The Wyandotte Convention: an addressMartin, John Alexander
History
The Wyandotte Convention: an address
Martin, John Alexander
Kansas -- Politics and government -- 1854-1861; Kansas Territory. Constitutional Convention (1859)
The Preamble and Bill of Rights was reported on the tenth day, and
opened the whole question of the State's boundaries. The Committee
proposed the twenty-third meridian as the western line, and the fortieth
parallel as the line on the north. This would have excluded about ninety
miles of territory within the present limits of the State. The
Committee's recommendation was, however, adopted, and stood as the
determination of the Convention until the day before the final
adjournment, when Col. May, of Atchison, secured a reconsideration, and
on his motion the twenty-fifth parallel was substituted for the
twenty-third. The northern boundary question was finally settled on the
fifteenth day, when, by a vote of 19 ayes to 29 nays, the Convention
refused to memorialize Congress to include the South Platte country
within the limits of Kansas.
FEATURES OF THE CONSTITUTION.
On the seventh day the Legislative and Judicial Committees reported. The
Legislative article was considered next day. The Committee proposed that
bills might originate in either House, but Mr. Winchell submitted a
novel amendment, which required all laws to originate in the House of
Representatives. This was adopted, notwithstanding the vigorous
opposition of Mr. Thacher, the Chairman of the Committee, by a vote of
37 to 13. It survived the admission of the State only three years, being
amended in 1864.
On the eighth day the Militia article was adopted; on the ninth day the
Judicial article was perfected, and the article on Education and Public
Institutions reported and discussed; and on the tenth day the Committees
on County and Township Organizations, and Schedule, reported. The
deathless pertinacity of a "claim" is illustrated by a petition
presented that day, from one Samuel A. Lowe, a clerk of the so-called
"Bogus Legislature," who wanted pay for certain work he alleged he had
performed. Only a year ago Mr. Lowe presented the same claim to
Congress, and it was, I believe allowed by the House. But the Kansas
Senators made such determined war on it that Mr Lowe can still sing, "a
claim to keep I have."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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