“ADDED TO THE STARS.”
On the 4th of October, 1859, the Constitution was submitted to the people for ratification or rejection, and, for the first time in the history of Kansas, all parties cast a full, free and unintimidated vote. The Republicans favored, and the Democrats generally opposed its adoption. Nearly 16,000 ballots were polled, of which 10,421 were for, and 5,530 against the Constitution. The Homestead clause, submitted as an independent proposition, was ratified by a vote of 8,788 for, to 4,772 against it. Every county in the Territory except two, Johnson and Morris, gave a majority for the Constitution.
Two months later, December 6th, State and County officers and members of the Legislature were elected, and the people of Kansas, having exhausted their authority in State-building, patiently awaited the action of Congress. On the 11th of April, 1860, the House of Representatives voted, 134 to 73, to admit Kansas as a State, under the Wyandotte Constitution. Twice, during the next eight months, the Senate defeated motions to consider the Kansas bill, but on the 21st of January, 1861, several Southern Senators having seceded, Mr. Seward “took a pinch of snuff” and called it up again. It passed by a vote of 36 to 16, and on the 29th of the same month President Buchanan approved it. Thus young Kansas, through many difficulties and turmoils, was “added to the Stars.”
AN ENDURING CONSTITUTION.
During nearly twenty-two of the most eventful and exciting years of American history, the Constitution thus framed and ratified has defined the powers and regulated the duties of the government of Kansas. Three Legislatures have voted down propositions to call a new Constitutional Convention. Twelve or fifteen amendments have been submitted, but only eight have been approved by the people. Finally, in 1880, the Legislature voted to submit a proposal for a new Convention, and at the regular election held in November of that year, this ballot was taken. The result was an indorsement of the old Wyandotte Constitution by a majority far more emphatic and overwhelming than that by which it was originally adopted, the vote standing 22,870 for, and 146,279 against the proposed Convention, or nearly seven to one.
It is doubtful whether the organic law of any other State in the Union has more successfully survived the mutations of time and inconstant public sentiment, and the no less fluctuating necessities of a swiftly-developing Commonwealth. Of its seventeen articles, only four, and of its one hundred and seventy-eight sections, only eight, have ever been amended. And of the eight amendments adopted, only five have revoked or modified the principles or policy originally formulated, the others being changes demanded by the growth of the State, or by the events of the civil war. The first amendment, ratified in 1861, provides that no banking institution shall issue circulating notes of a less denomination than $1—the original limitation being $5. In 1864 the provision requiring all bills to originate in the House of Representatives, was repealed; and a section intended to prevent U. S. soldiers from voting, but which was so worded that it deprived our volunteers of that right, was also repealed. In 1867 an amendment was adopted disfranchising all persons who aided the “Lost Cause,” or who were dishonorably discharged from the army of the United States, or who had defrauded the United States or any State during the war. In 1868 the State Printer amendment was ratified. In 1873 the number of Senators and Representatives, originally limited to 33 and 100, respectively, was increased to 40 and 125. In 1875 three propositions, each having in view biennial instead of annual sessions of the Legislature, were adopted. And in 1880 the Prohibition amendment was ratified. These are all the changes that have been made in our organic law during nearly a quarter of a century.
PARTING AT WYANDOTTE.
It would violate the proprieties of such an occasion to comment on the personal feuds or partisan broils which once or twice marred the general harmony and orderly progress of the proceedings. These were very few, indeed, and none of them, I think, outlasted the Convention. The members parted, when the final adjournment came, with mutual respect and good-will, and the friendships formed during the session have been unusually warm and enduring.
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
It seems fitting that, in concluding this sketch of the Convention and its labors, I should briefly narrate the subsequent history of its members. It was a small company, that which parted here twenty-three years ago to-day, and it was made up, as I have said, largely of young and vigorous men. But when this reunion was first suggested, and I came to look over the familiar names I had so often called during the long, hot days of that far-away July, it was painful to note the havoc death had made. It impressed me something as did a roll-call I once witnessed, in the red glare of bivouac fires after one of the great battles of the war, when surviving comrades answered “killed,” or “wounded,” to one-half the names of a regiment. Ten of the fifty-two members composing the Convention I have not heard of for many years. Of the remaining forty-two, twenty rest quietly in