John A. Martin, as Secretary. A permanent organization was effected by the choice of James M. Winchell, as President; John A. Martin, as Secretary; J. L. Blanchard, Assistant Secretary; George F. Warren, Sergeant-at-Arms; J. M. Funk, Doorkeeper; Rev. Werter R. Davis, Chaplain; President pro tem., Solon O. Thacher.

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113. The Model.-The Constitution of the State of Ohio was adopted as a "model or basis of action."

114. Sixth Section.-The Convention was for freedom. The Sixth Section of the Bill of Rights was made to read "There shall be no slavery in this State,

and no involuntary servitude, except for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

A proviso to suspend this section, for one year after the admission of the State, was voted down, twenty-eight to eleven. This was the last suggestion made to allow slavery to exist in Kansas, for a day or an hour. Well said a member of the Convention, "the Constitution will commend itself to the good and true everywhere, because through every line and syllable there glows the generous sunshine of liberty."

Samuel A. Kingman.

115. Boundary and Capital. The Convention rejected a proposition to embrace, in the new State, a portion of Nebraska south of the Platte, and fixed the western line at the twenty-fifth meridian, cutting off the Territorial county of Arapahoe, which was afterwards embraced in the Territory and State of Colorado. Thus, the boundaries of Kansas were finally and permanently determined.

The temporary seat of Government was located at Topeka.

The Convention substantially completed its work in twenty-one days.

7116. The Constitution Adopted. On the 12th of September, 1859, James M. Winchell, President, and John A. Martin, Secretary, called an election on the Wyandotte Constitution, to ratify or reject it. The vote was taken on the 4th of October, 1859, and stood: for the Constitution, 10,421; against the Constitution, 5,530. The "homestead clause" was submitted separately, and received 8,788 votes, as against 4,772. So the free people of Kansas adopted the Wyandotte Constitution.

117. Men of the Convention.-The Wyandotte Constitutional Convention has maintained a high place in the regard of the people of Kansas, on account of the strong and steadfast character of its membership, and the solid quality of its work. Its labors were followed, inside

of two years, by the admission of Kansas as a State, and by the outbreak of a war in which the existence of the State, and of the Union of the States had to be maintained. In the councils of the civil state, and in its armed defense, the members of the Wyandotte Convention bore a high and honorable part. In the organization of the State's first Supreme Court, Samuel A. Kingman served as an Associate Justice, and after, as its Chief Justice. Benjamin F. Simpson was chosen the first Attorney-General of the State, and Samuel A. Stinson, another member, was elected to that office in 1861. Two of the framers of the Wyandotte Constitution, John J. Ingalls and Edmund G.

Solon 0. Thacher.

Ross, lived to serve Kansas in the Senate of the United States. John A. Martin, the youthful Secretary, was twice chosen Governor of the State. Two of the lawyers of the body, Solon O. Thacher and William C. McDowell, were chosen District Judges at the first election under the Constitution. These and many others served the State long and well in various places of responsibility, in the first and subsequent Legislatures, on the bench, and in other capacities. W. R. Griffith, the first State Superintendent of Public Instruction, was a member of the Convention.

When "war's wild deadly blast was blown," the members of this Convention rallied to the standard. James G. Blunt entered the service at once and became a major-general. John P. Slough became a brigadier-general, and Simpson, Ross, Hipple, Martin, Ritchie, Burris, Nash, Werter R. Davis, and Middleton, officers and members of the Wyandotte Convention, entered the army as line and field officers of the Kansas regiments.

118. Convention Stood for Law and Liberty.-The Wyandotte Convention contained few of those who had prior to its assemblage been recognized and conspicuous leaders in controlling public opinion in the Territory, but it framed a Constitution that met the Kansas idea of the rights of man, the protection of the home, the establishment of justice. A Kansas woman, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols, attended daily the sessions of the Convention, and counseled for those provisions that protect the sacred rights of

the wife, the mother, the woman citizen. The spirit of the Wyandotte Constitution has been preserved. None of the amendments added to it have weakened or restricted its original purpose. It remains, after forty years, the charter of liberty, and the basis of law in Kansas.

SUMMARY.

1. The Wyandotte Constitutional Convention convened at Wyandotte, July 5, 1859.

2. The members of the Convention were for the first time from both political parties.

3. James M. Winchell was chosen President of the Convention. 4. The Constitution of Ohio was the model for the Constitution of Kansas.

5. The Sixth section stood for freedom.

6. The capital was located temporarily at Topeka.

7. The Constitution was accepted by the people October 4, 1859.

Golden medal presented in 1874 to Mrs. Mary A. Brown, widow of John Brown,
by Victor Hugo and others.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRAGEDY OF JOHN BROWN.

119. His Migration and Settlement.-On the 2d of December, 1859, John Brown was executed at Charlestown, Va.

It was on the 23d of August, 1855, that John Brown, born at Torrington, Conn., May 9, 1800, a man then fiftyfive years of age, started from Chicago, Ill., with a heavily loaded one-horse wagon for Kansas. He walked beside his wagon, shot game for food, passed through Rock Island, Illinois; Iowa, and Missouri, and reached a point on or near Pottawatomie creek, and eight miles from Osawatomie, Kansas Territory, on the 6th of October, 1855. He settled in the neighborhood of his sons, John Brown,

John Brown.

Jr., Salmon, Frederick, Jason, and Owen Brown, who had come to the Territory with their families early in the year. From the day of his arrival, his name became attached, for weal or woe, for glory or for shame, with that of Kansas. He was very generally known first as "Osawatomie Brown."

His first public appearance in the troubles of the Territory appears to have been at Lawrence during the "Wakarusa War,' That disturbance was ended by a

December, 1855.

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