Kansas Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal ages at a glance

The legal system

Kansas law was English common law, received by statute and then steadily replaced by statute. The territorial legislature of 1859 adopted the common law of England, together with the acts of Parliament made in aid of it, as the rule of decision in Kansas, so far as they did not conflict with the United States Constitution, the act organizing the territory, or any Kansas statute¹. Where no statute spoke, that common law governed.

The land itself came to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and the treaty of cession is printed at the front of the first state compilation². No French or Spanish rule reached Kansas practice, though. Settlement came half a century after the purchase, and the first statutes the settlers lived under were English in origin and American in form.

The law of the territory then changed hands twice in six years, and the break matters. The first territorial legislature, elected in 1855 and remembered by free-state settlers as the "Bogus Legislature," adopted the statutes of Missouri wholesale and added a slave code on the Missouri pattern³. The free-state legislature of 1859 swept that away and enacted the code this guide traces: the acts on marriage, married women, descents and distributions, guardians, wills, conveyances, and the homestead. Almost every rule a genealogist needs for Kansas dates from 1859, two years before statehood. Slavery in the territory ended on 23 February 1860, when a two-thirds vote of both houses carried an act over Governor Medary's veto declaring slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, forever prohibited in the territory⁴. Kansas entered the Union on 29 January 1861 under the Wyandotte Constitution.

Five dates anchor everything that follows: the free-state code of 1859; statehood in 1861; the General Statutes of 1868, the first state compilation; the Revised Statutes of 1923; and the Probate Code of 1939, which repealed the old chapters on wills, descents, executors, and guardians and re-enacted them as Chapter 59⁵.

Two courts hold the records. The probate court handled wills, estates, guardianships, and, for most of the period, marriage licenses. The district court heard civil and criminal trials with juries. When the courts were unified in the 1970s the probate business moved into the district court, which now holds those older files.

Legal age of adulthood

Full legal age was 21 for a man and 18 for a woman. The territorial act of 1859 set both figures in one sentence, and they governed for the next half century⁶. From 1917 the age for a woman was 21 as well, and the change did not reach back — a woman who had already turned 18 stayed of age⁷. Anyone under the relevant age was a minor, whatever else was true of them.

That difference is a useful date in Kansas age research. Before 1917 a woman of 18 could sell her own land, make a will of it, and take her property out of a guardian's hands. A guardian's closing settlement for a girl before 1917 therefore dates her eighteenth birthday, not her twenty-first.

One further qualification changes what you will find in the records. From 1919 a married person of 18 or over was treated as an adult during the marriage for contracts, property rights, liabilities, and the capacity to sue and be sued⁸. Marriage lifted the disabilities that would otherwise have kept an 18-year-old husband or wife from dealing with their own property.

A minor's contract was voidable — good until the minor chose to undo it, which he or she could do at 21 or soon after. For necessaries — food, clothing, lodging, and the like — the minor was bound⁹. A minor could also have the disabilities of infancy removed early: on petition and hearing, the district court where the minor lived could confer the full power to hold property and contract as though of full age, where it found this would promote the minor's interest¹⁰. Such an order is a district court record that names the minor and usually the reason.

Marriage

Age and consent

A man could marry on his own authority at 21, a woman at 18. Below those ages a parent or guardian had to consent. The rule arrived with the territorial code of 1855 and was re-enacted by the free-state legislature in 1859, which put the duty on the officiant: no judge, justice of the peace, clergyman, or preacher was to join in marriage any male under 21 or any female under 18 without the consent of the parents or guardian under whose care the minor was, on pain of a fine of up to $1,000¹¹¹².

The rule then moved from the officiant to the licensing officer without changing the ages. The license act of 1867 carried it into the General Statutes of 1868, and amendments in 1905 and 1913 rewrote the license section into the form it kept until 1947¹³. Those amendments added a second consent below the first: for a male under 18 or a female under 16, the probate judge had to consent as well as the parent. That is why a two-consent license file is a twentieth-century record and not an 1860s one¹⁴. Below the common-law ages there was no capacity to marry at all¹⁵.

A Kansas marriage below 18 or 16 in the twentieth century should therefore carry a probate judge's written consent in the license file alongside the parent's — two documents, not one.

Where a party lacked capacity for want of age or understanding, the marriage could be undone by annulment, on the action of the incapable party¹⁶. A runaway teenage marriage in the Kansas record is a real marriage unless somebody went to court about it.

Common-law marriage

A couple could become husband and wife in Kansas with no license, no ceremony, and no clergyman. The statute made marriage a civil contract to which the consent of the parties was essential¹⁷, and the courts asked only three things: that both parties were capable of marrying, that they made a present agreement to be husband and wife rather than a promise for the future, and that they lived together and held themselves out to the community as married¹⁸.

The legislature discouraged the practice without abolishing it. The marriage relation was to be entered into only as the law prescribed, and a couple living together as man and wife without being married was guilty of a misdemeanor¹⁹. The Supreme Court held that such a couple nonetheless contracted a valid common-law marriage, even while exposing themselves to that punishment²⁰.

Two things follow for research. The absence of a license does not mean a couple was unmarried, and a common-law marriage carried full inheritance rights, so census entries, deeds, and probate files showing a couple holding themselves out as married can establish the marriage where no license exists. And a prosecution for unlawful cohabitation in the criminal docket may be evidence of a marriage rather than against one.

Who could not marry

Marriages within the degrees of kinship were void: between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and first cousins. The rule reached children born outside marriage and their relations as well as those born within it²¹. Contracting or performing such a marriage was a crime carrying a fine of $100 to $1,000 and imprisonment of three months to five years²².

Health bars came later. A person who was epileptic, imbecile, feeble-minded, or afflicted with insanity could not marry unless the woman was over 45²³. From 1947 each applicant had to file a physician's certificate reporting a blood test for syphilis and the physician's opinion on feeble-mindedness, which the district judge could excuse where the woman was over 45 or an emergency justified it²⁴.

Race was a bar only in the territorial period. The pro-slavery code of 1855 declared marriages between white people and Black people illegal and void, and made both the couple and the officiant guilty of a misdemeanor. The free-state legislature repealed that code in 1859, and the marriage act passed in its place barred marriage within the degrees of kinship and drew no distinction of race²⁵. From 1859 onward an ordinary Kansas marriage record can be expected for a couple of any races.

The ceremony and the record it left

Judges, justices of the peace, clergymen, and licensed preachers of the gospel could perform the ceremony²⁶. What the officiant then had to do changed once, in 1867, and the change moved where the record sits.

From 1859 to 1867 there was no license. The officiant kept his own record and sent a certificate of every marriage to the county clerk within three months, and the clerk entered it in a book kept for the purpose. The duty to make the return lay on the officiant, who forfeited $100 for neglecting it, so a missing return means a delinquent officiant, not necessarily an absent marriage²⁷.

From February 1867 the probate judge issued a license, the officiant certified the marriage on the back of it and returned it within thirty days, and the probate judge kept the book of licenses issued. The same act ordered every county clerk to hand over all the marriage records in his office to the probate judge within thirty days²⁸. That is why Kansas marriages from 1859 onward sit together in probate court custody rather than split between two offices.

A marriage valid where it was contracted was valid in Kansas²⁹. By the twentieth century a three-day waiting period ran between application and license, waived only by a district judge on proof of emergency³⁰.

Property ownership

Men and land

A man could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or devise — a gift of land made by will. What arrived at 21 was the power to deal with it in his own name: to buy, sell, mortgage, and convey by his own deed. A deed he gave before 21 was voidable and could be undone at majority, unless he had misrepresented his age or had been trading as an adult, so a minor's land was ordinarily sold for him through the probate court instead³¹.

Marriage did not reduce a man's power over his own land. It added his wife's claim to it, which is the subject of the next two headings.

Women and land

Kansas gave married women separate property from the beginning of its free-state law. Under the common law a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's when she married — a condition called coverture, which left her unable to hold property or make a contract in her own name. The territorial act of 1859 put a different rule in its place, and that rule governed through 1950.

Under that act the real and personal property a woman owned at her marriage, its rents and profits, and anything coming to her afterwards by inheritance, by will, or by the gift of anyone except her husband, remained her sole and separate property. It was not subject to her husband's disposal and not liable for his debts³². She could bargain, sell, and convey her real and personal property and contract about it as if she were unmarried³³. She could sue and be sued in her own name, carry on any trade or business on her own account, and keep her own earnings³⁴. The Wyandotte Constitution then directed the legislature to protect exactly these rights³⁵. The courts read the act to give a married woman the same contractual power as her husband: whatever contract he could make, she could make³⁶.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly. A married Kansas woman's deed of her own land carried her signature and no one else's. A woman transacting freely in the Kansas deed books is not necessarily a widow or a single woman.

When a wife signed a deed

Two different rules put a Kansas wife's name on her husband's deed, and they work differently.

The first is the homestead. The constitution exempted it from forced sale — 160 acres of farming land, or one acre within an incorporated town or city, with its improvements, occupied as a residence by the family of the owner — and provided that it could not be sold or given away without the joint consent of husband and wife³⁷. A deed or mortgage of the homestead signed by one spouse alone was void. The territorial predecessor set the homestead smaller, at 80 acres or one town lot not exceeding $1,000 in value, and already required the wife's signature on a married man's mortgage or conveyance of it³⁸.

The second rule reaches everything else. One-half in value of all the real estate in which the deceased had a legal or equitable interest at any time during the marriage was set apart to the surviving spouse in fee, meaning as outright owner, unless the survivor had released it³⁹. An equitable interest here means a claim a court would enforce as ownership even though the deed stood in another name. The husband's own signature passed title. But the buyer took the land subject to that claim unless the wife joined in the deed, so buyers obtained her signature as a matter of routine, and its absence is a fact worth chasing.

A wife who was a nonresident at the time of the conveyance and had never lived in Kansas as her husband's wife had no such claim, and he could convey alone⁴⁰.

Children and land

A child could own land at any age. Selling it went through the probate court.

The probate court could order a minor's real property sold or mortgaged on the guardian's application, where the sale was necessary for the minor's support or education, or where the child's interest would be promoted because the property was unproductive, exposed to waste — damage or neglect that would lose its value — or for other peculiar circumstances⁴¹. The petition had to state the grounds under oath, notice had to be served on the minor beforehand, and the guardian had to give a second bond before executing the sale⁴².

So a single sale of a child's land leaves a petition, a notice served on the child, a bond, an order, and a deed signed by someone other than the owner. Where a Kansas deed conveys a child's land, the probate file holds the family.

Signing and recording a deed

A Kansas deed took the grantor's signature and an officer's acknowledgment, and that rule held from the beginning of the free-state law. A conveyance of land, or of any other estate or interest in it, was made by deed, executed by a person having authority and acknowledged before an officer. That meant signing in front of a judge, justice of the peace, notary public, register of deeds, or other authorized official, who certified that the signer was who he said he was and signed willingly. That was the whole of the ceremony the law required⁴³. A witness of any age could sign a Kansas deed, but none was needed. Recording the deed with the register of deeds made it good against the world.

Land and race

Enslaved people in Kansas Territory had no capacity to own property. The territorial revenue act of 1855 listed them among the things taxed as property, alongside land, livestock, and household furniture⁴⁴. Slavery there ended in February 1860, and Kansas came into the Union as a free state.

From statehood the property and conveyancing statutes drew no distinction of race. The act regulating conveyances and the act concerning descents and distributions each apply to persons generally and contain no racial qualification of any kind⁴⁵. The state constitution restricted voting by race, but not the holding of land. Free Black Kansans therefore bought, held, conveyed, and devised land on the same terms as anyone else, which is why deeds, mortgages, and probate files exist for Black families in Kansas from the earliest state years, including the Exoduster settlements of the late 1870s.

Kansas held many reservations and allotments, and those followed a different law entirely. The Supreme Court held in 1867 that Kansas could not tax land set apart for a tribe by treaty, and title to treaty and allotted land passed under federal restrictions that the Kansas probate court did not control⁴⁶. Where an ancestor's land came to them as an allotment, the governing records are federal — treaty, allotment, and Indian agency files — and not the county courthouse.

Inheritance

The surviving spouse's share

When a husband or wife died intestate, meaning without leaving a valid will, the survivor took one-half. The same one-half was also the most a will could take away from the survivor, so this single fraction governs whether or not there was a will.

The survivor's half was a share in fee: outright ownership of the land itself, which the survivor could sell or leave by will⁴⁷. The provisions are sex-neutral, since everything enacted for the widow of a deceased husband applied to the husband of a deceased wife⁴⁸.

The shares are simple, and, unusually, they do not shrink as the number of children rises:

Real and personal property went the same way. The personal property left after debts was distributed to the same persons and in the same proportions as though it were real estate⁴⁹.

All of this dates from 1859. The territorial married women's act gave a surviving husband one-half of his wife's separate property with the other half to her children, and a surviving wife one-half of her husband's property with the other half divided among his children. Where there was no issue, the survivor took the whole⁵⁰.

The homestead and the widow's allowance

The homestead did not pass by those rules at all. It was exempt from distribution and descended absolutely to the surviving spouse and children, or to either of them⁵¹.

The widow's allowance came out of the personal estate before anything was distributed: the deceased's wearing apparel, the household goods, provisions and fuel for one year, and further specified property or cash in lieu of it, up to $250. The widow selected the property herself, and none of it was liable for her husband's debts. Where there were no minor children it belonged to her absolutely, and it came on top of whatever she took under the will or the law⁵². It is a separate probate record, and it names the widow and the minor children.

The share a will could not defeat

Under the act of 1859 a married woman could make a will, but could not leave away from her husband more than one-half of her property without his consent in writing. And where a husband's will tried to leave his wife less than half, she could take under the will or take one-half of his whole estate instead, at her election, made after his death⁵³⁵⁴. By the twentieth century the rule ran both ways and was tightened: neither spouse could will away from the other more than one-half without the other's consent in writing before two witnesses⁵³.

Both halves of this rule leave paper. A written spousal consent, or an election filed against a will, sits in the probate file and states exactly what the survivor chose.

The 1859 act also let a widow take her share in the ordinary dwelling house and the land given by law as a homestead. Her share was set off by referees, meaning persons the probate court appointed to divide the land, on application made any time after twenty days and within ten years of her husband's death⁵⁵. Their return describes her portion tract by tract.

Gifts made before death

Where a person died intestate, property given to an heir during life as an advancement — meant as part of that heir's share — counted against the heir's portion, valued at what it was worth when given. Where the advancement exceeded the share, the heir kept the surplus and refunded nothing⁵⁶. An estate division that gives one child noticeably less is often explained by a deed made years earlier.

Guardians for minors

A minor's inheritance went to a guardian under the supervision of the probate court.

The father was the natural guardian of his minor children, and on his death or incapacity the mother became guardian⁵⁷. The Wyandotte Constitution directed the legislature to provide for women's equal rights in the possession of their children, and by the twentieth century both parents were natural guardians equally, each as fully as the other⁵⁸.

A guardian was appointed in these circumstances, and each throws off a probate file:

• Both parents were dead or disqualified to act, and none had been named by will⁵⁹.
• The minor came into property that came from neither parent, the father being alive and well⁶⁰. A legacy from a grandparent, an uncle, or the mother's family required a guardian of the estate, and that guardian is often somebody other than the father. A guardianship for a child whose father is living tells you the child inherited from elsewhere.
• The court appointed the father, or on his death, absence, or incapacity the mother, to take charge of the child's property, where it thought them suitable⁶¹.

A guardian could also be named by will. Under the 1859 act the parent who was actually serving as natural guardian could appoint one: the father during his life, the mother after his death. By the twentieth century, with both parents equal natural guardians, only the surviving parent could name a guardian by will⁶².

At fourteen, a minor of sound intellect could select his or her own guardian, subject to the court's approval⁶³. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is evidence the child had reached 14, and brackets a birth year.

Guardianship ended at 21. Under the territorial code of 1855 a girl's guardianship ended at her marriage if she married first⁶⁴. Three documents come out of it:

• The bond, with a surety — a second person who promised to pay if the guardian defaulted — in a penalty double the value of the personal estate and of the rents and profits of the land, conditioned on the faithful discharge of the guardian's duties⁶⁵.
• The inventory and appraisement of all the minor's property, made within forty days of the appointment and filed with the clerk of the probate court⁶⁶. It is an itemized picture of what the child inherited.
• The closing settlement. The guardian managed the minor's interests under the court's direction and accounted to it⁶⁷, and the settlement that closes the guardianship is filed when the minor turns 21. That dates the majority, approximates a birth year, and frequently reveals a young woman's married surname.

Children born outside marriage

A child born outside marriage inherited from the mother, and the mother from the child, without any condition at all⁶⁸.

The child inherited from the father where the father had recognized the child as his own, and the recognition had to be general and notorious, or else in writing⁶⁹. The evidence a Kansas court wanted was therefore either a document or a reputation in the community, which is very often the same evidence a genealogist has already gathered.

The father could inherit from such a child only where the recognition of the relationship had been mutual, and even then the mother and her heirs took preference over the father and his heirs⁷⁰.

Paternity was settled in a separate proceeding begun on the mother's complaint, and where it was established the court put the father under bond for annual payments toward the child's maintenance and education⁷¹. The file names the father, and under the recognition rule above, a paternity judgment can be what gives the child a claim on his estate.

Making a will

From 1855 to 1859 the age depended on what was being given away: a will of land took 21, a will of goods and chattels took 18⁷².

From 1859 the age to make a will was 21 for everything. Any person of full age and sound mind could dispose by will of all his or her property, saving what was needed to pay debts, what was allowed as a homestead, and other privileged property⁷³. One age, both sexes, and land and personal property alike. A married woman's will was subject to no special restriction beyond the spousal half described above⁷⁴.

A will had to be in writing and attested by two competent witnesses, meaning signed by them as witnesses, who saw the testator sign or heard the will acknowledged⁷⁵. A witness of any age could attest a will, so long as the witness was competent. A gift in the will to one of the attesting witnesses was void, unless two other competent witnesses also signed, though a witness who was an heir could still take up to what he would have inherited had there been no will⁷⁶. A legacy that failed for this reason tells you the drafter thought that witness close enough to the family to leave something to.

Every will but an oral one had to be attested. A holographic will, one written entirely in the testator's own hand, took the same two witnesses as any other written will. An oral will was good for personal property only. Under the territorial act it could carry personal property up to $300 in value if witnessed by two competent witnesses, and a soldier in actual service or a mariner at sea could dispose of all his personal estate that way. The later code kept the oral will for personal property, made in the last sickness and reduced to writing and subscribed by two competent, disinterested witnesses⁷⁷.

The age to serve as executor was 21 throughout. Under the territorial codes of 1855 and 1859 the bar was absolute, and it reached further: a married woman could not serve as executrix or administratrix at all, and a single woman already serving lost her letters if she married, her powers extinguished by the marriage itself. The revision of 1868 dropped both rules, and from then on a widow stood first in the order of persons entitled to administer her husband's estate⁷⁸. A change of administrator in an estate file of the 1860s shortly after a wedding usually has the older rule behind it.

Letters testamentary, the court's written authority to act for the estate, went to the executor named in the will if he or she was legally competent and accepted the trust. Otherwise the court granted letters of administration with the will annexed⁷⁹. Where the named executor was under 21, the estate was administered by someone else during his minority, and he could be admitted as joint executor once he came of age⁷⁸. So look at the letters, not the will, for the person who actually did the work.

Taxation

The tax that names the most people is the annual property tax on real and personal property, an ad valorem tax, assessed according to value and listed by county every year. The territorial revenue act of 1855 established it, taxing land and town lots, household furniture above $200, pleasure carriages, horses and cattle, watches and clocks, bank shares, and money loaned at interest, at one-sixth of one percent of assessed value. The same act exempted the property of widows and minor orphans worth less than $1,000⁸⁰. The state constitution then required a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation, and the general property tax remained the main support of state and local government throughout the period⁸¹. The assessment rolls place a man in a township year by year, and they work as a census substitute between the federal enumerations.

Head taxes were levied three ways across the period, and the three versions leave different records. A capitation is a flat charge on a person rather than on property, and a "poll" is the taxable person himself.

Three things follow. Under both territorial poll taxes the poll was the man himself, so a man who owned nothing still appears — but the 1855 tax counted only free males, and the 1859 road tax excepted people of color, so neither list is a complete roll of adult men, and the absence of a Black ancestor from one means nothing. A state-period road record shows a landowner working out a tax on his land rather than a head count of men. And city poll lists are worth searching where a rural tax roll turns up nothing.

Two twentieth-century taxes complete the picture: the Kansas income tax, enacted in March 1933⁸⁵, and the Kansas retailers' sales tax, enacted in April 1937 at 2 percent⁸⁶.

Courts

Jury service

Jurors were selected from those assessed on the previous year's assessment roll, and had to have the qualifications of electors, that is, of voters. The county board picked men in possession of their natural faculties, not infirm or decrepit, of fair character, approved integrity, sound judgment, and well informed⁸⁷. The working test through the nineteenth century was therefore an adult man of 21 whose name appeared on the assessment roll. Payment of tax on personal property was not itself the test of a juror's competency, and the rolls covered both real and personal property⁸⁸.

Owning land was never part of the test, on the regular panel or off it. Where there were not enough jurors present to fill a panel, the court sent the sheriff out to summon bystanders or neighboring citizens who had the same qualifications as any other juror⁸⁹.

Because eligibility followed the vote, it changed whenever the franchise did. The Wyandotte Constitution gave the vote to every white male person of twenty-one and upward, which shut Black men and Native men out of the jury box as well as the ballot box. Kansas voters were asked in November 1867 to strike the word "white" and refused. Black men became electors, and so jurors, only with the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, and the state constitution's own text was not brought into line until a further amendment carried in 1917⁹⁰. Women became eligible in 1912, when Kansas granted them full suffrage. No separate jury act was needed, because the elector qualification carried them in automatically⁹¹.

Women could be excused, and the machinery makes a useful record. The tax assessor was required to ask each woman elector, at the time of the annual assessment, whether she wished to be exempted from jury service that year, and if she did her name was left off the jury list. The exemption did not disqualify her, so a woman who wanted to serve, served⁹².

Criminal responsibility

The common law governed, and the statutes left it there. Neither the territorial crimes act of 1859 nor the code of criminal procedure passed alongside it fixed any minimum age, so the rule was the one the reception act of 1859 brought in from England⁹³. A child under 7 could not commit a crime at all. Between 7 and 14 the law presumed the child incapable, and the prosecution had to overcome the presumption by showing the child understood the wrongfulness of the act. From 14 the child bore full responsibility and was tried as an adult.

In 1905 Kansas established a juvenile court with jurisdiction over dependent, neglected, and delinquent children, amended and supplemented in 1907⁹⁴. Its jurisdiction over children under sixteen was exclusive⁹⁵. The practical effect for a researcher: from 1905 the record of a child under 16 is a juvenile court file rather than a criminal case file, and those files are usually closed.

Witnesses

Ten was the age at which a witness was presumed competent. A child under 10 could testify too, but the judge examined the child first and let the testimony in on satisfying himself that the child could take in what happened and relate it truly. Above 10, age was not a question at all⁹⁶.

The rule for spouses changed once. Under the 1859 code a husband and wife were simply incompetent to testify for or against each other. From 1872 each could testify for or against the other, except as to transactions in which one acted as the other's agent or in which they were joint parties with a joint interest. But in no case could either testify to anything the other had said to them during the marriage⁹⁷. By the twentieth century husband and wife were competent for or against each other in criminal proceedings, neither compellable except on the other's behalf, while in civil actions the bar on marital communications remained⁹⁸.

Under the pro-slavery code of 1855 a Black Kansan could testify in two situations only: a territorial prosecution against another Black person, and a civil case in which every party was Black⁹⁹. The free-state legislature repealed that code in 1859, and from then on the competency rules drew no distinction of race. Women testified on the same terms as men throughout.

Sources and where to verify

Constitutions

• Kansas Constitution of 1859 (Wyandotte). Adopted by convention 29 July 1859, ratified 4 October 1859, effective on admission 29 January 1861. Art. 5, § 1 (qualifications of electors); art. 11, § 1 (uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation); art. 15, § 6 (rights of women, and equal rights in the possession of children); art. 15, § 9 (homestead exemption, and sale only by the joint consent of husband and wife). Each section prints its own amendment history. Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_005_0001.html; https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_011_0001.html; https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_015_0006.html; https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_015_0009.html (accessed 9 August 2026).

Codes and compilations

• The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas. Shawnee M.L.S., Kansas Territory: John T. Brady, Public Printer, 1855. The first-session code, which adopted the statutes of Missouri wholesale. Ch. 1 (executors and administrators), ch. 78 (guardians and curators), ch. 108 (marriages), ch. 137 (revenue), ch. 164 (wills), ch. 165 (witnesses). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp85790665; also HathiTrust, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112103435535 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• The General Statutes of the State of Kansas. Revised by John M. Price, Samuel A. Riggs, and James McCahon, commissioners appointed under an act approved 18 February 1867. Lawrence: John Speer, Public Printer, 1868. The first state compilation, and the citation most history lines run back to. Prefixed with the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States and the act admitting Kansas. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=PkVMAQAAIAAJ (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Compiled Laws of Kansas, 1885. Compiled by C. F. W. Dassler. Based on the General Statutes of 1868 together with later enactments, with references to decisions. The volume that bridges 1868 and 1897. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=sklMAQAAIAAJ (accessed 9 August 2026).
• General Statutes of the State of Kansas, 1897. Containing all laws of a general nature from the admission of the state in 1861 to 8 May 1897. 2 vols. Digital images. Google Books, vol. 1, https://books.google.com/books?id=Sr1CAAAAYAAJ; HathiTrust, vol. 2, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl39qr (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Revised Statutes of Kansas, 1923. Revised by Chester I. Long, F. Dumont Smith, and Hugh P. Farrelly, commissioners appointed by the supreme court, and adopted by the legislature at the regular session of 1923. Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, B. P. Walker, State Printer, 1923. Held in law library sets; the section numbers it assigns are the ones the Revisor's source notes use for the pre-1939 law.
• General Statutes of Kansas (Annotated), 1935. Compiled, edited and indexed by Franklin Corrick, revisor of statutes. Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, W. C. Austin, State Printer, 1936. The code in force through the last decades covered here, and the code the Women's Bureau bulletin below cites throughout.

Session laws

• General Laws of the Territory of Kansas. Fifth session. Lawrence, Kansas Territory: Herald of Freedom Steam Press, 1859. The foundational free-state code, and the single most useful volume for Kansas genealogy. Ch. 2 (executors and administrators, p. 10), ch. 25 (civil procedure, p. 82), ch. 27 (criminal procedure, p. 185), ch. 28 (crimes, p. 231), ch. 30 (conveyances, p. 289), ch. 63 (descents and distributions, p. 381), ch. 67 (exemptions and the homestead, p. 407), ch. 75 (guardians, p. 427), ch. 77 (highways, p. 444), ch. 82 (children born outside marriage, p. 488), ch. 84 (grand and petit jurors, p. 494), ch. 85 (local exemptions, p. 499), ch. 93 (marriage, p. 563), ch. 94 (rights of married women, p. 564), ch. 96 (minors, p. 569), ch. 121 (adopting the common law, p. 615), ch. 131 (wills, p. 646). Digital images. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/generallawsterr00kansgoog/page/n5; also Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=PJQ5AAAAIAAJ (accessed 9 August 2026).
• An Act to Punish Offences Against Slave Property. Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, 14 August 1855. Shawnee M.L.S.: John T. Brady, Public Printer, 1855. Digital images. Library of Congress, Printed Ephemera Collection, Portfolio 20, Folder 1a, https://www.loc.gov/item/2020783734/; also Kansas Memory, https://www.kansasmemory.gov/item/6835 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• General Laws Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, at the General and Special Sessions of the Year 1860. Lecompton, K.T.: S. A. Medary & S. W. Driggs, Printers, "Democrat" Office, 1860. Ch. 111, "An Act to Prohibit Slavery in Kansas," at p. 200. Digital images. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=-Sk4AAAAIAAJ; also read as file 1860.010 in the Library of Congress Early State Records set, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/esrp631273735 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• General Laws of the State of Kansas. Compiled edition. Lawrence, 1862. The compiled laws the marriage act of 1867 repealed by reference. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=mPBBAAAAYAAJ (accessed 9 August 2026).
• The Laws of the State of Kansas, Passed at the Fourth Session of the Legislature. 1864. Contains "An Act in relation to Roads," approved 18 March 1864, which the road tax act of 1867 amended. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=dyo4AAAAIAAJ (accessed 9 August 2026).
• The Laws of the State of Kansas, Passed at the Seventh Session of the Legislature. Leavenworth: Bulletin Book and Job Office, 1867. Ch. 62 (fire companies), ch. 68 (cities of the second class), ch. 84 (marriage licenses), ch. 122 (roads). Digital images. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=XUZNAQAAMAAJ; also Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/generallawsstat32kansgoog (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Session Laws of Kansas. Individual volumes for the years cited in the notes. Digital images, Google Books: 1872, ch. 165 (witness competency), https://books.google.com/books?id=3wqxAAAAIAAJ; 1876, ch. 104 (jurors), https://books.google.com/books?id=EUo4AAAAIAAJ; 1905, ch. 190 (juvenile court) and ch. 302 (marriage licenses), https://books.google.com/books?id=3BexAAAAIAAJ; 1907, ch. 177 (juvenile court), https://books.google.com/books?id=xxixAAAAIAAJ; 1909, ch. 182 (civil procedure), https://books.google.com/books?id=lhmxAAAAIAAJ; 1911, ch. 248 (roads), https://books.google.com/books?id=8nVKAAAAYAAJ; 1913, ch. 224 (marriage licenses), https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3ZKAAAAYAAJ; 1917, ch. 184 (majority) and ch. 353 (suffrage amendment), https://books.google.com/books?id=efiwAAAAIAAJ; 1919, ch. 229 (married persons of eighteen), https://books.google.com/books?id=BvmwAAAAIAAJ; and 1923, ch. 144 (the common law as the rule of decision), HathiTrust, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.a0004588646 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Session Laws of Kansas. Later acts cited in the notes, each to be read in the session volume for its year: 1933, ch. 237 (county road powers repealed) and ch. 320 (income tax); 1937, ch. 374 (retailers' sales tax); 1939, ch. 180 (the Probate Code); 1947, ch. 240 (marriage licenses) and ch. 241 (physician's certificate); 1957, ch. 256 (juvenile code); and 1971, ch. 176 (the jury act repealed).
• Library of Congress. Early State Records Project. Session Laws of Kansas. The territorial volumes for 1855, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, and 1861 in one item, with searchable text. The most convenient single source for territorial Kansas law. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp631273735 (accessed 9 August 2026).

Court cases

• Browning v. Browning. 89 Kan. 98 (1913).
• Carman v. Kight. 85 Kan. 18 (1911).
• Freeman v. Fowler Packing Co. 135 Kan. 378 (1932).
• Harrington v. Lowe. 73 Kan. 1 (1906).
• The Kansas Indians. 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 737 (1867).
• Kittel v. Smith. 136 Kan. 522 (1932).
• Nagle v. Tieperman. 74 Kan. 32 (1906).
• Pellett v. Pellett. 132 Kan. 427 (1931).
• Pfleiderer v. Brooks. 122 Kan. 647 (1927).
• Putnam v. Putnam. 104 Kan. 47 (1919).
• Shane v. City of Hutchinson. 88 Kan. 188 (1913).
• State v. Angel. 42 Kan. 216 (1889).
• State v. Gereke. 74 Kan. 196 (1906).
• State v. O'Keith. 136 Kan. 283 (1932).
• State v. Reed. 53 Kan. 767 (1894).
• State v. Walker. 36 Kan. 297 (1887).
• Wisecarver v. Wells. 108 Kan. 842 (1921).
• Opinions in the Kansas Reports may be read at CourtListener, https://www.courtlistener.com, and the bound Kansas Reports volumes are indexed and linked at Debbie Mieszala, "Historic Kansas Case Law," https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-kansas-case-law/ (accessed 9 August 2026).

Secondary and reference works

• Brown, Jay Scott. "Intestate Succession in Kansas." Washburn Law Journal 8 (1969): 284. Traces the one-half spousal share and the 1939 Probate Code back to their source acts. https://contentdm.washburnlaw.edu/digital/api/collection/wlj/id/2637/download (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Burke, Martin. "The State Tax Commission and Tax Reform in Kansas." MA thesis, University of Kansas, 1913. Chapter 1 reviews tax legislation under the territorial government, 1854 to 1861, the taxation provisions of the state constitution, and the later property tax legislation. Held by the University of Kansas Libraries and in KU ScholarWorks.
• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Kansas Vital Records." County clerks held birth and death records before 1911, and county probate courts held marriages before 1913. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Kansas_Vital_Records (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Kansas Department of Revenue. Pub. KS-1510. The retailers' sales tax of 1937 and its original 2 percent rate. https://www.ksrevenue.gov/pub1510.html (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Kansas Historical Society. "Slavery in Kansas Territory." Kansapedia. The 1855 adoption of Missouri's statutes and the abolition vote of 23 February 1860. https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/slavery-in-kansas-territory/16698 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Kansas Historical Society. "Wyandotte Constitution." Kansapedia. Records that suffrage under the 1859 constitution was granted only to "Every white male person, of twenty-one years and upward," and that the same document secured married women's property rights. https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/wyandotte-constitution/13884 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Kansas Historical Society, State Archives. Marriage license record descriptions, by county. Gives the contents of a county marriage license record: the names and ages of the parties, that they married of mutual consent and sound mind, the dates of the license and of the ceremony, and the name and title of the person who performed it. https://www.kansashistory.gov/archives/197563 (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Every current section prints a full history line back to the General Statutes of 1868, with source notes giving the pre-1939 section numbers. The fastest way to trace a Kansas rule backward. The marriage license and consent line is at 23-2505, https://www.ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch23/023_025_0005.html, and the age of majority at 38-101, https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch38/038_001_0001.html (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Matthews, Burnita Shelton. "The Woman Juror." Women Lawyers' Journal 15 (January 1927): 15. Dates Kansas's admission of women to juries to 1912 and explains the elector mechanism that made a separate act unnecessary. https://wlh.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-woman-juror-15wlj151927.pdf (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Mieszala, Debbie. "Historic Kansas Statutes." An index of digitized territorial and state session laws and compilations, 1855 to 1951, with direct links. https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-kansas-statutes/ (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Moran, Rachel F. Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Records Kansas as one of three territories that repealed a law against interracial marriage before statehood, in 1859.
• National Park Service. "Kansas and the 19th Amendment." Dates Kansas's recognition of women's right to vote to 1912. https://www.nps.gov/articles/kansas-and-the-19th-amendment.htm (accessed 9 August 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Kansas. Bulletin 157-15. Rev. ed., law stated as of 1 January 1948. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. A digest of Kansas law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, the spousal share, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, common-law marriage, spousal testimony, and jury service, with citations to the 1935 General Statutes. Digital images. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-15-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 9 August 2026).
• Woerner, J. G. A Treatise on the American Law of Administration. 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1889. A state-by-state survey of who could serve as executor, giving both the age requirement and the coverture disqualification. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/gabrieltreat01woer (accessed 9 August 2026).

Citations

1. General Laws of the Territory of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas Territory: Herald of Freedom Steam Press, 1859), ch. 121, § 1, p. 615, "An Act Adopting the Common Law as the Rule of Action in this Territory"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsterr00kansgoog/page/n5 : accessed 9 August 2026). The later formulation, which takes the common law as modified by constitutional and statutory law, judicial decisions, and the conditions and wants of the people, entered by the act of 1923, ch. 144, § 5, and was carried into the Revised Statutes of Kansas, 1923 (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, B. P. Walker, State Printer, 1923), 77-109 ↩
2. The General Statutes of the State of Kansas (Lawrence: John Speer, Public Printer, 1868), prefatory matter, printing the treaty ceding the territory of Louisiana to the United States together with the organic act of the Territory of Kansas and the act admitting Kansas into the Union; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=PkVMAQAAIAAJ : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
3. The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas (Shawnee M.L.S., Kansas Territory: John T. Brady, Public Printer, 1855); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp85790665 : accessed 9 August 2026). The first territorial legislature adopted the statutes of Missouri and enacted An Act to Punish Offences Against Slave Property, approved 14 August 1855, which Brady issued separately the same year; digital images, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/2020783734/ : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
4. General Laws Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, at the General and Special Sessions of the Year 1860 (Lecompton, K.T.: S. A. Medary & S. W. Driggs, Printers, "Democrat" Office, 1860), ch. 111, "An Act to Prohibit Slavery in Kansas," §§ 1–2, p. 200; returned by the Governor with his objections and passed over the veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses, 23 February 1860; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=-Sk4AAAAIAAJ : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
5. Session Laws of Kansas, 1939, ch. 180, the Probate Code, effective 1 July 1939, codified as chapter 59 of the statutes. The session volumes for the state period are indexed and linked year by year in Debbie Mieszala, "Historic Kansas Statutes" (https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-kansas-statutes/ : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
6. General Laws of 1859, ch. 96, § 1, p. 569, "An Act Relating to Minors": "The period of minority extends, in males, to the age of twenty-one years, and, in females, to that of eighteen years." Carried into The General Statutes of the State of Kansas (Lawrence: John Speer, Public Printer, 1868), ch. 67, § 1; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=PkVMAQAAIAAJ : accessed 9 August 2026). Amended by the acts of 1917, ch. 184, § 1, and 1919, ch. 229, § 1, and carried in that form into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-101, and the General Statutes of 1935, 38-101. The full history line is printed at Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes, "38-101" (https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch38/038_001_0001.html : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
7. Wisecarver v. Wells, 108 Kan. 842, 845 (1921), noting that the age of majority for women was afterwards changed to twenty-one by the act of 1917, ch. 184, § 1, and holding the change not retroactive; to the same effect Smith v. Smith, 104 Kan. 629, 632 (1919), and State ex rel. v. Lyons, 104 Kan. 702, 708 (1919) ↩
8. Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-101, as it stood after the acts of 1917, ch. 184, § 1, and 1919, ch. 229, § 1; U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Kansas, Bulletin 157-15, rev. ed., law stated as of 1 January 1948 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), No. 1; digital images, FRASER (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-15-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
9. General Laws of 1859, ch. 96, § 2, p. 569, binding a minor by contracts for necessaries and by his other contracts unless he disaffirms within a reasonable time after majority and restores what he received; carried into the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 67, § 2, the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-102, and the General Statutes of 1935, 38-102 ↩
10. General Statutes of 1935, 38-108 to 38-110; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 2 ↩
11. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 108, "Marriages," § 7, forbidding any officiant to join in marriage a male under twenty-one or a female under eighteen without the consent of the parent or guardian under whose care and government the minor was ↩
12. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 6, p. 563, providing that no judge, justice of the peace, clergyman, or preacher of the gospel shall join in marriage any male under the age of twenty-one years, or female under the age of eighteen years, without the consent of their parents or guardian under whose care and government such minor may be, on pain of a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ↩
13. The statutory history of the license section runs from the act of 1867, ch. 84, § 5, through the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 61, § 5, the acts of 1905, ch. 302, § 1, and 1913, ch. 224, § 2, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-106, and thence the act of 1947, ch. 240, § 1. Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes, "23-2505" (https://www.ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch23/023_025_0005.html : accessed 9 August 2026). The 1867 act itself states no age or consent requirement; § 5 simply directs the probate judge to issue a license to any person legally entitled to one; The Laws of the State of Kansas, seventh session (Leavenworth: Bulletin Book and Job Office, 1867), ch. 84; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=XUZNAQAAMAAJ : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
14. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-106; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 18, stating the rule as it stood on 1 January 1948: men at 21 and women at 18 might marry without parental consent; under those ages the father, or mother, or a guardian had to consent personally or in writing; and for males under 18 and females under 16 the consent of the probate judge also had to be secured before a license issued ↩
15. Browning v. Browning, 89 Kan. 98, 100 (1913), cited for this rule at Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 18, n. 1 ↩
16. General Statutes of 1935, 60-1515; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 22 ↩
17. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 1, p. 563 ↩
18. State v. Walker, 36 Kan. 297 (1887) ↩
19. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-101, 23-118 ↩
20. State v. Walker, 36 Kan. 297; Freeman v. Fowler Packing Co., 135 Kan. 378, 379 (1932); Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 19 ↩
21. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 2, p. 563, which declares such marriages absolutely void and extends to illegitimate as well as to legitimate children and relations; carried through the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 61, § 2, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-102 ↩
22. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 3, p. 563 ↩
23. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-120, with the sworn statement and the officiant's sources of information at 23-121 and 23-122 and the penalties at 23-123; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 20 ↩
24. Session Laws of Kansas, 1947, ch. 241 ↩
25. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 108, "Marriages," § 3, declaring such marriages illegal and void, and § 4, setting the penalty on the parties and the officiant. That code was repealed in 1859 and replaced by the General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 2, p. 563, which declares void only marriages within the degrees of kinship. On the repeal, see Rachel F. Moran, Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001) ↩
26. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 5, p. 563 ↩
27. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, §§ 7–8, pp. 563–564 ↩
28. Laws of 1867, ch. 84, §§ 7, 10, 11 and 13 (the probate judge issues the license and records a copy with the return endorsed on it; the officiant certifies the marriage on the back of the license and returns it within thirty days; the probate judges keep books of record of licenses issued; the county clerks deliver all records of marriages in their offices to the judge of probate within thirty days of the act taking effect), and § 14, repealing chapter one hundred and forty of the compiled laws, "An Act in relation to marriages," the 1859 act as carried into the compiled laws of 1862. Approved 26 February 1867 ↩
29. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 4, p. 563, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-115 ↩
30. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-106, as amended by the act of 1947, ch. 240, § 1; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 18 ↩
31. General Laws of 1859, ch. 96, §§ 2–3, p. 569, under which a minor's contracts may be disaffirmed within a reasonable time after majority, but not where the minor's own misrepresentation as to his majority, or his having engaged in business as an adult, gave the other party good reason to believe him capable of contracting; carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-102. For the probate route, General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, §§ 10–14, pp. 428–429 ↩
32. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 1, p. 564, carried through the married women's act in the General Statutes of 1868 into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-201, and the General Statutes of 1935, 23-201; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 9 ↩
33. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 2, p. 564, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-202, and the General Statutes of 1935, 23-202; and see General Laws of 1859, ch. 30, § 9, p. 289, that a married woman may convey her interest in the same manner as other persons ↩
34. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, §§ 3, 10, pp. 564–565, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-203 and 23-204; and see Revised Statutes of 1923, 60-404; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, Nos. 6 and 8 ↩
35. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 15, § 6 ↩
36. Harrington v. Lowe, 73 Kan. 1, 14 (1906) ↩
37. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 15, § 9, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 60-3501 ↩
38. General Laws of 1859, ch. 67, §§ 1–2, p. 407 ↩
39. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-108. The rule descends from the General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, §§ 5, 7, pp. 564–565, through the General Statutes of 1868 and the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-108, 22-117, and 22-127, into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 27; and see Putnam v. Putnam, 104 Kan. 47, 53 (1919) ↩
40. Pfleiderer v. Brooks, 122 Kan. 647, 650 (1927); Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-108 ↩
41. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 10, p. 428 ↩
42. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, §§ 11–14, pp. 428–429 ↩
43. General Laws of 1859, ch. 30, §§ 13–15, p. 289, requiring an instrument affecting real estate to be recorded in the office of the register of deeds and acknowledged before a court having a seal, a judge, justice or clerk of one, a justice of the peace, a notary public, or a register of deeds; carried into the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 22, § 3, approved 31 October 1868, and the Revised Statutes of 1923, 67-205. Neither act requires a subscribing witness ↩
44. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 137, "Revenue," art. I, § 1, p. 657, listing among the objects of taxation, fourth, all slaves. Slavery in the territory was abolished by the act of 1860, ch. 111, cited above ↩
45. General Laws of 1859, ch. 30, "An Act regulating Conveyances," p. 289, and ch. 63, "An Act concerning Descents and Distributions," p. 381, neither of which contains any racial qualification. The voting restriction is Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 5, § 1, which reached the franchise and not the holding of land ↩
46. The Kansas Indians, 72 U.S. (5 Wall.) 737 (1867), holding that Kansas was not authorized to tax, or to seize for forfeiture, lands set apart for tribes by the United States under treaty or otherwise; affirming Blue-Jacket v. Johnson County Commissioners, 3 Kan. 299 (1865), and Miami County Commissioners v. Wan-zop-pe-che, 3 Kan. 364 (1865) ↩
47. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-127, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180 ↩
48. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 15, citing Nagle v. Tieperman, 74 Kan. 32, 43 (1906) ↩
49. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, § 1, p. 381, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-130, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 24 ↩
50. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, §§ 5, 7, 8, pp. 564–565, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-118 and 22-119, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, §§ 26–27 ↩
51. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-102 to 22-107; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 15 ↩
52. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-511, 22-512, 22-514; and see Pellett v. Pellett, 132 Kan. 427 (1931); Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 16 ↩
53. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 4, p. 564, under which a married woman could not bequeath away from her husband more than one-half of her property without his consent in writing; the section binds the wife only and requires no witnesses. The mutual rule requiring consent in writing before two witnesses is the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-238, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 38; and see Carman v. Kight, 85 Kan. 18, 22 (1911) ↩ ↩
54. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 9, p. 565, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-117, 22-127, 22-245, and 22-246; Kittel v. Smith, 136 Kan. 522, 525 (1932) ↩
55. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, §§ 6–10, pp. 381–382 ↩
56. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, §§ 27–28, p. 383 ↩
57. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 1, p. 427 ↩
58. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 15, § 6; Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-201; State v. Angel, 42 Kan. 216, 222 (1889); Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 25 ↩
59. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 2, p. 427 ↩
60. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 3, p. 427 ↩
61. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 4, p. 427 ↩
62. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 2, p. 427, giving the appointment to the natural and actual guardian of the minor, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-201 and 38-202; on the later rule, that neither parent may appoint where both are capable and the surviving parent may appoint by will, Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 26 ↩
63. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 5, p. 427 ↩
64. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 78, § 30, under which a guardian served until a male minor reached twenty-one and, for a female, until her marriage or her arrival at twenty-one, whichever came first ↩
65. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 6, p. 427 ↩
66. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 7, pp. 427–428 ↩
67. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 9, p. 428 ↩
68. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, § 23, p. 383, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-121, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 23; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 29 ↩
69. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, § 24, p. 383, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-123 ↩
70. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, §§ 25–26, p. 383, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-123 and 22-124; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 29 ↩
71. General Laws of 1859, ch. 82, § 1, p. 488; Revised Statutes of 1923, 62-2301 to 62-2321; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 28 ↩
72. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 164, "Wills," § 1 (every person of twenty-one years and upwards, of sound mind, may devise all his estate, real, personal and mixed) and § 2 (every person over the age of eighteen years, of sound mind, may dispose of his goods and chattels by will); § 3 required two or more competent witnesses subscribing in the testator's presence ↩
73. General Laws of 1859, ch. 131, § 1, p. 646, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-201, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 37, which ties the power to the rights of majority ↩
74. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-201; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 14 ↩
75. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-202, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 42 ↩
76. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-212, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 40 ↩
77. General Laws of 1859, ch. 131, §§ 3–4, p. 646; and, for the later rule, Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-273, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 44 ↩
78. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 1, §§ 5, 32, and General Laws of 1859, ch. 2, §§ 4, 29, p. 10 and following: no person under twenty-one years of age or of unsound mind, and no married woman, to be executor or administrator; and if an executrix or administratrix marry, the marriage shall extinguish her powers and her letters be revoked. Neither rule survives the revision of 1868. The General Statutes of the State of Kansas (1868), ch. 37, "Executors and Administrators," beginning at p. 429, carries no disqualification for coverture and no revocation of letters on marriage in any of the thirty sections of article I. In their place, § 2 grants letters testamentary to the executor named in the will if he is legally competent; § 8 provides that where the person appointed executor is under twenty-one at the time of proving the will, administration may be granted with the will annexed during his minority, the minor to be admitted as joint executor on arriving at full age; and § 12 places the widow first in the order of persons entitled to administration of an intestate estate. Consistent with J. G. Woerner, A Treatise on the American Law of Administration, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1889), §§ 231–232, which lists Kansas among the states fixing twenty-one as the executor age while omitting it from every category of coverture disqualification; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/gabrieltreat01woer : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩ ↩
79. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-302 and 22-307, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 58, granting letters testamentary to the executor named in the will if legally competent and accepting the trust, and otherwise letters of administration with the will annexed ↩
80. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 137, "Revenue," art. I, §§ 1–3, pp. 657–658. Section 1 lists the objects of taxation, beginning with all free male persons over twenty-one and under fifty-five years of age, then lands and lots with their houses and improvements, leasehold interests of ten years or more, slaves, household furniture above two hundred dollars in value, pleasure carriages, horses and neat cattle above one year old, watches and clocks, shares of stock, and money loaned at interest. Section 2 exempts, among other things, the property of all widows and minor orphans not worth more than one thousand dollars. Section 3 fixes the annual rates: fifty cents on each taxable person, and one-sixth of one percent of assessed value on lands, town lots, and all other taxable property. Digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp85790665 : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩ ↩
81. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 11, § 1, requiring the legislature to provide for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation; Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes (https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_011_0001.html : accessed 9 August 2026). For the history of the general property tax from the territorial period forward, Martin Burke, "The State Tax Commission and Tax Reform in Kansas" (MA thesis, University of Kansas, 1913), ch. 1 ↩
82. General Laws of 1859, ch. 77, "An Act to provide for locating and working Highways," § 22, p. 448, under which every male inhabitant in each road district over the age of eighteen years and under the age of fifty years, excepting persons of color, paupers, idiots and lunatics, was assessed a poll tax of four dollars for road purposes ↩
83. Laws of 1867, ch. 122, § 1, amending § 20 of "An Act in relation to Roads," approved 18 March 1864, and setting a road tax of not more than five mills on taxable real estate, payable in labor by any able-bodied man at $2 a day under the district overseer. The county road powers ran on through the acts of 1911, ch. 248, § 36, and 1917, ch. 267, § 1, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 68-201, repealed by the act of 1933, ch. 237, § 1 ↩
84. Laws of 1867, ch. 68, "An Act to Incorporate Cities of the State of Kansas, of the second class," powers of the council, cl. 3; a like clause appears in the act for the next class of cities. The firemen's exemption is Laws of 1867, ch. 62, "An Act to encourage the organization of Fire Companies," § 1, which exempts an active fireman from jury service and from all poll taxes. An earlier local exemption is the General Laws of 1859, ch. 85, p. 499. And see Shane v. City of Hutchinson, 88 Kan. 188 (1913), on a poll tax not being collectible in cities of the first class ↩
85. Session Laws of Kansas, 1933, ch. 320, § 1, approved 29 March 1933 ↩
86. Session Laws of Kansas, 1937, ch. 374, § 1, approved 9 April 1937; and see Kansas Department of Revenue, Pub. KS-1510 (https://www.ksrevenue.gov/pub1510.html : accessed 9 August 2026) ↩
87. General Laws of 1859, ch. 84, "An Act providing for the Selection and Summoning of Grand and Petit Jurors," §§ 1–3, pp. 494–495, directing the supervisors to select from those assessed on the assessment roll of the previous year suitable persons having the qualifications of electors, taking the names only of such as are in possession of their natural faculties, and not infirm or decrepit, of fair character, of approved integrity, of sound judgment and well informed. Carried through the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 54, §§ 1–2, and the act of 1876, ch. 104, §§ 1–2, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-101 and 43-102, and repealed by the act of 1971, ch. 176, § 22 ↩
88. State v. Reed, 53 Kan. 767, 772 (1894); State v. Gereke, 74 Kan. 196, 198 (1906) ↩
89. General Laws of 1859, ch. 84, § 26, p. 498, directing the sheriff to complete a short panel from among the bystanders or the neighboring citizens with persons having the qualifications of jurors; carried through the General Statutes of 1868 and the act of 1876, ch. 104, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-101 and following ↩
90. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 5, § 1, as originally adopted, extending the franchise to every white male person of twenty-one years and upward; Kansas Historical Society, "Wyandotte Constitution," Kansapedia (https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/wyandotte-constitution/13884 : accessed 9 August 2026). A proposed amendment striking the word "white" was put to the electors on 5 November 1867 and defeated. The section's own amendment history, printed by the Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes (https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_005_0001.html : accessed 9 August 2026), records no change to the text between 1861 and the act of 1917, ch. 353, § 1 ↩
91. Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-102; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 32; Burnita Shelton Matthews, "The Woman Juror," Women Lawyers' Journal 15 (January 1927): 15, dating Kansas to 1912; National Park Service, "Kansas and the 19th Amendment" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/kansas-and-the-19th-amendment.htm : accessed 9 August 2026). The jury statute was not amended to admit women; eligibility followed the elector qualification the act had carried since 1859 ↩
92. Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-116 and 43-117; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 32 ↩
93. General Laws of 1859, ch. 121, § 1, p. 615, adopting the common law as the rule of action. Neither ch. 28, "An Act Regulating Crimes and Punishments of Crimes against the persons of Individuals," p. 231, nor ch. 27, "An Act to establish a Code of Criminal Procedure," p. 185, fixes any minimum age of criminal responsibility, so the common-law presumptions supplied the rule ↩
94. Session Laws of Kansas, 1905, ch. 190, "An act to establish a juvenile court and to provide for dependent and neglected children," amended and supplemented by the act of 1907, ch. 177, and carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-401 and following, repealed by the act of 1957, ch. 256, § 39 ↩
95. State v. O'Keith, 136 Kan. 283, 285 (1932) ↩
96. General Laws of 1859, ch. 25, § 324, listing among those incompetent to testify, second, children under ten years of age who appear incapable of receiving just impressions of the facts respecting which they are examined, or of relating them truly; re-enacted as § 323 of the code of civil procedure approved 25 February 1868, General Statutes of 1868, ch. 80, § 323, which the amending act of 1872, ch. 165, § 1, sets out in full; renumbered § 321 by the code of 1909, ch. 182, and carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 60-2805 ↩
97. Laws of 1872, ch. 165, § 1, amending § 323 of the code of civil procedure approved 25 February 1868; the earlier flat incompetency is General Laws of 1859, ch. 25, § 324, third ↩
98. Revised Statutes of 1923, 62-1420 for criminal proceedings and 60-2805 for civil actions; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 13 ↩
99. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 165, "Witnesses," § 22 ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.