On Saturday, October 11, the Central Library is open to registered Heartland Book Festival attendees only. Regular services, such as hold pickups, public computers and phones, and public meeting rooms, will not be available.
Don Lambert discusses the efforts of 40 men and women whose so-called Topeka Constitution marked a milestone on the road Kansas would take to eventually enter the Union as a free state on Sunday, July 18, at 2 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.
On March 30, 1855, a mass influx from Missouri of several thousand armed "border ruffians" overwhelmed voting for delegates to the first Kansas Territorial Legislature, resulting in a landslide victory for proslavery adherents.
Anti-slavery "free-staters" elected to write their own constitution and submit it to Congress. Although that constitution was not ratified, it paved the way for Kansas to eventually enter the union as a free state.
This presentation is part of the Missouri Valley Speakers Series, a program of the Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Central Library. The series is made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
