USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > Kansas City > Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Historical and biographical. Comprising a condensed history of the state, a careful history of Wyandotte County, and a comprehensive history of the growth of the cities, towns and villages > Part 7
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It would be an interesting study, did space but permit, to compare the provisions of the four constitutions which were successively framed as the fundamental law of this State. Outside of the stormy and con- vulsed domain of the slavery question, the differences in the constitu- tions are not remarkable. In this domain, however, the differences are distinct and antipodal. The Lecompton instrument voiced the extremest doctrines of the slave power. In the article on "Slavery," for slavery was the subject of a separate article, it is declared that "the right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of the slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever." The Legislature was declared to have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of their owners, nor without paying to their owners before emancipation a full equivalent in money for them. The framers of this instrument seem to have labored to emphasize the degradation of manhood on the one hand and the elevation and sanctification of chattelhood on the other. Instead of the usual declaration that all men are equal in rights, they declare "that all freemen, when they form a social com- pact, are equal in rights," and they add that "no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges or deprived of his life, liberty, etc., but by the judgment of his peers
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or the law of the land." In the schedule to the constitution, they provide that, even though the vote should be for the constitution with- out slavery, still, "the right of property in slaves now in the Territory shall in no manner be interfered with;" and in the section relating to amendments to the constitution, it is expressly and carefully provided "that no alteration shall be made to effect the rights of property in the ownership of slaves." Under these provisions, Kansas would in any event have been a slave State, and remained such as long as any of the slaves then living in the Territory, or any of their descendants, to the remotest generations, should have remained.
These extreme and almost frantic provisions for the perpetuity and sanctity of property in slaves, viewed from our present standpoint, and with the light of the past twenty-five years of eventful and startling history bearing full upon them, seem chimerical and almost childish; but one must remember that at that time these monstrous doctrines dominated this country, controlled the utterances of the Supreme Court, were backed by the army and navy, and commanded the hearty support or the unprotesting acquiescence of a majority of the people. It was the merest margin and verge of chance that prevented these doctrines from being incorporated in the organic law of Kansas. The motion which finally resulted in what is known as the "English bill," and prevented admission under the Lecompton Constitution, passed the House of Representatives by a majority of only one vote.
The framers of the Leavenworth Constitution studied to antagonize these peculiar and abhorrent, though characteristic, pro-slavery doc- trines of the Lecompton instrument. Thus the first section of the bill of rights follows almost the exact language of the Topeka Constitu- tion, in saying that "all men are by nature equally free and independ- ent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking and obtaining happiness and safety," and then goes on to add, "and the right of all men to the control of their persons, exists prior to law and is inalienable," a clause which is certainly somewhat pleonastic, and is not to be found in the cor- responding section of the Wyandotte Constitution (which section, by the way, is more tersely and comprehensively expressed in the Wyan- dotte Constitution than in either of the others), but was added for the specific purpose of antagonizing the declaration of the Lecompton in- strument that the right of property is before and higher than any con- stitutional sanction. The idea was to antagonize the dogma of the right
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of man to property in man by the doctrine of the right of man to him- self. It was liberty set over against slavery. So, too, the section of the Lecompton Constitution that no freeman shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, except by the judgment of his peers, and the law of the land, is repeated, almost word for word, with the word "person" substituted for the word "freeman."
The section forbidding slavery is the same in the Leavenworth and Wyandotte Constitutions, and is a repetition of the section in the To- peka Constitution, that "there shall be no slavery in this State, nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime," and adding the clause, "whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
The Leavenworth Constitution contains nowhere the word "white." There is not a word in it which refers to color. The expression "white male citizen" or "white male," which might probably then have been found in the constitution of every State in the Union, is not to be found in it. No change would have been required in its provisions or lan- guage to have made it in perfect harmony with the fourteenth and fif- teenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States. This was not the result of accident, but was achieved by the determined and persevering efforts of some of the most far seeing spirits of the con- vention, who meant, if possible, that the inviduous and unrepublican distinction of color as in any way effecting men's rights, should have neither place nor countenance in the constitution. This result was not achieved without a struggle. The question was debated in some form and upon some clause or section of the constitution nearly every day of the session, but always with the same result.
Strange as it may appear, the Lecompton Constitution does not contain the word "white" in its article on elections and the right of suffrage. Section 1 begins: "Every male citizen of the United States, etc., etc., shall be entitled to vote." The Leavenworth Constitution adopts in its article on the elective franchise the identical expression, "every male citizen of the United States." The correspondence was not accidental; it was intentional. The framers of the Lecompton instru- ment meant to emphasize the extreme doctrine of the slave power, that none but white men could be citizens of the United States; the framers of the Leavenworth Constitution, on the other hand, meant to empha- size the doctrine that every man born upon the soil and under the flag of the Union was a citizen of the United States. Indeed, the careful reader of the two constitutions will not fail to note how radically antago- nistic they are. The one was intended to offset the other. The one
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embodied the most radical doctrines of the slave power; the other anticipated the advanced and humane doctrines of republican equality, which remain as the most precious legacy of the great War of the Re- bellion.
The convention consisted of eighty-four members. Of these, Caleb May and William R. Griffith had been members of the Topeka Con- stitutional Convention, and were afterward members of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, the only individuals who were members of all of them. Five others, namely, James H. Lane, M. F. Conway, W. Y. Roberts, James S. Emery and Joel K. Goodin, had also been members of the Topeka Constitutional Convention. C. A. Foster had been assistant secretary of the Topeka Convention, James M. Winchell was afterward president of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention, and John Ritchie and William McCulloch were also members of both. James H. Lane was elected president of the convention when organ- ized at Minneola, but resigned at Leavenworth, and Martin F. Conway was elected his successor. Samuel F. Tappan was secretary.
Of the eighty-four members, many have since made men of mark. Winchell was president of the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention; Lane was one of Kansas' first United States Senators; Conway was its first member of the House of Representatives; Thomas Ewing, Jr., was first chief justice of the State, and has since been eminent in the field and forum and at the bar; H. P. Johnson died at the head of his regiment during the war; William Spriggs was second State treasurer; A. Larzelere was speaker of the Territorial House of Rep- resentatives in 1859; W. Y. Roberts served with distinction as colonel during the war; P. B. Plumb is United States Senator; J. R. Swallow was elected State auditor in 1864; Henry J. Adams was nominated for governor under the Leavenworth Constitutional Convention; F. G. Adams became secretary of the State Historical Society; W. F. M. Arny was secretary of New Mexico for years; C. H. Branscomb was United States consul at Manchester, England; James S. Emery has been United States district attorney for Kansas, and a regent of the State University; Samuel N. Wood has been repeatedly a member, and once speaker, of the House of Representatives; John Ritchie was a colonel during the war; William R. Griffith was the first and Isaac T. Goodnow the second State superintendent of public instruction; A. Danford was elected attorney-general in 1868; Robert B. Mitchell rose to distinction in the war, and was governor of New Mexico; Ed- ward Lynde was colonel of the Ninth Kansas Regiment; F. N. Blake
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was United States consul to Quebec; J. M. Walden became an emi- nent clergyman in the Methodist Episcopal Church. There are others, doubtless, worthy of mention. Taking them as a whole, it is doubtful if an abler body of men ever assembled in the State. Lane, of course, was the chief figure. He lived in Lawrence, but he appeared in the convention as a delegate from Doniphan County. He took little inter- est in the proceedings of the convention, but spent much of his time during the sessions in pacing up and down the area in the rear of the members' seats, running his hands through his hair, from the base of the brain forward over the top of the skull, as his habit was. He looked merely at the political aspects of the movement. For the con- stitution, as a constitution, he seemed to care but little. Perhaps he foresaw the remote probability of the admission of the State under it. He wanted to be elected president of the convention because, first, he had been president of the Topeka Convention, and, secondly, he had had a quarrel with Gov. Denver, and wanted his favorite "indorse- ment" from the representatives of the people. When Conway re- monstrated with him at Minneola, for wanting to accumulate honors upon himself unduly, he promised to resign in Conway's favor when the convention should get to Leavenworth, and he kept his promise. He was inclined to side with the radical members of the convention, but he rendered them little assistance on the floor. He was not a leader. In the most exciting debate of the convention, namely, that over the question whether, in case the State were admitted under the Lecompton Constitution, the government under the Leavenworth Con- stitution should be put in operation, he took no part whatever. At Minneola, upon the night of adjournment, he made a powerful and dramatic speech. The night was far spent. The candles had burned down in their sockets. The debate had been long, and at times angry. Some of the members were deeply interested in Minneola, and in their excitement they threatened that if the convention should adjourn from Minneola they would abandon the Free-State party and break it up. This threat aroused the sleeping lion in Lane. He came down from the chair, where he had presided with great fairness during the long debate, and took the floor. All eyes were upon him. As he pro- ceeded with his speech the interest intensified, and members began to gather around him, sitting upon the desks and standing in the aisles. The scene was one never to be forgotten-the dimly-lighted room; the darkness without; the excited men within; little Warren, the ser- geant-at-arms, standing unconscious upon the floor, with partly out-
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stretched arms and wholly carried away by the speech, and Lane himself aroused to a pitch of excitement which no one there ever saw him manifest on any other occasion during his whole career. As he drew near his peroration, he painted a picture of the Free State party of Kansas, of what it had done and suffered for the great cause of human liberty, of the crisis that was then upon it, and of the respon- sibilities resting upon its members. He then alluded to the threats that these men interested in Minneola had made of abandoning and breaking up the party, and said that if in the momentous and supreme hour of the party's struggle, they were bound to leave it on account of a few paltry shares in Minneola, then "let them go-and go to hell!"
Conway followed Lane in the same strain, and in a speech which at any other time would have been a powerful one, but its effect was lost in the storm which Lane's outburst had aroused, and it passed al- most unnoticed. The vote was taken and the convention adjourned to Leavenworth. Martin F. Conway was an active participant in all the proceedings of the convention. He was an excellent presiding officer, and his speeches when he took the floor were earnest, impassioned and logical. He had read and studied, more deeply, perhaps, than any other member of the convention, the theory of our governmental sys- tem, and was positive and well fortified in his convictions. Coming from a slave State himself, and a great student of the writings and speeches of leading statesmen of the South, he more thoroughly comprehended the nature, the designs and the ambitions of the slave- power, and seemed to more intensely hate it, than any other man there. His subsequent life, with its single brief success and its numerous and prolonged misfortunes, down to his confinement and death in an asy- lum in Washington, made up a strange career even in this country of surprises and contradictions. One of the most marked members of the convention was Thomas Ewing, Jr. This gentleman added to the graces of a youthful and engaging person the charm of attractive man- ners and a brilliant mind. He took an intelligent interest in the work of the convention, and was ready and effective in debate. His speeches wore the air of preparation, while his manner had an appearance of · dignity and restrained enthusiasm, which left the impression of re- served force and an unexpended power upon the mind of the hearer. He always seemed like a man who had not done his best, but who upon proper occasion could rise to still more masterful heights of argument and eloquence. He was the easy leader of the conservative wing of
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the convention, and championed their views with conspicuous, though ineffectual, ability.
The most exciting debate in the convention over any part of the constitution occurred in connection with Section 5, of the schedule, which provided that in case the constitution should be adopted by the people, then upon the admission of Kansas into the Union as a State, the constitution should be in full force, the State officers should im- mediately enter upon the discharge of their duties, and the governor should immediately, by proclamation, convene the General Assembly. As has been already seen, this Leavenworth Constitutional movement was going on at the very time that the bill for the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution was pending in Congress, and was intended as the counter movement of the Free-State people against that measure. The contingency of the admission of the State under the Lecompton Constitution had to be contemplated. The Free-State people had full control of the Territorial Legislature. A portion of them had taken part in the election of officers under the Lecompton Constitution, and had really carried that election, electing the entire set of State officers under it, but on the face of the returns, including the fraudulent re- turns from Oxford, Shawnee and Kickapoo, the pro-slavery officers were elected, and Calhoun, the president of the Lecompton Constitu- tional Convention, had the granting of certificates both to the State officers and to the Legislature. There was no sufficient or reasonable doubt that Calhoun would carry out the pro slavery programme to the end. He had already declared the constitution "with slavery" adopted, and he would doubtless give certificates to the pro slavery officers under it. The plain question which confronted the Free-State people was, what would they do under these circumstances? Their answer was contained in the fifth section of the schedule, which is above referred to. The debate over this section was fierce and pro- longed. It lasted the whole day. Members felt that it involved what might become very practical and serious issues. The one side main- tained that it was the only logical, consistent and courageous position for the Free-State people to take. The other contended that it looked to a conflict with the general Government, which could only result in disaster and defeat. Ewing led off on the conservative side in opposi- tion to the section in a magnificent speech. Conway came down from the chair and spoke in its defense. Others followed on either side, until the day wore away. When the vote was finally reached, the sec- tion was adopted by a decided majority. It is not recorded that Lane
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said a single word on either side of this debate. As to which side was right it is unnecessary now to discuss. The progress of events fort- unately prevented the question at issue from ever becoming a practical one. Had it become so, however, it is probable that the Free-State people would have been victorious in the struggle which must have ensued. Early in February, 1859, the Territorial Legislature passed an act, submitting to the people the question of calling a constitutional convention. This vote was taken March 28, and resulted: For, 5,306; against, 1,425. On May 10, 1859, the Republican party of Kansas was organized, at Osawatomie, and at the election held on June 7, for delegates to the Wyandotte Convention, the Republican and Demo- cratic parties confronted each other in Kansas for the first time. The Democrats carried the counties of Leavenworth, Doniphan, Jefferson and Jackson, and elected one of the two delegates from Johnson. The Republicans were successful in all the other counties voting. The total vote polled was 14,000. The Republican membership was thirty- five; Democratic, seventeen.
The convention then chosen assembled on July 5, 1859. In its composition it was an unusual, not to say remarkable, Kansas assem- blage. Apparently the chiefs of the contending parties had grown weary of constitution making, or regarded this fourth endeavor in that line as a predestined failure, for they were conspicuous by their ab- sence. In the Topeka Convention nearly every prominent man of the Free-State party had a seat. Gen. Lane was president, and Charles Conway, Marcus J. Parrott, William Y. Roberts, George W. Smith, Philip C. Schuyler, C. K. Holliday, Mark W. Delahay, and many other prominent Free-State leaders were members. In the Leaven- worth Convention there was a similar gathering of widely known Free- State men, Conway was its president, and Lane, Roberts, Thomas Ewing, Jr., Henry J. Adams, H. P. Johnson, S. N. Wood, T. Dwight Thacher, P. B. Plum, Joel K. Goodin, A. Larzelere, W. F. M. Arny, Charles H. Branscomb, John Ritchie, and many other influential Free- State chiefs or partisans were among its members.
The younger men of the Territory constituted the convention at Wyandotte. They came upon the field fresh, enthusiastic, and with a place in the world of thought and action to conquer. They recognized the fact that they must do extremely well to secure popular favor, and they set about their task with industry, intelligence and prudence. They were not martyrs nor reformers, as many of those of Topeka were; nor jealous politicians or factionists, as were most of those at Leaven-
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worth. They had no old battles to fight over again, no personal feuds to distract them, no recollections of former defeats or victories to re- verse or maintain. They were their own prophets. They had no ex- perience in constitution making, and hence did not look backward. They were not specialists. Few had hobbies. A few were dogmatic, but the many were anxious to discuss and willing to be convinced. A few were loquacious, but the majority were thinkers and workers. Some were accomplished scholars, but the majority were men of ordi- nary education, whose faculties had been sharpened and trained by the hard experience of an active and earnest life. Many were vigorous, direct, intelligent speakers; several were really eloquent; and a few may justly be ranked with the most versatile and brilliant men Kansas has ever numbered among her citizens.
Very few were old men. Only fifteen of the fifty-two members were over forty. Over one-third were under thirty, and nearly two- thirds were under thirty-five. Very few had previously appeared as representatives of the people in any Territorial assemblage, and this was especially true of the men whose talents, industry and force soon approved them leaders. Samuel A. Kingman had been in the Terri- tory only about eighteen months, and was unknown outside of Brown County until he appeared at Wyandotte. Solon O. Thacher was a young lawyer of Lawrence, never before prominent in public affairs. John J. Ingalls had served, the previous winter, as engrossing clerk of the Territorial council. Samuel A. Stinson was a young attorney, recently from Maine. William C. McDowell had never been heard outside of Leavenworth. Benjamin F. Simpson was a boyish-looking lawyer from Miami County, and John T. Burris had been practicing, for a year or two, before justices' courts in Johnson County. John P. Slough had been a member of the Ohio Legislature, but was a new- comer in Kansas, and E. G. Ross was the publisher of a weekly news- paper at Topeka. One-half of the members had been in the Territory less than two years. Six came in 1854, four in 1855, and twelve in 1856, while Mr. Forman, of Doniphan, dated his residence from 1853; Mr. Palmer, of Pottawatomie, from 1854, and Mr. Houston, of Riley, from 1853. Forty-one were from Northern States, seven from the South, and four were of foreign birth, England, Scotland, Ireland and Ger- many each contributing one. It appears singular that only one of the Western States, Indiana, was represented in the membership, that State furnishing six delegates. Twelve hailed from New England, Ohio contributed twelve, Pennsylvania six, and New York four. Only
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eighteen belonged to the legal profession-an unusually small number of lawyers in such a body. Sixteen were farmers, eight merchants, three physicians, three manufacturers, one a mechanic, one a printer, one a land agent and one a surveyor. The oldest member was Robert Graham, of Atchison, who was fifty-five; the youngest, Benjamin F. Simpson, of Lykins County (now Miami), who was twenty-three.
It was a working body from the first hour of its session until the last. It perfected its organization, adopted rules for its government, discussed the best mode of procedure in framing a constitution, and appointed a committee to report upon that subject during the first day's session; all the standing committees were announced on the third day, and by the close of the fifth day it had disposed of two very troublesome contested election cases, decided that the Ohio constitution should be the model for that of Kansas, perfected arrangements for reporting and printing its debates, and instructed its committees upon a number of disputed questions. The vote on selecting a model for the constitution was, on the second ballot: For the Ohio constitution twenty-five votes; Indiana, twenty-three, and Kentucky, one. So the Kansas constitution was modeled after that of Ohio.
The chairmanships of the different committees were assigned as follows: Preamble and bill of rights, William Hutchinson, of Law- rence; executive department, John P. Greer, of Shawnee; legis- lative department, Solon O. Thacher, of Lawrence; judicial depart- ment, Samuel A. Kingman, of Brown County; military, James G. Blunt, of Anderson County; electors and elections, P. H. Townsend, of Douglas; schedule, John T. Burris, of Johnson; apportionment, H. D. Preston, of Shawnee; corporations and banking, Robert Gra- ham, of Atchison; education and public institutions, W. R. Griffith, of Bourbon County; county and township organizations, John Ritchie, of Topeka; ordinance and public debt, James Blood, of Lawrence; finance and taxation, Benjamin F. Simpson, of Lykins; amendments and miscellaneous, S. D. Houston, of Riley County; federal relations, T. S. Wright, of Nemaha County; phraseology and arrangements, John J. Ingalls, of Atchison.
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