Historic Lecompton

Historic Lecompton. Civil War Birth Place. , In 1855 the new town of Lecompton became the capital of Kansas Territory. President James Buchanan appointed a governor and officials to establish government offices in Lecompton, and construction began on an elegant capitol building. In the fall of 1857, a convention met in Constitution Hall and drafted the famous Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. The constitution was rejected after intense national debate and was one of the prime topics of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The controversy contributed to the growing dispute soon to erupt in Civil War. The Lecompton Constitution failed, in part, because the antislavery party won control of the territorial legislature in the election of 1857. The new legislature met in Constitution Hall, now a National Historic landmark, and immediately began to abolish the proslavery laws. The victorious free-state leaders chose Topeka as capital when Kansas became a state in 1861. Constitution Hall, a National Historic Landmark, still stands in Lecompton and is a State Historic Site. Part of the never-completed capitol later was rebuilt as Lane University. President Dwight Eisenhower's met while attending Lane University and were married in Lecompton in 1885. The building now is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a museum of territorial history.