Capital of Kansas Territory
In 1855, the new town of Lecompton was named the capital of Kansas Territory. President James Buchanan appointed a governor and officials to establish government offices in Lecompton, and construction began on an elegant capitol building. In the fall of 1857 a convention met in Constitution Hall and drafted the famous Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. The constitution was rejected after intense national debate and was one of the prime topics of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The controversy contributed to the growing dispute soon to erupt in civil war. The Lecompton Constitution failed, in part, because the antislavery party won control of the territorial legislature in the election of 1857. The new legislature met in Constitution Hall, now a National Historic Landmark, and immediately began to abolish the proslavery laws. The victorious free-state leaders chose Topeka as capital when Kansas became a state in 1861.| HM Number | HM1O0O |
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| Tags | |
| Placed By | The Kansas Historical Society |
| Marker Condition | No reports yet |
| Date Added | Saturday, September 19th, 2015 at 9:02pm PDT -07:00 |
| UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 15S E 282671 N 4321957 |
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| Decimal Degrees | 39.01966667, -95.51033333 |
| Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 39° 1.18', W 95° 30.62' |
| Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 39° 1' 10.8" N, 95° 30' 37.2" W |
| Driving Directions | Google Maps |
| Area Code(s) | 785 |
| Closest Postal Address | At or near 8000 SE Tecumseh Rd, Tecumseh KS 66542, US |
| Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
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