Kansas voters reject the proslavery Lecompton Constitution…

Kansas voters reject the proslavery Lecompton Constitution in a territorial election held in January 1858, stirring war fever throughout the states.

Despite the defeat of this document, President James Buchanan will subsequently recommend statehood for Kansas under its provisions, which protect slaveholding and, under its bill of rights, exclude free blacks.

Congress will balk, and offer a compromise calling for resubmission of the constitution to the territory's voters.

Kansas will again reject it the following August.