Before Civil War, Kansas town divided parties and even helped elect Abraham Lincoln | Opinion

Disputed elections, fracturing political parties, protracted fights over the leadership of Congress, presidents elected with a minority of the popular vote: Studying history can sometimes leave a bitter taste in our mouths. But failing to study history can send us headlong toward the cliffs of failure.

Tucked in the northwest corner of Douglas County, along the south bank of the Kansas River, sits a small town that the vast majority Americans have never heard of: Lecompton, Kansas. Recently-discovered documents demonstrate how much things have changed in the last 165 years. Because in the last half of the 1850s, it was rare for an American not to have heard the name Lecompton.

Nearly every newspaper in America, as well as many around the world, carried stories concerning Lecompton. Many political discussions mentioned the town (including more than 50 times in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates).

This new discovery is a sheet of New Jersey ballots from the election of 1858, showing incumbent U.S. Rep. Garnet Adrain had changed his party affiliation to become an Anti-Lecompton Democrat. The documents show other officials had done the same. With research, the Lecompton Historical Society has discovered that eight men were elected to Congress that year on the Anti-Lecompton ticket. They came from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Indiana. These defections from the national Democratic Party helped Republicans gain control of the House.

Additionally, the Lecompton Historical Society has acquired a program from an Anti-Lecompton rally held in Buffalo, New York, where thousands of people from the western part of the state signed a petition to Congress protesting Lecompton and the actions of President James Buchanan. This, along with a similar program from a rally held in Philadelphia, show how strong the Anti-Lecompton movement had become nationwide.

Why so much anger toward a small town just emerging from the plains of the newly-founded Kansas Territory? It was all about slavery.

The concept of popular sovereignty was key to the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, as authored by Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois. It allowed the residents of a territory to vote on their preference regarding slavery. In theory, this would provide a solution to the fights on the floors of Congress. In practicality, it was a disaster in Kansas.

A legislature for the Kansas Territory (many of whose members still called Missouri their home) was formed in an election where thousands of questionable votes were cast. The same was true in the election of delegates to the constitutional convention that was held in Lecompton, the territorial capital, in 1857. The constitution proposed there called for Kansas to enter the Union as a slave state. Efforts by Buchanan in Washington, D.C., to get this Lecompton Constitution ratified by Congress included bribery, according to some historians. The fight against it was led by the president’s fellow Democrat, Sen. Douglas.

In hotly contested votes in both chambers, the Lecompton Constitution failed. The fight split the Democratic Party between southern supporters of Buchanan and northern supporters of Douglas — a split that remained through the election of 1860. The Lecompton controversy led to the election of Abraham Lincoln, who received only 39% of the popular vote.

The arguments over the Lecompton Constitution, along with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision, meant the question of slavery was now about its endless expansion. A line in the sand had been drawn by the people of America, and the politicians of the day failed to find an acceptable solution. War between the states was right around the corner.

Today’s residents of Lecompton don’t celebrate the pro-slavery government that once ruled from their town. However, they do recognize, preserve and tell the story of how the events that played out on the streets of their town contributed to Lincoln’s election, the start of the Civil War and the end of slavery in America.

This is a story well worth telling. These newly-discovered documents prove the historic importance of Lecompton in American history and are proudly displayed in the Territorial Capital Museum.

Jack L. Oglesby II is a member of the board of directors of the Lecompton Historical Society in Lecompton, Kansas.