In 1859 a Convention, called by the Territorial Legislature for the
purpose, met at Wyandot, and framed a Free State Constitution which was
adopted by the people in October of that year, and at the ensuing State
election in December the State went Republican. In April, 1860, the
House of Representatives passed a Bill admitting Kansas as a State under
that Constitution, but the Democratic Senate adjourned without action on
the Bill; and it was not until early in 1861 that Kansas was at last
admitted.
In the meantime, the Free Trade Tariff of 1846 had produced the train of
business and financial disasters that its opponents predicted. Instead
of prosperity everywhere in the land, there was misery and ruin. Even
the discovery and working of the rich placer mines of California and the
consequent flow, in enormous volume, of her golden treasure into the
Eastern States, could not stay-the wide-spread flood of disaster.
President Fillmore, who had succeeded General Taylor on the latter's
death, frequently called the attention of Congress to the evils produced
by this Free Trade, and to the necessity of protecting our manufactures
"from ruinous competition from abroad." So also with his successor,
President Buchanan, who, in his Message of 1857, declared that "In the
midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in all the
elements of national wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our
public works retarded, our private enterprises of different kinds
abandoned, and thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and
reduced to want.
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