SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

the district courts exclusive jurisdiction in all cases of equity, crime and misdemeanor, civil
jurisdiction in suits over $100, and appellate jurisdiction in all cases from probate courts and
justices of the peace.” 69 The territorial district court system remained in Kansas until the
admission of the state into the Union in 1861.
In the period leading up to the admission of Kansas into the Union, three drafts of a
constitution were written before the final one was adopted in Wyandotte in 1859. Each of these
documents had different ideas for the judicial system. The Topeka Free-State Constitution,
written in 1855, did not discuss general jurisdiction courts; instead, it divided the state into three
common pleas areas presided over by an elected judge from the area. The Lecompton
Constitution of 1857 created a system of circuit courts. Fenton clarifies, “Its authors envisioned
a system of circuit courts covering the state with original authority in civil and criminal
disputes.” 70 The third constitution was the Leavenworth Constitution of 1858. In this
constitution the court system included a system of circuit courts, but unlike the Lecompton
Constitution these courts included equity along with civil and criminal jurisdiction.
In July of 1859, advocates of both abolition and pro-slavery met at the Wyandotte
Convention to attempt to create a new constitution that would appease both groups. The
Wyandotte Constitution’s judicial article paralleled the Territorial Act of 1854. Fenton contends,
“It placed judicial power in ‘a supreme court, district courts, probate courts, justice of the peace
and such other courts, inferior to the supreme court, as may be provided by law.’ The state was
divided into five judicial districts. Each district was to have its own resident judge, elected by
the people of the district for a term of four years.” 71 The legislature determined when and where
69 Ibid., 17.
70 Ibid., 18.
71 Ibid., 18-19.
27