Kansas Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Lecompton Constitution Despite Buchanan Bribery

Kansas voters rejected the fraudulent Lecompton Constitution by an overwhelming margin of 10,226 to 138 on January 4, 1858, in a referendum that exposed the pro-slavery document’s lack of popular support. The constitution had been drafted by a pro-slavery territorial legislature that consisted mainly of enslavers due to widespread electoral fraud from Missouri Border Ruffians in the March 1855 election. When pro-slavery factions held a constitutional convention in Lecompton in 1857 without congressional authority and aided by thousands of illegal Missouri votes, Free-State supporters representing the actual majority of Kansas settlers boycotted the proceedings. The decisive 10,226 to 138 rejection margin suggested that Free-State supporters overwhelmingly outnumbered the pro-slavery element and that Lecompton’s previous popularity at the polls was the product of “nefarious voting practices.”

President James Buchanan made “every effort to secure congressional approval” of the fraudulent constitution despite clear evidence of voting fraud and the convention’s failure to submit the document to voters for ratification. Buchanan “offered favors, patronage appointments, and even cash for votes” to secure congressional passage. A congressional committee gathered evidence that Buchanan had attempted to bribe members of Congress through intermediaries in spring 1858 and threatened their relatives with losing federal posts if they did not vote for the Lecompton Constitution. This systematic corruption demonstrated how thoroughly the Slave Power had captured the executive branch in service of slavery expansion.

The “Lecompton swindle,” as Republicans called it, split the Democratic Party because Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois rejected the fraud while Buchanan insisted on accepting the dubious results. Northern anti-Lecompton Democrats and Republicans successfully blocked passage in the House by a vote of 120-112, creating a stalemate. Historian Kenneth Stampp argues that Buchanan’s support of Lecompton “stands as one of the most tragic miscalculations any President has ever made.” The feud between Buchanan and Douglas helped set the stage for the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 and led to the Democratic split in 1860 that enabled Lincoln’s election with only 39 percent of the popular vote. Congress ultimately rejected the Lecompton Constitution, and Kansas entered the Union as a free state in 1861.