November 29, 1854: Pro-Slavery forces steal the first “popular sovereignty” election in the Kansas Territory.
You are there: Along with the cession of land after the Mexican War comes recognition that the 1820 Missouri Compromise demarcation line on slavery at 36’30” longitude does not extend to the new western territories.
Southerners demand that slavery be sanctioned across the new territories, while Northerners argue that they be reserved exclusively for “free white men and free labor.”
The 1850 Compromise passed by Congress is an attempt by Stephen A. Douglas and the Democrats to address the deepening conflict. Their solution is called “popular sovereignty” and involves holding fair elections among local settlers to choose between Slave State or Free State status.
In 1854 the Kansas Territory becomes the first to try to implement this “popsov” approach.
Kansas is located directly west of Missouri which leads the South to claim that it should become another Slave State. Northerner’s regard Missouri’s status as a one-time aberration and point out that Kansas is north of the old 36’30” line signaling its Free State roots.
Both sides send settlers into Kansas to back their causes. But the total number is probably no more than 6,000 when the first election is held on November 29, 1854. At stake is choosing a representative to send to the U.S House.
The result is a fiasco as a band of “Missouri Ruffians” led by U.S. Senator David Atchison flood into Kansas and stuff the ballots in favor of pro-slavery advocate, John Whitfield, who will later become a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army.
Franklin Pierce’s first Territorial Governor, Andrew Reeder, is made aware of the fraud, but decides to approve the outcome in order to support the President and avoid disruption. The result, however, is a string of other stolen elections by the Pro-Slavery forces. In March 1855, they again take over the polling places and elect a “Bogus Legislature” to govern the territory. This time Governor Reeder balks at endorsing the fraud, and President Pierce sacks him.
Meanwhile, the Free State supporters are led by Charles Robinson, who opposes slavery on moral grounds, and ex-Congressman, Mexican War veteran and racist, James Henry Lane, intent on keeping all Blacks out of Kansas. Together they draft and pass the Topeka Constitution and send it to Washington in late 1855, seeking admission to the Union as a Free State.
They also hold an election in January 1856 which establishes their own Legislature and government, headquartered in Topeka, and in direct competition with the Pro-Slavery structure in Lecompton.
Once the Topeka application arrives in Washington, Senator Stephen Douglas, who favors the Pro-Slavery outcome, is forced to take a stand on the results so far in Kansas. Much to the dismay or Pierce and the South, he refuses to back the legitimacy of the Pro-Slavery faction. Instead he calls for a complete “do-over” of the popular sovereignty process once a much higher threshold of permanent settlers arrive in Kansas.
As the politics play out in DC, savagery and bloodshed dominate the local landscape. The Free State town of Lawrence is destroyed on May 21, 1856. John Brown’s Potawatomie Massacre occurs two days later. And on June 2, a stand-up battle at Black Jack is regarded as “the first conflict in the Civil War” to follow.
The next congressional blow to Pierce, Douglas and the South comes in July 1856 when the U.S. House votes to accept the Free State Topeka Constitution, a move quickly tabled by the Democrat controlled Senate. Six weeks later, Pierce fires his second Territorial Governor, Wilson Shannon, for failure to shut down the Topeka Legislature.
The presidential election of 1856 ends with a victory for James Buchanan owing to the 112 Electoral Votes (64% of his 174 total) gained from the Slave States. He immediately dedicates himself to admitting Kansas as a Slave State, and assigns the task to ex-Treasury Secretary Robert Walker, who becomes the 4th Governor in the territory.
In October 1857, with Walker just over four months in office, the Missouri Ruffians again stuff the ballot boxes in favor of their “Bogus Legislature.” When he learns of this, Walker voids the election, a move that leads Buchanan to demand his resignation. But Walker has powerful allies in DC and doesn’t go quietly. Like his predecessors, Reeder and Shannon, he too joins the intense opposition to Buchanan throughout the North.
Back in Kansas, the Pro-Slavery men sense that their control is slipping away and respond by drafting their own Lecompton Constitution in November 1857. They submit it to Washington and Buchanan publicly backs it. But Douglas denounces it in Congress – a move that causes a permanent break with the President and probably costs the Little Giant his political future.
Buchanan now exhibits the bullying behavior on behalf of the Lecompton faction that will mark his catastrophic term as president. After the Pro-Slavery proposal is rejected 10,266 – 162 in a fairly conducted election on January 4, 1858, the President jams through the contrived “English Bill” to force a re-vote. This time the Bill goes down 11,812-1,926.
Over the remainder of his term, Buchanan will continue to blame radical Northern abolitionists for the turmoil in Kansas and try desperately to win back his collapsing support in the South, but to no avail.
Ironically, just five weeks before his term ends, he signs the bill admitting Kansas to the Union under the Free State Wyandotte Constitution.
But for his performance in office, future historians will generally regard him as the weakest president in American history.
