an end to them late in 1856. (In the isolated south-eastern counties they continued through 1856–1858, mainly to the advantage of the “jay-hawkers” of free-state Kansas and to the terror of Missouri.)
The struggle now passed into another phase, in which questions of state predominate. But something may be remarked in passing of the leaders in the period of turbulence. John Brown wished to deal a blow against slavery, but did nothing to aid any conservative political organization to that end. James H. Lane was another radical, and always favoured force. He was a political adventurer, an enthusiastic, energetic, ambitious, ill-balanced man, shrewd and magnetic. He assuredly did much for the free-state cause; meek politics were not alone sufficient in those years in Kansas. The leader of the conservative free-soilers was Charles Robinson (1818–1894). He was born in Massachusetts, studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical School, and had had political experience in California, whither he had gone in 1849, and where in 1850–1852 he was a member of the legislature and a successful anti-slavery leader. In 1854 he had come to Kansas as an agent of the Emigrant Aid Company. He was the author of the Topeka government idea, or at least was its moving spirit, serving throughout as the “governor” under it; though averse to force, he would use it if necessary, and was first in command in the “Wakarusa War.” His partisans say that he saved Kansas, and regard Lane as a fomenter of trouble who accomplished nothing. Andrew H. Reeder (1807–1864), who showed himself a pro-slavery sympathizer as first Territorial governor, was removed from office for favouring the free-state party; he became a leader in the free-state cause. Every governor who followed him was forced by the logic of events and truth tacitly to acknowledge that right lay with the free-state party. Reeder and Shannon fled the Territory in fear of assassination by the pro-slavery party, with which at first they had had most sympathy. Among the pro-slavery leaders David Rice Atchison (1807–1886), United States Senator in 1843–1855, accompanied both expeditions against Lawrence; but he urged moderation, as always, at the end of what was a legitimate result of his radical agitation.
In June 1857 delegates were elected to a constitutional convention. The election Act did not provide for any popular vote upon the constitution they should form, and was passed over Governor John W. Geary’s veto. A census, miserably deficient (largely owing to free-state abstention and obstruction), was the basis of apportionment of delegates. The free-state party demanded a popular vote on the constitution. On the justice of this Governor Robert J. Walker and President Buchanan were at first unequivocally agreed, and the governor promised fairplay. Nevertheless only pro-slavery men voted, and the convention was thus pro-slavery. The document it framed is known as the Lecompton Constitution. Before the convention met, the free-state party, abandoning its policy of political inaction, captured the Territorial legislature. On the constitutional convention rested, then, all hope of saving Kansas for slavery; and that would be impossible if they should submit their handiwork to the people. The convention declared slave property to be “before and higher than any constitutional sanction” and forbade amendments affecting it; but it provided for a popular vote on the alternatives, the “constitution with slavery” or the “constitution with no slavery.” If the latter should be adopted, slavery should cease “except” that the right to property in slaves in the Territory should not be interfered with. The free-state men regarded this as including the right to property in offspring of slaves, and therefore as pure fraud. Governor Walker stood firmly against this iniquitous scheme; he saw that slavery was, otherwise, doomed, but he thought Kansas could be saved to the Democratic party though lost to slavery. But President Buchanan, under Southern influence, repudiated his former assurances. There is reason to believe that the whole scheme was originated at Washington, and though Buchanan was not privy to it before the event, yet he adopted it. He abandoned Walker, who left Kansas; and he dismissed Acting-Governor Frederick P. Stanton for convoking the (now free-state) legislature. This body promptly ordered a vote on the third alternative, “Against the Constitution.”
The free-state men ignored the alternatives set by the Lecompton Convention; but they participated nevertheless in the provisional election for officers under the Lecompton government, capturing all offices, and then, the same day, voted overwhelmingly against the constitution (Jan. 4, 1858).
Nevertheless, Buchanan, against the urgent counsel of Governor Denver, urged on Congress (Feb. 2) the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. He was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the leader of the Northern Democracy. The Senate upheld the President; the House of Representatives voted down his policy; and finally both houses accepted the English Bill, by which Kansas was virtually offered some millions of acres of public lands if she should accept the Lecompton Constitution.[1] On the 21st of August 1858, by a vote of 11,300 to 1788, Kansas resisted this temptation. The plan of the Administration thus effectually miscarried, and its final result was a profound split in the Democratic party.
The free-state men framed an excellent anti-slavery constitution at Leavenworth in March-April 1858, but the origins of the convention were illegal and their work was still-born. On the 29th of July 1859 still another constitution was therefore framed at Wyandotte, and on the 4th of October it was ratified by the people. Meanwhile the Topeka “government” disappeared, and also, with its single purpose equally served, the free-state party, most of it (once largely Democratic) passing into the Republican party, now first organized in the Territory. On the 29th of January 1861 Kansas was admitted to the Union under the Wyandotte Constitution. The United States Census of 1860 gave her a population of 107,204 inhabitants. The struggle in Kansas, the first physical national struggle over slavery, was of paramount importance in the breaking up of the Whig party, the firm establishment of an uncompromisingly anti-slavery party, the sectionalization of the Democracy, and the general preparation of the country for the Civil War.
Drought and famine came in 1860, and then upon the impoverished state came the strain of the Civil War. Nevertheless Kansas furnished proportionally a very large quota of men to the Union armies. Military operations within her own borders were largely confined to a guerrilla warfare, carrying on the bitter neighbourhood strife between Kansas and Missouri. The Confederate officers began by repressing predatory plundering from Missouri; but after James H. Lane, with an undisciplined brigade, had crossed the border, sacking, burning and killing in his progress, Missouri “bushrangers” retaliated in kind. Freebooters trained in Territorial licence had a free hand on both sides. Kansas bands were long the more successful. But William C. Quantrell, after sacking various small Kansas towns along the Missouri river (1862–63), in August 1863 took Lawrence (q.v.) and put it mercilessly to fire and sword—the most ghastly episode in border history. In the autumn of 1864 the Confederate general, Sterling Price, aiming to enter Kansas from Missouri but defeated by General Pleasanton’s cavalry, retreated southward, zig-zagging on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas line. This ended for Kansas the border raids and the war. Lane was probably the first United States officer to enlist negroes as soldiers. Many of them (and Indians too) fought bravely for the state. Indian raids and wars troubled the state from 1864 to 1878. The tribes domiciled in Kansas were rapidly moved to Indian Territory after 1868.
- ↑ The English Bill was not a bribe to the degree that it has usually been considered to be, inasmuch as it “reduced the grant of land demanded by the Lecompton Ordinance from 23,500,000 acres to 3,500,000 acres, and offered only the normal cession to new states.” But this grant of 3,500,000 acres was conditioned on the acceptance of the Lecompton Constitution, and Congress made no promise of any grant if that Constitution were not adopted. The bill was introduced by William Hayden English (1822–1896), a Democratic representative in Congress in 1853–1861 (see Frank H. Hodder, “Some Aspects of the English Bill for the Admission of Kansas,” in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1906, i. 201–210).
