THE ORGANIC ACT.
The act organizing Nebraska and Kansas contained thirty-seven sections. The
provisions relating to Kansas were embodied in the last eighteen sections, of
which the following is a summary:
Section 19. - Defines the boundaries of the Territory, gives it the name of
Kansas, and prescribes that "when admitted as a State or States, the said
Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with
or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their
admission." It further provides for its future division into two or more
Territories, and the attaching of any portion thereof to any other State or
Territory; and for the holding inviolable the rights of all Indian tribes till
such time as they shall be extinguished by treaty.
Section 20. - The executive power and authority vested in a Governor,
appointed by the President, to hold his office for the term of four years, or
till his successor is appointed and qualified, unless sooner removed by the
President of the United States. Duties, not unlike those of other Territorial
Governors. Must reside within the Territory.
Section 21. - Secretary of State appointed and subject to removal by the
President of the United States; term of office, five years, unless sooner
removed; his ordinary clerical duties prescribed; to be Acting Governor, with
full gubernatorial powers and functions, in case of the absence of the
Governor from the Territory, or a vacancy occurring.
Section 22. - Legislative power and authority of Territory vested in the
Governor and a Legislative Assembly, consisting of two branches - a Council
and a House of Representatives.
The Council to consist of thirteen members, having the qualifications of
voters as elsewhere prescribed, and holding the office for two years. The
House of Representatives, at its first session, to consist of twenty-six
members, having the same qualifications as members of the Council; the term of
service to continue one year. The number of Representatives may be increased
by the Legislative Assembly from time to time, in proportion to the increase
of qualified voters, to the maximum number of thirty-nine. An apportionment
to be made, as nearly equal as practicable, among the several counties or
districts, for the election of the Council and Representatives, so as to give
to each section of the territory a representation in the ratio of its
qualified voters, as nearly as possible.
Previous to the first election, the Governor to cause a census or enumeration
to be taken of the inhabitants and qualified voters of the several counties
and districts of the Territory, by such persons and in such mode as he may
designate. The Governor to appoint time and place of holding the first
election, and declare the number of members of the Council and House to which
each of the counties and districts is entitled. The person having the
highest number of legal votes, as members of either branch, to be
declared by the Governor duly elected. In case of a tie vote, or vacancy from
other cause, the Governor to order a new election in the county or district
where the vacancy occurs.
The Governor to appoint the time and place of holding the first meeting of the
Legislative Assembly; "but, thereafter, the time, place and manner of holding
and conducting all elections by the people, and the apportioning of the
representation in the several counties or districts to the Council and House
of Representatives, according to the number of qualified voters, shall be
prescribed by law, as well as the day of the commencement of the regular
sessions of the Legislative Assembly." The sessions of any one year not to
exceed the term of forty days, except the first, which was limited to sixty
days.
Section 23 prescribes the qualifications of voters as follows:
Every free white male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one years, who shall
be an actual resident of said Territory, and the qualifications hereinafter
prescribed, shall be entitled to vote at the first election, and shall be
eligible to any office within the said Territory; but the qualifications of
voters and for holding office at all subsequent elections shall be such as
shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly; Provided, that the
right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of
the United States and those who have declared, on oath, their intention to
become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the
United States and the provisions of this act; And provided further,
that no officer, soldier, seaman or marine, or others attached to troops in
the service of the United States, shall be allowed to vote or hold office in
said Territory by reason of being on service therein.
Section 24 limits the scope of Territorial legislation, and defines the veto
power of the Governor.
Section 25 prescribes the manner of appointing and electing officers not
otherwise provided for.
Section 26 precludes members from holding any office created, or the
emoluments of which are increased during any session of the Legislature, of
which they are a member, and declares all persons holding offices or
commissions under the United States Government, except Postmasters,
ineligible, as members of the Legislative Assembly.
Section 27 vests the judicial power in a Supreme Court, District Courts,
Probate Courts and in Justices of the Peace. The Supreme Court to consist of
a Chief Justice and two Associate Justices, who shall hold a term at the seat
of government of the Territory annually. Their term of office to be four
years. It also provides for the organization of the lower courts and defines
their jurisdiction.
Section 28 declares the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to be in full force in the
Territory.
Section 29 provides for the appointment of an Attorney and Marshal for the
Territory - to hold for the term of four years - unless sooner removed by the
President of the United States.
Section 30 treats of the nominations by the President of Chief Justice,
Associate Justices, Attorney and Marshal, and their confirmation by the
Senate, prior to their appointment, and further prescribes the duties of said
officers, and fixes their salaries.
Section 31 locates the seat of government of the Territory, temporarily at
Fort Leavenworth, and authorizes the use for public purposes of the government
buildings.
Section 32 provides for the election of a delegate to Congress, and abrogates
the Missouri Compromise. It reads as follows:
And be it further enacted, That a Delegate to the House of
Representatives of the United States, to serve for the term of two years, who
shall be a citizen of the United States, may be elected by the voters
qualified to elect members of the Legislative Assembly, who shall be entitled
to the same rights and privileges as are exercised by the delegates from the
several other Territories of the United States to the said House of
Representatives; but the delegate first elected shall hold his seat only
during the term of Congress to which he shall be elected. The first election
shall be held at such times and places and be conducted in such manner as the
Governor shall appoint and direct; and at all subsequent elections the times,
places and manner of holding the election shall be prescribed by law. The
person having the greatest number of votes shall be declared, by the Governor,
to be duly elected, and a certificate thereof shall be given accordingly.
That the Constitution and all laws of the United States which are not locally
inapplicable shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of
Kansas as elsewhere within the United State, except the eighth section of the
act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March
sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty, which being inconsistent with the
principle of non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States and
Territories, as recognized by the legislation of eighteen hundred and fifty,
commonly called the compromise measures, is hereby declared inoperative and
void, it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate
Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave
the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States; Provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to
revive or put in force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to
the act of the sixth of March, eighteen hundred and twenty, either protecting,
establishing, prohibiting or abolishing slavery.
Section 33 prescribes the manner and amount of appropriations for the erection
of public buildings and other Territorial purposes.
Section 34 reserves, for the benefit of schools in the Territory, and States
and Territories hereafter to be erected, out of the same, sections numbered
sixteen and thirty-six in each township, as they are surveyed.
Section 35 prescribes the mode of defining the judicial districts of the
Territory, and appointing the times and places of holding the various courts.
Section 36 requires officers to give official bonds in such manner as the
Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.
Section 37 declares all treaties, laws and other engagements made by the United
States Government, with the Indian tribes inhabiting the Territory, to remain
inviolate, notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of this act.
Under the provisions of the foregoing act, Kansas was to be settled; its
Government established, and its institutions decided by the incoming settlers.
Hale, in his "History of Kansas and Nebraska," published in 1854, says: "Up to
the summer of 1854, Kansas (sic) and Nebraska have had no civilized
residents, except the soldiers sent to keep the Indian tribes in order; the
missionaries sent to convert them; the traders who bought furs of them, and
those of the natives who may be considered to have attained some measure of
civilization from their connection with the whites." To which should be
added, the persons sent out by the Government to teach agriculture, and the
arts of handicraft to the Indians. There were on several reservations,
Government farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc., whose descendants, still
living, justly claim to be sprung from the first families of Kansas.
POPULATION OF KANSAS - 1854.
The white inhabitants of Kansas Territory, at the time of its organization,
consisted of nearly 700 soldiers and army attaches, and perhaps nearly as many
more civilians living at the missions and trading posts in the Territory.
The soldiers, with some few families of the officers and others, were
stationed at three points, viz.: Forth Leavenworth, 2 companies, 13 officers
and 158 men, with perhaps 70 others, families, servants, etc.; Fort Riley
(then building), 4 companies, 16 officers and 228 men, with laborers, number
unknown; and at Walnut Creek P. O. the troops, formerly garrisoned at, and
recently removed from, Fort Atkinson, on the Arkansas River, 1 company, 2
officers and 75 men.
The remaining whites were settled at the following points:
Elm Grove, a transient dwelling place for traders.
Council Grove, the rendezvous of the Santa Fe traders, where were five or six
trading posts, two blacksmiths' shops, and the Kau (sic)Indian Mission,
with a permanent population of perhaps thirty whites.
Delaware Post Office, ten miles above the mouth of the Kansas River, where
were three trading posts, a blacksmith's shop, etc., with a white population
not exceeding a dozen.
The Wyandot Nation had living with them on their reservation, several families
of whites with their descendants. They had come in with the tribe when they
occupied their land in 1843. Some of them had intermarried with the tribe,
and altogether made a white and half-breed community of perhaps a hundred.
The names of thirty-five voters appear on a poll-list kept at an election held
October 12, 1852.
Shawnee Mission, three miles from Westport, Mo., one mile from the State Line,
and about eight miles from the mouth of the Kansas River, was under the
superintendence of Rev. Thomas Johnson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church
(South.) The white population consisted of his family and assistants - say
ten persons.
Shawnee Baptist Mission, two miles northwest of Johnson's, was the home of
Francis Barker and family.
The Friends' Shawnee Labor School, three miles west of Johnson's mission, had
two or three Quaker families. The school had some thirty Indian pupils, who
were instructed in agriculture and the mechanical and domestic arts. The farm
connected with the school contained over two hundred acres of land fenced and
under cultivation.
The American Baptist Mission, at Briggsvale, near Delaware P. O., where the
Rev. John G. Pratt, aided by Miss E. S. Moore and three other female
assistants, taught an Indian school of some thirty children of the Delaware
tribe and carried on a small farm of twenty acres. There was here a dwelling
house, church and schoolhouse and a few sheds and outbuildings.
Saint Mary's Mission, near the bank of the Kansas River, in what is now
Mission Township, Shawnee County, where was Right Reverend J. B. Meige, D. D.,
Bishop of the Apostolic Vicarate of the Indian Territory east of the Rocky
Mountains - "Bishop of Messenia, in partibus infidelium." There were
three stations connected with the mission within a radius of twenty miles - on
Soldier, Mission and Shunganon Creeks. The Catholic population (mostly
Indians) reported from the mission in 1854 was 1,600. There were employed here
four priests and seven women, of the order of "Ladies of the Sacred Heart."
The Baptist Mission and Labor School, also in Mission Township, Shawnee County,
was under the charge of Rev. John Jackson. Dr. D. L. Croysland was there as a
Government physician, also Jonas Lykins, who had a farm in the vicinity, and
others whose names are not remembered. Probably fifteen or twenty whites (men,
women and children) were connected with or lived near this mission.
The Catholic Osage Mission, in what is now Neosho County, on the Neosho River,
was under the charge of Rev. John Schoenmaker, assisted by two clergymen of
the "Society of Jesus" and several laymen. The girls' school was in charge of
eight "Sisters of Loretto," Mother Concordia being Superior. The boys' school
was in charge of Rev. Theodore Heinman and eight lay brothers. Connected with
this mission were ten missionary stations, at as many Indian villages, within
a radius of sixty miles, where monthly Catholic services were held by some of
the priests. The Indian Catholic population was reported as between six and
seven hundred. The whites numbered not far from thirty.
The Iowa and Sac and Fox Mission, in Iowa township, in what is now Doniphan
County, was in charge of Rev. Samuel M. Irvin, who had as school assistants
Miss Sarah Rea and Mr. James Waterman. There was a farm of 115 acres under
cultivation, run by a farmer named Harvey W. Forman. At the Indian agency
(Great Nemaha), near by, were several white families. At the mission and in
the vicinity were perhaps forty whites.
Several trading posts were scattered over the Territory, which boasted of
quite a population at certain seasons of the year, while at others they would
be nearly or quite deserted. One of the most considerable of these was in
what is now Dover Township, Shawnee County. It was in 1852 a place of
importance, being on the California trail, near the only rocky ford on the
river. The Indian annuities were disbursed there, and eight or ten Indian
traders had buildings there. It is stated that at one time there were as many
as fifty buildings there. It was known as Uniontown, and although in 1854 it
had fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, there were still some inhabitants
remaining. There were also at least a dozen families, mostly connected with
Indian traders, who had settled and were living near the Kansas River, in the
neighborhood of Uniontown, at that time. Indeed, counting the whites
connected with the neighboring missions, it came nearer being the nucleus of a
civilized white community than any other point in the Territory.
The soldiers stationed in the Territory could, in no wise, be counted as an
element in the organization, since they had no vote and were forbidden by army
regulations from taking any part in civil affairs.
The residue of the white population did not probably comprise more than a
hundred voters. Many of those connected with the Catholic Missions were of
foreign birth and were absorbed, to the exclusion of all political and civil
affairs, in proselyting the Indians and in planting firmly in their minds the
tenets and principles of what they deemed the true faith.
Of the Protestant missionaries, nearly all were educators, humanitarians and
philanthropists, who had, with a commendable self-sacrifice, put behind them
long ago all interest in political questions, and were laboring, with
singleness of purpose, to bring the dusty children of their adoption into the
light of Christian civilization. They had little interest in the question of
slavery until it was forced upon their notice, and revived into activity their
old-time convictions and prejudices, which had ceased to be living or dominant
elements in their remote and isolated fields of labor. One or two exceptions
will be noted further on.
The traders and a majority of the settlers were educated in the pro-slavery
school of the neighboring State of Missouri, and their lots in temporal
affairs seemed to be cast with those of that State. At that time, the
predominance of sentiment, if there was sufficient to rise above indifference,
was favorable to slavery. Certain it is, that it could have been established
without any local hindrance or opposition. In its existing conditions, Kansas
was a most promising, unoccupied field, with its eastern portals set wide open
by the recent enactments, through which the slaveholders were invited to enter
in, without let or hindrance, and occupy the land.
Along the western border of Missouri, in the counties adjoining Kansas, was a
population of nearly 80,000 whites, who held 12,000 slaves. They represented,
in the coming contest, the great slave-holding State of Missouri, having,
according to the Federal census of 1850, 592,004 whites, 87,442 slaves, and
2,618 free-colored inhabitants, and which had a more direct interest in the
formation of the new Territory, with institutions in accordance with its own,
than all others combined.
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