Topeka Constitution

The convention was organized by Free-Staters to counter the pro-slavery Territorial Legislature elected March 5, 1855, in polling tainted significantly by electoral fraud and the intimidation of Free State voters.

The Topeka Constitution marked the first effort to form a Kansas governmental structure and define its basis in law.

Following the model of Oregon, citizens of the 2nd Territorial District petitioned the 1855 Free State convention to incorporate a "black exclusion" clause in the Topeka Constitution.

It was rejected by convention president James H. Lane and others, who allowed the issue to be voted on separately in the January 1856 referendum; the results favored exclusion.

The Negro exclusion policy of the Topeka meeting was upheld, in a large majority, by the free state voters.

Finally the Wyandotte Constitution (1859) led to Kansas being admitted into the Union as a free state in 1861, five years after it first applied, the Southern legislators blocking it having departed en masse.