Constitution Hall was constructed by Samuel J. Jones, the pro-slavery sheriff tasked with keeping the peace in Douglas County in the 1850s.

Thousands of settlers and speculators filed claims in the United States land office on the first floor.

Most free-state people refused to obey these laws because they had been passed by the proslavery territorial legislature, which they called "bogus".

Although still firmly proslavery, this group removed some of the earlier laws that their antislavery neighbors opposed.

Pro-slavery men dominated the convention, and created a document that protected slavery no matter how the people of the Kansas Territory voted.

Congress, after investigation, found the election of the pro-slavery legislature extensively corrupted by fraud, specifically by Missouri "border ruffians" who came into Kansas only to vote, not to live there.

The "bogus" legislature of 1855 made it the territorial capital and Congress appropriated $50,000 (~$1.3 million in 2023) for a capitol building that was never completed.