Journals of the House of Representatives of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Kansas: 1855–, title varies, var. state printers, 1855– ((Prior to becoming part of the United States, the area now comprising Kansas was a part of the Spanish and later French territories of Louisiana. An act of Congress, March 26, 1804, split the newly acquired Louisiana into two jurisdictions, the Territory of Louisiana, which later became the Missouri Territory, and the District of Orleans, which later became the state of Louisiana. When the area now comprising Missouri became a territory in 1812, modern Kansas remained technically part of Missouri until 1834, when it was defined as “Indian County” in the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. For the next twenty years Kansas was a federal enclave, reserved for the settlement of Native Americans from east of the Mississippi. Finally, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 30 May 18554, settled the boundaries of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and established territorial legislatures. The first Kansas territorial legislature met in the City of Lecompton in July of 1855. The short territorial period lasted only until1861, when. an act of May 4 provided for the tentative admission of Kansas into the union as a state. Actual admission was delayed as Free-State proponents and proslavery forces sought to enshrine their views into the new state’s constitution. Final admission came by act of Congress on 29 Jan. 1861, when Congress accepted the so-called Wyandotte Constitution, an anti-slavery document. The first state legislature met in the City of Lawrence in March of 1861.) (Documents part of the Early State Records collection were digitized from a microfilm copy of title originally held by the Library of Congress).
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