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Title: From George Lewis to Mrs. Fitch
Description: George Lewis of Lawrence, Kansas writes a letter to Mrs. Fitch (Edward Fitch’s mother) in Massachusetts on January 14, 1857. He thanks her for donating clothing to his family and to other poor emigrants in Kansas. He tells her that a band of proslavery men robbed him and burned down his house, leaving him living in a tent with his wife and six children. Despite his struggles, Lewis, a Welsh immigrant, expresses hope about the future of Kansas: “It must be made a Free State. It shall be a Free State.”
Date: January 14, 1857

Title: Kansas Territorial Records
Description: These documents include letters and affidavits documenting election fraud that occurred in Leavenworth, Johnson, Coffey, and Linn Counties in Kansas Territory. Kansas citizens voted on January 4, 1858 to determine the fate of the Lecompton Constitution and to elect state officials. These documents refer to incidents of “enormous fraud” including men voting repeatedly under false names, falsifying poll books, and destroying ballot boxes “by violence and force.”
Object Type: Government Document
Date: January 5, 1858-March 15, 1858

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Father
Description: This unsigned May 20, 1858 letter is presumably from Edward Fitch of Lawrence, Kansas to his father in Massachusetts. Fitch criticizes the Lecompton Constitution and the English Bill due to their proslavery stance. He fears that those in the Kansas territory will accept the English Bill since it offers large amount of public lands to Kansas settlers. Though Fitch fears Kansas' entrance into the Union as a slave state, he ends his letter in an optimistic tone, remarking that it would be as impossible to make Kansas into a slave state “as it would be to make Hell out of Heaven.”
Object Type: Letter
Date: May 20, 1858

Title: Constitution Hall, Lecompton, Kansas
Description: Photograph of Constitution Hall, site of the Lecompton Constitutional Convention on January 12, 1857. Constitution Hall was built in 1856 and restored in 1991.
Object Type: Image
Date: 1933

Title: Jesse Connell
Description: This undated portrait depicts Jesse Connell, a Kentuckian who moved to Leavenworth, Kansas in 1855. Connell, a slave-owner, served as a delegate to the Lecompton Constitutional Convention in 1857, and was later elected to the Senate of the first Kansas State Legislature.
Object Type: Image
Date: n.d.

Title: 1857 Election Ballots
Description: These are ballots that were cast in the December 21, 1857 election in Kansas Territory. Citizens voted to either ratify the Lecompton Constitution with slavery or to ratify it without slavery. Free State supporters boycotted the election and the pro-slavery vote prevailed.
Object Type: Ballots
Date: December 21, 1857

Title: 1858 Election Ballots
Description: These are ballots that were cast in the January 4, 1858 election in Kansas Territory. Citizens voted to either ratify or reject the Lecompton Constitution. They also voted for State officers and a Congressional representative. The majority of voters rejected the Constitution and elected Free State politicians.
Object Type: Ballots
Date: January 4, 1858

Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865