He changed his vote to support the proposed constitutional amendment, and spoke in favor of it on the floor of the House Chamber at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Representative Rollins was a member of the old Whig Party in the 1830s and 1840s for the first 20 years of his political career.

During April–August 1832, Rollins enlisted in the short Black Hawk War on the frontier against the local remaining native / Indian tribes and was given the rank of Major in the volunteer militia.

After that brief interlude of warfare, Rollins entered law school at the Transylvania University, (the first and oldest institution of higher education, west of the Appalachian Mountains chain), in Lexington, Kentucky.

Four years later, He ran for the office of Governor of Missouri in state general elections of 1848 and again a decade later in 1857, but was defeated both times.

Rollins was a Whig from 1836 to 1855, when the party dissolved and split in dissension over the recent Congressional legislation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act regarding the extension of slavery into the western federal territories and in creating new states.

When he was not serving in the Missouri General Assembly state legislature, Rollins developed his law practice at home in Columbia, despite ambivalence about the monotony of a legal career amid the swirling storms around him of an American political maelstrom, centered on the divided Border States like Missouri, Kentucky and further east in Maryland and Delaware, and a strong sense of an impending doom.

Rollins himself made a significant donation, and put considerable effort into raising subscriptions from fellow Boone County residents.

As Senator, he drafted a report in 1847 which proposed state funding for the school and a professorship for advanced studies in "Theory and Practice of Teaching."

Rollins was reelected during the subsequent Civil War again in 1862, this time as a Conservative Unionist, defeating another minority splinter candidate of Union Emancipationist Arnold Krekel.

[11] He also stated that the Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862, enacted January 1863, was legally void, and only defensible as a military necessity.

[12] In the Congress, Rollins joined with many others to introduce and support a bill to build and extend a transcontinental railroad, passed as the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862, and signed by President Lincoln.

He also advocated the Morrill Act of 1862, providing additional federal funding for state agricultural colleges and universities.

Shortly before the third vote, 16th President Abraham Lincoln personally met with and asked Rollins to support the amendment, as necessary to preserve the Union and a better future.

[14][15] With formerly fence-sitter Rollins' support, the constitutional amendment passed with the required two-thirds majority with just two votes to spare.

This signaled his preference for the party's conservative stance on slavery and African-American equality, and recognized its shift from secessionism.

The local fundraising in the original competition set a precedent for the Missouri General Assembly in Jefferson City to ignore later requests for money.

[20] As a legislator after the war, Representative / Senator Rollins wrote, introduced, and helped pass several measures, through both chambers of the state General Assembly and signed by the Governor of Missouri, which together financially stabilized the University of Missouri for the first time in its three decades of history, and strengthened Columbia's hold on it: When State Senator Rollins returned to Columbia after the 1872 legislative session at the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, students assembled and adopted resolutions thanking him for his work on the university's behalf.

The board of curators passed resolutions of similar affections, and on May 9, 1872, giving Rollins the honorary Latin title of "Pater Universitatis Missouriensis" ("Father of the University of Missouri").

The two maintained a frequent correspondence for over forty-five years, until Bingham's death, in which they discussed a variety of personal, social, and political issues.