"Freedom in Kansas" -- Closing Speech of William H. Seward, in the Senate of the United States, April 30, 1858

The struggle for Kansas to gain admission to the Union went on for a number of years. The attempt, under the Topeka Constitution of 1855, which called for Kansas to be a non-slave state, failed. In 1857 another attempt at statehood was made under the Lecompton Constitution. The Lecompton Constitution was the second of four proposed constitutions for the state of Kansas (it was preceded by the Topeka Constitution and was followed by the Leavenworth and Wyandotte Constitutions, with the Wyandotte becoming the Kansas state constitution) The Lecompton document was written in response to the anti-slavery position of the 1855 Topeka Constitution of the free-state advocates. The territorial legislature, consisting mostly of slave-owners, met at the designated capital of Lecompton in September 1857 to produce a rival document. This new constitution enshrined slavery in the proposed state and protected the rights of slaveholders. In addition, the Lecompton Constitution provided for a referendum that allowed voters the choice of allowing more slaves to enter the territory.

This First Edition copy of "Freedom in Kansas. Closing Speech of William H. Seward. in the Senate of the United States, April 30, 1858", records the Senator's comments on the bill that would permit Kansas to join the Union under the Lecompton Constitution. Mr. Seward says "...it makes up and submits to the people of Kansas, and to the country, a foreign, a fictitious, a false issue, in place of the true one. The true issue is the question, whether the people of Kansas shall, or shall not, as a condition of coming into the Union, have the right to accept or reject the Lecompton Constitution."

The booklet contains 16 single-column pages, without covers, and measures approximately 5 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches. The pages are tanned, but the text is clear and easy to read. The front and back pages are detached. The overall condition of the item is good.

The illustrations accompanying this description show the title page of the booklet and the first page of the speech..

William Henry Seward, Sr. (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. An outspoken opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years. [Wikipedia]