Topeka Constitution

Topeka Constitution, (1855), U.S. resolution that established an antislavery territorial government in opposition to the existing proslavery territorial government in Kansas.

The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 had opened the two territories to settlement under the “popular sovereignty” doctrine—that is, the settlers themselves were supposed to decide the slavery question within their borders without congressional intervention. As a consequence, control of the territorial government was crucial, and proslavery elements (largely “border ruffians” from Missouri) succeeded in establishing a proslavery legislature in Kansas.

Antislavery settlers then met at Topeka, and from Oct. 23 to Nov. 12, 1855, they held a constitutional convention. The Topeka Constitution that resulted banned slavery; the question of admitting free blacks into the state was submitted to a popular vote as a separate issue. On December 15, antislavery Kansans ratified the Constitution and by a three-to-one margin voted to exclude free blacks from the territory.

On Jan. 15, 1856, a free state governor and legislature were elected, thus creating two competing territorial governments. Pres. Franklin Pierce condemned the Topeka government as an act of rebellion and committed himself to the support of the proslavery Kansas government. But the House of Representatives on July 3, 1856, voted to admit Kansas to statehood under the Topeka Constitution. The Senate blocked that move, however, and thereafter Kansas remained in a bloody territorial limbo until admitted to the Union in 1861.