholding legislators quickly called for another convention to meet in Lecompton in order to draw up a new constitution that would protect the rights of slave owners and refute the Topeka Constitution.
In addition to the political wrangling, violence and coercion entered the voting booths. The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.
Despite the suspicious voting practices that enabled the Lecompton Constitution, President James Buchanan , a pro-Southern Democrat like his predecessor, ultimately endorsed the document. Meanwhile, the mounting division among Democrats allowed the Free-Staters in Kansas, with the support of the budding Republican Party, to expose the voter fraud behind Lecompton and force a new referendum. It would take two more attempts, but in July , the similar antislavery Wyandotte Constitution was approved, and Kansas entered the Union as a Free State in early Etcheson, Nicole.
In a departure from previous elections and without the authority to do so, Governor Walker threw out the fraudulent ballots which gave anti-slavery forces control of the territorial legislature. Alienated from both factions and frustrated over the lack of progress, Walker left Kansas in mid November , never to return. Between October 19 and November 8, , the pro-slavery Lecompton Convention wrote a state constitution that deviated from the pattern of previous state constitutions.
First, the Lecompton Constitution prohibited any amendment for a period of seven years. The constitution required governors to be citizens for at least 20 years and prohibited free blacks from entering the state. Additionally, the constitution guaranteed slaveholders their property rights for the approximately slaves and their descendants currently residing in the territory.
The constitution left the question if new slaves could be brought into the territory to the voters. The convention wanted the voters to have the option of the constitution with slavery or the constitution without slavery. There was not the option to reject the constitution entirely, which would have represented the true anti-slavery choice because even if the constitution was approved with the prohibition of new slaves brought in, it still would allow the perpetuated enslavement of those currently held in bondage and their descendants.
Members of the convention argued that Kansans risked sacrificing their statehood if they voted on the Lecompton Constitution in whole.
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