What was so important about the Lecompton Constitution?

What was so important about the Lecompton Constitution?

Lecompton Constitution, (1857), instrument framed in Lecompton, Kan., by Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War.

What did the Lecompton Constitution say?

The Lecompton Constitution is a pro-slavery document. If approved it would allow slavery in the state of Kansas. Both the proslavery constitutional convention and the free-state legislature claimed to have the authority to call for an election on the Lecompton Constitution.

What was the controversy surrounding the Lecompton Constitution?

The controversy arose because a proposed state constitution, which had been drafted in the territorial capital of Lecompton, would have made the practice of enslavement legal in the new state of Kansas.

Who was in support of the Lecompton Constitution?

Despite these objections, Buchanan’s support for the Lecompton Constitution never wavered and it became increasingly clear that he would stake his administration on the passage of Kansas statehood bill under this document.

Why did the Kansans reject the Lecompton Constitution?

Members of the convention argued that Kansans risked sacrificing their statehood if they voted on the Lecompton Constitution in whole. However, the vote on this document does not represent true popular sovereignty as voters were not given the option to reject the constitution entirely—the true anti-slavery option.

How did Buchanan stop the violence in Kansas?

Buchanan figured the best way to stop the violence was to definitively determine if Kansas was to be a free state or a slave state.

When was the Constitutional Convention held in Lecompton?

Prior to Walker’s arrival in Kansas, the pro-slavery territorial legislature called for a constitutional convention to be held in Lecompton, Kansas in September 1857. Free-state men refused to participate in the June 1857 election for convention delegates as they believed pro-slavery influences and fraud tainted the election.