LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. a frame of government for the state of Kansas. adopted by an illegally constituted convention held at Lecompton in 1857, and sought to lie imposed by illegal and violent measures upon the people of that state. The mem bers of the legislature which called the convention were chosen not by the voters of Kansas. but mainly by intruders from the state of Missouri, who went thitheron election day. and, beim_ countenanced by the agents of the national government, took possession of the polls and meq,' known to bo in favor of the ostablisinnent of slavery in the territory. A very large majority of the voters of the territory were known to be opposed to slavery, and if the national government had protected them from the incur sion of hordes of men from Missouri, or even if its officers had not actually encouraged the intruders in their unlawful work, there would have been no difficulty in organizing Kansas as a free state. The Lecompton constitution, framed by a body of men having no more legal authority than a mob, declared the right of slaveholders in Kansas to their slaves tobe inviolable, prohibited the legislature from passing any act of emanci pation, and forbade any amendment of the instrument before 1864. The scheme for ,submitting this constitution to the people of Kansas, though denounced as a fraud by Robert J. Walker, the governor shortly before appointed, was approved by president Buchanan. The constitution itself was not submitted even in form to the people; they
were only to be allowed to vote upon the question whether they would have the "con stitution with slavery" or the "constitution with no slavery," the instrument being so worded that in either case it would virtually fasten slavery upon the rising state. The constitution was thus formally submitted to the electors Dec. 21, 1857. For its adoption "with slavery" the vote returned was 6,226, more than half of which was from the countiesthe Missouri border, whose whole number of voters by the census did not exceed iao. For the constitution "with no slavery" 509 votes were returned, but the great body of the free-state ,men declined to vote at all, regarding the election as a fraud and a farce. The legally constituted territorial legislature submitted the same instrument to the consideration of the people of Kansas, Jan. 4, 1858, and the result was a majority of 10,226 votes against it. The question was carried to congress, which body ordered still another election to be held Aug. 3, in which the fraudulent constitu tion was again rejected by 10,000 majority. This virtually ended the struggle for the establishment of slavery in Kansas. An anti-slavery constitution was framed and adopted with all the necessary legal formalities in 1859, and the state was admitted to the union Jan. 29, 1861.