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Title: Kansas Executive Department Council Journal
Description: This excerpt from the 1855 Kansas Executive Committee Council Journal records the Council’s discussion of various proposed acts and bills. These acts and bills address topics such as coal mining, the territorial capital at Lecompton, Kansas, enacting a state census and state constitutional convention, enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, and voting rights for American Indians. The journal also features correspondence from Andrew Reeder.
Object Type: Government Document
Date: 1855

Title: From Edward Fitch to Dear Parents
Description: On September 8, 1855, Edward Fitch writes a letter from Lawrence, Kansas to his parents in Massachusetts, reporting that Governor Andrew Reeder was nominated for Congress at the recent convention in Big Springs, Kansas. He also informs his parents of his efforts to protect a free black man against a group of pro-slavery men who wanted to capture and enslave him. If they hadn’t eventually backed down, Fitch says, “we should have pitched in to them with our rifles.”
Date: September 8, 1855

Title: Letter From Judge Lecompte
Description: This September 13, 1856 newspaper article is an open letter from Judge Samuel Lecompte to James A. Stewart, a Maryland Congressman. In the letter, Lecompte defends himself against several charges; he denies that he packed the jury in a murder trial, that he was in possession of illegal whisky, that he misrepresented the crime of treason to a grand jury, and that he participated in a meeting of the Law and Order Party. He states that he is aware of threats to remove him from his post as Chief Justice of Kansas Territory, but he insists that he has been a fair and impartial judge.
Object Type: Newspaper Article
Date: September 13, 1856

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