When Did Kansas Become a State? Bleeding Kansas and Four Constitutions

Kansas became a state on January 29, 1861, when President James Buchanan signed the bill admitting it as the 34th state in the Union.¹ It entered as a free state, just weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration and months before the Civil War began. Admission came only after nearly seven years of political turmoil and armed violence over whether the territory would permit slavery, a conflict so intense it earned the name Bleeding Kansas.

Why Statehood Took So Long

The delay traces back to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, signed by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, 1854.² Sponsored by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the law created two new territories west of Missouri and let settlers in each decide for themselves whether to permit slavery. That principle, called popular sovereignty, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had banned slavery north of the 36°30′ line.³

The Senate passed the measure 37 to 14 on March 4, 1854, and the House followed on May 22 by a tighter vote of 113 to 100.² The political fallout was immediate. Opposition to the act destroyed the Whig coalition and gave rise to the Republican Party, which organized around preventing the expansion of slavery into the territories.⁴ In Kansas itself, the act set off a migration race, as pro-slavery and antislavery settlers rushed in to tilt the vote.

Bleeding Kansas

From 1854 to 1861, Kansas Territory was pulled apart by three overlapping factions: pro-slavery forces (many of them armed Missourians known as Border Ruffians), free-state settlers, and outright abolitionists.⁵ Fraud, rival governments, and a federal administration that often sided with the pro-slavery camp kept the fight going.

It began at the ballot box. In March 1855, armed Missourians crossed the border, intimidated voters and election officials, and stuffed the ballot boxes. Despite a census of only 2,905 eligible voters, pro-slavery candidates won what critics called the Bogus Legislature with more than 5,000 votes.⁶ Antislavery settlers refused to recognize that government, and by the winter of 1855–56, the territorial militia had surrounded the free-state town of Lawrence in what became known as the Wakarusa War.

Spring 1856 brought a cascade of violence. On May 21, a pro-slavery posse sacked Lawrence, destroying the Free State Hotel and the press of the Herald of Freedom newspaper.⁶ Three days later, abolitionist John Brown and his sons murdered five pro-slavery settlers along Pottawatomie Creek.⁵ Guerrilla skirmishes continued through 1858 and never truly subsided until the Civil War absorbed them.

Four Constitutions in Five Years

Kansans drafted four proposed state constitutions between 1855 and 1859. The fight over which one would govern the state was, in practical terms, the fight over whether Kansas would be slave or free.

The Topeka Constitution (1855)

Antislavery settlers drafted the Topeka Constitution at a convention held from October 23 to November 12, 1855. It banned slavery, though voters simultaneously approved a separate provision excluding free Black people from the territory by a three-to-one margin. Free-state settlers elected Charles Robinson as governor under this constitution in January 1856, creating a parallel government alongside the federally recognized pro-slavery legislature. President Pierce declared the Topeka government an act of rebellion. The U.S. House voted to admit Kansas under the Topeka Constitution on July 3, 1856, but the Senate blocked it.⁷

The Lecompton Constitution (1857)

The most controversial document came from a pro-slavery convention held between October 19 and November 8, 1857. Free-state settlers had boycotted the delegate election, so pro-slavery forces dominated.⁸ The constitution guaranteed slaveholders’ rights to the roughly 200 enslaved people already in the territory, prohibited free Black people from entering the state, and barred any amendments for seven years. Voters were given a deliberately narrow choice: accept the constitution “with slavery” or “without slavery.” Even the “without” option preserved existing slaveholders’ property, meaning slavery would persist either way.⁹

President Buchanan endorsed Lecompton and pressured Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state. Senator Douglas broke with his own party’s president, calling it the “Lecompton swindle.”⁹ The Senate passed the admission bill 33 to 25, but anti-Lecompton Democrats and Republicans blocked it in the House, 120 to 112. A compromise known as the English Bill sent the document back to Kansas, where voters rejected it on August 2, 1858, by 11,300 to 1,788.⁸

The Leavenworth Constitution (1858)

The third attempt, drafted in 1858, was the most progressive of the four. It prohibited slavery, granted free Black men the right to vote, and provided a framework for women’s rights. With pro-slavery politicians still controlling Congress, it was never submitted for approval.¹⁰

The Wyandotte Constitution (1859)

The fourth and final constitution was drafted over three weeks beginning July 5, 1859, at a convention in Wyandotte County. Of the 52 delegates, 35 were Republicans and 17 were Democrats. Modeled on the Ohio Constitution, it prohibited slavery, included a homestead exemption, and granted women property rights, equal custody of their children, and the right to vote in school board elections. It also reduced the territory’s borders to their current configuration. Suffrage, however, was limited to white men over 21; African Americans and Native Americans were excluded.¹¹ Kansas voters approved the Wyandotte Constitution on October 4, 1859, by a margin of more than two to one.

The U.S. House passed the statehood bill (H.R. 23) on April 11, 1860, but the Senate stalled, blocked by southern members who had no interest in admitting another free state.¹²

What Finally Broke the Deadlock

Secession ended the standoff. Beginning in late 1860, Southern states started leaving the Union, and their senators walked out of Congress. South Carolina’s James Chesnut Jr. withdrew on November 10, 1860, followed by his colleague James Hammond the next day. By late January 1861, senators from Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia had also departed, including Jefferson Davis, who left on January 21.¹³

With the pro-slavery opposition gone, the remaining senators approved the Kansas statehood bill on January 28, 1861, by a vote of 36 to 16.¹⁴ President Buchanan signed it the next day.¹

Kansas After Admission

Charles Robinson, who had led the free-state movement as the extralegal governor under the Topeka Constitution, was sworn in as the first governor of the State of Kansas on February 9, 1861.¹⁵ The state’s first two U.S. senators, James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy, took their seats on July 4, 1861, after the Civil War had already begun.¹⁶

Statehood did not end the border violence. The guerrilla warfare between pro-Confederate Bushwhackers and pro-Union Jayhawkers that had defined Bleeding Kansas simply folded into the larger Civil War.¹⁷ The Wyandotte Constitution remains the governing document of Kansas to this day. It has been amended nearly 100 times, addressing women’s suffrage, prohibition, gambling, the right to bear arms, and other issues.¹⁰

1
Civil War on the Western Border. Kansas Becomes a State
2
Bill of Rights Institute. Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas
3
U.S. Senate. Kansas-Nebraska Act
4
National Archives. Kansas-Nebraska Act
5
National Park Service. Bleeding Kansas
6
Civil War on the Western Border. Bleeding Kansas – Kansas-Nebraska Act – Harpers Ferry
7
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Topeka Constitution
8
American Battlefield Trust. Lecompton Constitution
9
House Divided Project. Lecompton Constitution
10
KCUR. Kansas Constitution – Violence, Fraudulent Elections, and Competing Governments
11
Civil War on the Western Border. Wyandotte Constitution
12
U.S. House of Representatives. Kansas Statehood
13
U.S. Senate. Civil War Expulsion
14
House Divided Project. Kansas Admitted to the Union
15
JSTOR. Charles Robinson – First Governor of Kansas
16
U.S. Senate. Kansas Senators Timeline
17
Wichita State University. Bleeding Kansas