associated with war, becoming storms of war, at the natural disasters we faced. a lot of symbolism there. he also includes the western meadowlark come our state bird. some people say was a martyr, some say he was a terrorist. here, he is our famous painting and people can come. you can interpret how you would like. the state library is in the north wing. that was the last place completed in the capital building. at the time, it was 1900. annie diggs was the state librarian at that time. she was the first female state

librarian. she wanted it to be a big, open space. when you first walk in, it is very welcoming. they chose stencilling in there to welcome people. when you look up, there is a pineapple stencil all over the ceiling. then there are bird faces eating berries on the sides of the walls. she was credited with also -- she was a populist which was kansas is really the only state that had populism. we had a couple populist governors and some big figures who were involved in the populist movement. she reminded them the workers, while they were working on the library, that at some point they would be holding a lot of books. so they did reinforcements knowing at some point there would be books on all of those shelves.

there is a glass floor. at that time, a lot of libraries had glass floors to let the natural light filter into the building. and when people got electricity, they, a lot of times got rid of those glass floors. luckily, we kept ours. the glass itself goes around the bookcases and so you can kind of see in between. we also have two original book lifts that the librarians still use today to move the books up and down from the first floor to the second floor. we also, with you're in the capitol capitol, we have the dome tour that you can climb, 276 steps and go to the top of the building. we are taller than our nation's capital by 18 feet. we are one of the few capitals that can go to what we consider our seventh floor. not many go to the very top. in fact, we're pretty sure we're the only one.

but we can go up to the top and go outside on the balcony. at the top and you can see about 40 miles. a beautiful view number matter what the season. it is all very fun to look at there. winter is probably when you can see the furthest. it's very crisp, very clear at that time. it's open to the public. it's beautiful. you come into our rotunda, you look up and you see the glass dome surrounded by all the copper. you look up and you think you're looking all the way to the top, but you're not. there's another 75 feet of space above that. that's the dome tour. it's a graduate tour if you're -- and we do stop on each of the levels. we tell people, it's not a forced march to the top. it is a fun event. and if you're scared, we don't make you go all the way to the top. with the recent renovations, we were able to add on quite a bit of space in the ground level. the historic society was given a

nice visitor center area. with exhibit space. on permanent exhibit, we have john brown's sword, which a lot of people love to look at that. it was his. we don't know that he used it necessarily, for anything, except he did carry it with him and it is on display here. we also have the original constitution. the first page of the kansas constitution that made us a state is housed in the building. it's quite a wonderful original article. it's right here and kids can see it and adults can see it. it's on display. although some kids can't read it now because it's in cursive. we try to share that with everyone. it's housed basically in the center of the building on the ground level. so if we were looking up we would see into the dome where that's at. when you are at the top of the capitol

capitol, as i mentioned you can go out on the balcony and look and see for about 40 miles. if you lean back on one of the four corners of that balcony, you can see add astra. he is a kansas indian warrior. he's 22 feet 2 inches tall and he weighs 4420 pounds. he is a bronze statue and even though i mentioned earlier that it took us 37 years to complete our capitol, some people might say it wasn't completed until 2002 because that is the year that we put add astra on top of the building. and so there was always notes that there should be a statutee on top of the building. for a while, the goddess of agricultural was considered but she was considered too promiscuous for the state of kansas, so she was not chosen. it is an iconic tribute to the original people who were here first.

they did send representatives and there was a big ceremony when he was placed on top of the building. so it's kind of a little tie in for the old and the new. the state historical society or to collect kansas history documents and this is the repository for kansas history. today, we are going in the archives and look at the territorial period map and some documents written by john brown sr. we're going to look at some of the territorial manuscripts of the constitutions and just a variety of written documents, related to the territorial in kansas.

the territorial period in kansas ran for almost seven years. kansas was attempting to become a state. this time period became known as bleeding kansas very controversial. not only in the territory of kansas, but nationally. the eyes of the country were focused on what was going on out here. territorial kansas, kansas got the nickname bleeding kansas because of the struggle over whether caps cans would enter the union as a free state or a slave state. we're going to look at a map of kansas and nebraska territories. this is 1856 and in 1854, the kansas-nebraska act was signed, creating the twin territories of nebraska and kansas territories. both people assumed washington politicians -- assume that the kansas-nebraska act would

probably somewhat replicate the missouri compromise in that if you bought in twin territories, one would naturally be free and other naturally slave. most people assumed that the new territory of nebraska would be settled by the free state of iowans. eye iowans would come in and set up the government rent a free state constitution and bring in nebraska in as a free state. and nebraska would send northern senators to congress. conversely, i think there was -- i think there were 100,000 or so slaves in the state of missouri. most people about people in missouri would come into eastern kansas, settled the area, set up a government, and write the constitution and coming to kansas as a slave state. and kansas would send two southern senators to washington

and you would keep equilibrium in the u.s. senate. that is what most people felt. they assumed wrongly. the kansas-nebraska act was a call to arms for abolitionists. particularly, those in the east new england states. northern abolitionists were outraged by the kansas-nebraska act. they hated slavery, abolitionists did, but they could live with it as long as it stayed below 36/30. now slavery conceivably spread all the way to the pacific ocean. so armed and heavily financed groups of abolitionists backed by new england concerns and eight societies, boston, connecticut, rhode island, maine, ohio, new york, they

poured in, anti-slavery abdomen listitions, men and women, poured into kansas to stop kansas from becoming a slave state. missouri saw these yankees pouring into kansas territory. they knew they were going to have a fight on their hands, and the mixture of abolitionists and proslavery mingling together in kansas territory -- the territory exploded in violence, warfare, terrorism. it attracted men like john brown and his sons. and starting in 1854, a low-grade, pre-civil war began in kansas. it was nicknamed bleeding kansas. from 1854 until kansas became a free state, 1861, warfare was going on in kansas territory over who would control this new territory. this was ground zero for the slave issue in this country. once you are designated as a

territory by the united states government, the next step is to create a legislature create loss for the territory. then write the constitution that is approved by the voters of the territory, and then it will be sent to washington for ratification by congress. and finally, signed by the president of the united states. and in the 6 1/2 years that kansas was the territory there were four attempts at constitution writing. the free state government wrote themselves a free state constitution, a topeka constitution. it was sent to washington for approval and it was rejected. by the way, most people thought that the constitution had been lost forever. in 2013 in the national archives, they rediscovered the

topeka constitution, so it is in washington, d.c., at the national archives. in 1855, there was an election for the first territorial legislature. this was in march of '55. the first governor of kansas wisely decided to do a census of the territories and discovered how many legal voters there were. he discovered there were 2900 and five legal voters and that would be white, male, and 21. voting fraud on both sides, but more so on the proslavery side. enmass missourians crossed the kansas line, walked across it or ferried a boat across the missouri river and took over the ballot boxes stuffed the ballot box and created a pro slavery

legislature. it was known as the bogus legislature. they crafted the first loss in 1855 statutes of kansas which were repugnant to the free state, particularly the class that protected slave property. the kansas statutes of 1855, kansas territory, stated that to merely speak out against slavery or write articles or publish articles or distribute any written material or printed material opposing slavery, that was a felony and you would go to prison for two to five years for speaking out for writing against slavery. if you were caught possessing a copy of uncle tom's cabin, that was a felony. you could go to prison for that. the free stators rebelled against this so-called bogus government and one of the first things they did was to write a constitution known as the topeka constitution.

it was this constitution that was written by free statement and abolitionists. it was written in downtown and abolitionists. it was written in downtown topeka kansas avenue, the 400 block. the building is still there today, built in 1855, the oldest standing building in topeka. it was known as constitution hall. when the topeka constitution got to washington, the national democratic administration, which was proslavery, said that this was not a legitimate government, it was not legitimate constitution convention and they rejected it. now, at the time in the u.s. congress, the house of representatives was now controlled by northerners, and they approved the topeka constitution, but the u.s. senate, controlled by southerners, refused to even discuss the topeka constitution. it died in washington. that was the very first

constitution that was written in kansas. the second constitution, and we are looking at the title page of the famous lecompton constitution. that was written in the fall of 18357 in le compton, kansas, inside samuel jones' wood frame commercial building. this constitution, lecompton, would have made kansas a slave state. it was endorsed by president james buchanan from pennsylvania he was a northern man but he was strong pro slavery. his predecessor was franklin pierce from concord new hampshire. even though he was from new england, he was also a strong pro slavery man. the democratic pa