TO FREEDOM THROUGH DIFFICULTY
Profoundly important actions within the native stone walls of Constitution Hall, the Free State Capitol in the Kansas Territory, helped prevent impending national expansion of slavery. Here in 1855, citizens wrote the Topeka Constitution banning slavery in the future state of Kansas. At the time, the nation anticipated that Kansas would become pro slavery in keeping the nation's equal balance of antislavery and pro slavery power. The impacts of this constitution on events leading to the Civil War cannot be overestimated.
In a decision that challenged the proper role of the military, pro slavery political forces engaged federal troops to disperse the Topeka or Free State Legislature on July, 1856. Constitution Hall stored goods to sustain and protect Free State settlement, and here in the cellar were Underground Railroad operations assisting those escaping slavery on the Jim Lane Trail.
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The Free State Capitol held Topeka's first town council meetings, church services, social gatherings, a school, stores, and offices. By 1864, this was the first Kansas statehouse until completion of the East Wing of the current statehouse in 1869.
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The restored building facade (2021) with adjacent new Welcome Center under construction in April 2024.
Friends of the Free State Capitol is restoring Constitution Hall, 427-429 S. Kansas Avenue, in Topeka, Kansas.
Partner in Freedoms Frontier National Heritage Area and partner site of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.