To the editor:

The Lecompton Historical Society has come into possession of unique historical documents relating to Bleeding Kansas and the United States Congress.

The Lecompton Constitution would have made Kansas a slave state and was intensely debated across the US. The anti-Lecompton sentiment strongly opposed slavery for the future state of Kansas. In 1858, Garnet Adrian of New Jersey ran and won as the People’s “Anti-Lecompton” Democratic candidate for Congress. Seven other Anti-Lecompton Congressmen: Davis (Ind.), Riggs (NJ), Clark, Reynolds and Haskin (NY), Hickman and Swartz (PA) voted against the Lecompton Constitution. The Anti-Lecompton ballot of New Jersey included candidates for assembly, sheriff and three candidates for coroner. The actual ballot is now on display at the Territorial Capital Museum.

A new pamphlet titled “Union Anti Lecompton Mass Meeting” in Buffalo, 1858, signed by nearly 4,000 citizens is now on display as is a report from Philadelphia with 6,000 attendees who rallied against Lecompton.

Most people do not know that such a small town in Kansas was so important to American history and that a political party used the name of Lecompton to defeat their opponents to win eight seats in Congress in 1858.

Paul Bahnmaier,

Lecompton