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Show 306 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT to call for the election of delegates to meet in convention and to form a constitution and state government. At the resulting convention, held in Wyandotte, a constitution was framed, the third for Kansas, elections were provided for, and the officials elected were strongly in the free-state tradition. Though the members of this convention were contemptuous of the work of the Lecompton convention they borrowed from the ordinance of that convention the claim that the state "would possess the right to tax" the lands of the Federal government, which right they were willing to surrender for certain concessions, including sections 16 and 36 for schools, two townships for a university, one for public buildings, two for the erection and maintenance of eleemosynary institutions, the equivalent of two townships around salt springs, to include the salt springs, 5 percent of the net proceeds from land sales for schools, and 500,000 acres under the Act of 1841 but for schools, not internal improvements. The admission of Kansas, now not only a free state but Republican, precipitated the usual sharp clash in both Houses of Congress. Southerners were opposed to admission regardless of party as were some northern Democrats, especially those in the Senate who had not yet felt the whiplash of the rapidly rising anti-slavery sentiment. Favorable to admission were Republicans and most northern Democrats. Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania, an ardent advocate of free homesteads, was in charge of the bill in the House and reported for the majority of the Committee on Territories in favor of admission. He met the arguments of opponents by showing (1) that Kansas had followed the lead of 11 of 20 new states which had proceeded to form a constitution and government without an enabling act, (2) that Kansas in 1860 had more population than in 1857 and 1858, when the slavery party had tried to admit it, and approximated more closely the congressional ratio than a number of other states when admitted, (3) the English bill of 1858 which had required the people of Kansas either to accept the Lecompton constitution or wait until they had the 93,420 was a simple act of Congress, not a compact as some southerners maintained, and was not at all binding on a later Congress.63 In the House where the tide of public opinion had swept out many northerners who had previously followed southern leadership on slavery and territorial questions, a bill for the admission of Kansas passed by a vote of 134-73 but in the Senate the measure was debated and then passed over by votes of 32-27 and 32-26. All six northerners who had refused to support the admission bill either were defeated at the end of their term or wisely declined to run for re-election.64 When the census figures for 1860 were completed it was found that Kansas had much more than a sufficient number of people to entitle her to admission, and double the number in Oregon for whose admission there had been strong southern support. In the lame duck session of the 36th Congress the Senate took up the admission bill again, amended it slightly and passed it, 36-16. Five of the six northern votes previously in opposition to admission now were favorable.65 Admission was to be accomplished but not before Congress struck squarely at that part of the Kansas ordinance declaring that the new state "would possess the right to tax" the public lands. The act of admission stated: "Nothing in this act shall be construed as an assent by Congress to all or to any of the propositions or claims con- 63 House Reports, 36th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. II, No. 255 (Serial No. 1068), and Cong. Globe, 36th Cong., 1st sess., April 11, 1860, pp. 1671-72. 84 Cong. Globe, 36th Cong., 1st sess., April 11, and June 6 and 7, 1860, pp. 1672, 2624, 2727. Somewhat different votes are given in the Senate Journal, 36th Cong., 1st sess. (Serial No. 1022), pp. 559, 566. Benjamin Wade and Solomon Foot seem to have strayed from their usual path on the first vote. 65 Senate Journal, 36th Cong., 2d sess., Jan. 21, 1861 (Serial No. 1077), p. 128. Gwin, the sixth Democratic Senator who had opposed the admission of Kansas in 1859 did not vote in 1861. |