Leavenworth Constitutional Convention

Plumb, Preston B.

By Matthew E. Stanley, University of Cincinnati

Preston B. Plumb was an antislavery “Free-Soil” advocate, a Union Army officer during the Civil War, a successful businessman, and a three-term senator from the state of Kansas, where he is considered a founding figure.

Leavenworth Constitution

By Marc Reyes, University of Connecticut

With language echoing the Declaration of Independence, the future state of Kansas considered the unprecedented measure of extending equal rights of citizenship to black males. Serving as an early example of Brandeisian thinking, wherein states, or in this case a territory, function as “laboratories of democracy,” the delegates who gathered in Leavenworth, Kansas, placed the enfranchisement of black males up for consideration a full decade before the federal government enacted the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Leavenworth Constitution Approved by Voters

Tue, 05/18/1858

Following a constitutional convention in Leavenworth, Kansas, voters approve the Leavenworth Constitution. It apparently extends equal rights to all men, regardless of race, and extends some additional rights to women.