Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.

by John Alexander Martin

Very few were old men. Only fifteen of the fifty-two members were over forty. Over one-third were under thirty, and nearly two-thirds under thirty-five. Very few, as I have said, had previously appeared as representatives of the people in any Territorial assemblage, and this was especially true of the men whose talents, industry and force soon approved them leaders. Samuel A. Kingman had been in the Territory only about eighteen months, and was unknown, outside of Brown county, until he appeared at Wyandotte. Solon O. Thacher was a young lawyer of Lawrence, never before prominent in public affairs. John J. Ingalls had served, the previous winter, as Engrossing Clerk of the Territorial Council. Samuel A. Stinson was a young attorney, recently from Maine. William C. McDowell had never been heard of outside of Leavenworth, Benjamin F. Simpson was a boyish-looking lawyer from Miami county, and John T. Burris had been practicing, for a year or two, in Justices’ courts in Johnson county. John P. Slough had been a member of the Ohio Legislature, but was a new-comer in Kansas; and Edmund G. Ross was the publisher of a weekly newspaper at Topeka.

One-half of the members had been in the Territory less than two years. Six came in 1854, four in 1855, and twelve in 1856, while Mr. Forman, of Doniphan, dated his residence from 1843; Mr. Palmer, of Pottawatomie, from 1854, and Mr. Houston, of Riley, from 1853. Forty-one were from Northern States, seven from the South, and four were of foreign birth, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany each contributing one. It appears singular that only one of the Western States, Indiana, was represented in the membership, that State furnishing six delegates. Twelve hailed from New England, Ohio contributed twelve, Pennsylvania six, and New York four. Only eighteen belonged to the legal profession—an unusually small number of lawyers in such a body. Sixteen were farmers, eight merchants, three physicians, three manufacturers, one a mechanic, one a printer, one a land agent, and one a surveyor. The oldest member was Robert Graham, of Atchison, who was 55; the youngest Benj. F. Simpson, of Lykins county, (now Miami,) who was 23.

A WORKING BODY.

It was a working body, from the first hour of its session until the last. There is a tradition that the Continental Congress which promulgated the Declaration of Independence was materially hastened in its deliberations over that immortal document by swarms of flies that invaded the hall where it sat, and made the life of its members a burden. Perhaps the intense heat of the rough-plastered room where the Convention met, or the knowledge that Territorial scrip would be received by importunate landlords only at a usurious discount, had something to do with urging dispatch in business. But certainly the Convention went to work with an energy and industry I have never seen paralleled in a Kansas deliberative body since that time. It perfected its organization, adopted rules for its government, discussed the best mode of procedure in framing a Constitution, and appointed a Committee to report upon that subject, during the first day’s session; all the standing Committees were announced on the third day; and by the close of the fifth day it had disposed of two very troublesome contested election cases, decided that the Ohio Constitution should be the model for that of Kansas, perfected arrangements for reporting and printing its debates, and instructed its Committees upon a number of disputed questions. The vote on selecting a model for the Constitution was, on the second ballot: for the Ohio Constitution, 25 votes; Indiana, 23; and Kentucky, 1. So our Kansas Constitution was modeled after that of Ohio—something, I think, as the farmer’s new house was designed after his old one; it was built upon the old site.

THE COMMITTEES.

The Chairmanships of the different Committees were assigned as follows: Preamble and Bill of Rights—Wm. Hutchinson, of Lawrence; Executive Department—John P. Greer, of Shawnee; Legislative Department—Solon O. Thacher, of Lawrence; Judicial Department—Samuel A. Kingman, of Brown county; Military—James G. Blunt, of Anderson county; Electors and Elections—P. H. Townsend, of Douglas; Schedule—John T. Burris, of Johnson; Apportionment—H. D. Preston, of Shawnee; Corporations and Banking—Robert Graham, of Atchison; Education and Public Institutions—W. R. Griffith, of Bourbon county; County and Township Organizations—John Ritchie, of Topeka; Ordinance and Public Debt—James Blood, of Lawrence; Finance and Taxation—Benj. F. Simpson, of Lykins; Amendments and Miscellaneous—S. D. Houston, of Riley county; Federal Relations—T. S. Wright, of Nemaha county; Phraseology and Arrangement—John J. Ingalls, of Atchison.

I have studied the composition of these Committees with some interest, reviewing the work of their members in the Convention, and recalling their subsequent careers. And it appears to me that in making them up, President Winchell exhibited phenomenally quick and accurate judgment of men. He was, indeed, one of the best presiding officers I have ever known. His imperturbable coolness, never for an instant ruffled by the most sudden and passionate outbreaks of excitement in the Convention; his mastery of all the niceties of parliamentary law; his uniform courtesy and tact; his promptness and clearness in stating his decisions; and above all, the mingled grace and kindness and firmness with which he announced to an indignant member an adverse decision, were really wonderful. But what shall be said of that still more wonderful prescience with which he made up the Committees? What induced this calm, gray-eyed, observing little man, whose brass-buttoned blue coat was first seen by two-thirds of the Convention on the morning of the 5th of July—what impelled him, within twenty-four hours, to select an obscure, dull-looking, shock-headed country doctor as Chairman of the Military Committee, and thus name in connection with military affairs, for the first time, the only Kansas soldier who reached a full Major-Generalship? How did he happen to pass by half a dozen more wide-known lawyers, and appoint as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee a man who, during more than fifteen years thereafter, occupied a place on the Supreme Bench of the State, for the greater portion of this time as the Chief Justice? How came he to recognize so quickly, in the Engrossing Clerk of the Territorial Legislature, the ripest scholar and the fittest man in the body for the Chairmanship of the Committee to which every article of the Constitution was referred for final revision and amendment? In the youngest and most boyish-looking member he found the man who was to form, for this State, a code of Finance and Taxation whose clear directions and wholesome restrictions have guarded Kansas against the wasteful extravagance of Legislatures and the curse of a burdensome public debt, during all the tempting and perilous affairs of its first quarter of a century. And he named as head of the Committee on Education, the first State Superintendent of Public Instruction. All of his appointments were made with rare judgment, but those mentioned appear notably discerning.

PROGRESS OF WORK.

On the sixth day a resolution favoring biennial sessions of the Legislature—adopted sixteen years afterward—was submitted and referred. The first of a long series of resolutions or proposed sections of the Constitution, prohibiting the settlement of negroes or mulattoes within the limits of the State, was also introduced. This question, with others of a kindred nature, such as propositions to prohibit colored children attending the schools, or to exclude them from the University, or to forbid the appropriation of any funds for their education, and last, and meanest of all, to deny to negroes the shelter of county poor-houses when poor and helpless, was voted upon again and again, first in one form and then in another; and to the enduring honor of the majority, always defeated. It seems singular, in this day and generation, that such theories found persistent and earnest advocates. But it should be remembered that all this happened before the war, when slavery was still an “institution” in nearly half the States of the Union. The Pro-Slavery party was, of course, solidly in favor of excluding free negroes from the State, and less than four years prior to the meeting of the Convention, the Free-State party, in voting on the Topeka Constitution, had given a decided majority in favor of such exclusion. It therefore required genuine courage and principle to go upon record against each and every proposition of this character. For very few members who so voted felt absolutely certain of the indorsement of their constituents.

The first article of the Constitution reported, that on corporations and banks, was submitted on the sixth day and considered. It was stated by the President that many other Committees had their reports in the hands of the printer, and during the next few days they began to come in very rapidly. The Convention, to expedite work, adopted a resolution requiring all Committees to report on or before Saturday, the eleventh day of the session.