As winter’s hard winds sweep across the plains and blizzards test the resolve of heartland and eastern seaboard communities, it is an opportune time to look to a storm from Kansas’s past that still speaks with clarity.
In 1855, Andrew Reeder – the first territorial governor of Kansas – faced a political tempest that threatened to drown the young territory in fraud and moral malignancy. His courageous refusal to certify a rigged election, not for personal gain but in fidelity to the truth, helped set Kansas on a path to enter the Union as a free state. Reeder’s stand reminds us that American Exceptionalism is not a boast but a burden – the willingness to suffer and stand firm for truth even when compromise would be easier.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 thrust the Kansas Territory into the national spotlight by allowing residents to vote on whether Kansas would be a free or slave state. The law was sold as upholding the principle of “popular sovereignty.” But in practice, it defied the powerful truths in our nation’s founding documents and thus contributed to the brewing Civil War that would soon pit neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother.
Congress, rather than reject slavery outright in new territories, chose to dance with the devil by passing the Act to preserve their comfort and their balance of power between free states and slave states. President Franklin Pierce appointed Reeder, a Pennsylvania Democrat, as governor with an unspoken expectation: guide Kansas to becoming a slave state to maintain a fragile equilibrium in Washington.
But when Reeder arrived in 1854, he found a land already bracing for conflict – abolitionists settling in earnest, and pro-slavery “Border Ruffians” from slave-holding Missouri preparing to overwhelm the election polls.
The territorial election on March 30, 1855, was a spectacle of fraud. Kansas had roughly 3,000 registered voters, yet more than 6,000 ballots were cast – many by Missourians who crossed the border to stuff the ballot boxes. Pro-slavery candidates won overwhelmingly, ready to enshrine bondage into law.
But Reeder paused – not out of caution, but conviction. Conviction that there was a higher moral authority than his title, or even that of the President of the United States. He prayed, and his decision became clear.
The next day, Reeder invalidated the results in several contested districts, refusing to certify the election and a legislature built on deceit.
Evil cannot abide in transparency. It grows in the shadows – through force, coercion, and the silencing of dissent by power or amplified deceit. This is why pro-slavery settlements in the territory banned teaching freed slaves – or any black person – to read. Because when liberty finds a voice, and that voice is magnified, it can defeat rifles and cannon.
In March of 1855, in Kansas, in fidelity to truth, Andrew Reeder became the voice that magnified the muffled groanings of those in chains.
Reeder’s defiance ignited fury. Pro-slavery mobs threatened him. President Pierce fired him. Nevertheless, Reeder remained in Kansas another year, fighting for free-state recognition. Finally, he was indicted for high treason in the courtroom of Judge Samuel D. LeCompte, a staunch pro-slavery appointee. The invalidated pro-slavery legislature gathered as the “Bogus Legislature” and named the place of their meeting Lecompton, which they proclaimed to be the capital of Kansas, in honor of Judge LeCompte.
Reeder, the first territorial governor of the Kansas Territory, fled its borders disguised as a woodchopper to avoid execution or assassination. But he fought until the very last possible moment against the forces of fraud and corruption seeking to unjustly turn Kansas into a haven for human bondage.
Reeder’s choice was as symbolic as it was politically consequential. By defending election integrity, even at risk of life and limb, he exposed the moral rot of slavery’s expansion and helped tip national public sentiment toward abolition. His actions embodied the core of American Exceptionalism: individual courage grounded in moral truth and rejecting coercion for liberty’s promise.
His story moved me deeply, as it did so many in his own day. As a junior-high school student in Kansas, I learned that the modest two-story home just a few blocks from my own was the one Reeder occupied while governor. It was the home where pro-slavery forces gathered to arrest Reeder after his decision. I announced my first campaign for the Kansas legislature in 1992 on its steps, inspired by his resolve to live out conviction despite political and personal peril.
Reeder’s defiance is a reminder that the very best among us are those who remain firm in their conviction of America’s exceptional character and do not submit to the poison of relativism. Reeder resisted such relativism, anchoring himself in absolute moral law – Judeo-Christian principles of fairness and human dignity gifted by God to every individual. His pause for prayer amid chaos echoes Scripture’s call to let justice roll down like waters (Amos 5:24).
When the law becomes weaponized by the forces of evil, we require leaders who act as Reeder did – willing, in suffering, to lift the voices of those aching under the weight of injustice.
Reeder’s legacy also reverberated beyond Kansas, as all truth does when it finds embodied expression. America’s free-state struggles – Kansas among them – became examples later invoked by other movements seeking to abolish legalized injustice and demanding self-determination.
Yet today, as winter storms rage, our cultural blizzards – ideological division, legal manipulation, and the corrosion of trust – threaten similar moral erosion. We see law weaponized for power, punishing dissent while excusing corruption. Reeder teaches that exceptionalism demands courage and the will to defend dignity, even at cost.
And so, in this 250th year of our independence, gratitude becomes its own form of resistance. We give thanks for those who suffered to gift us this country – men and women who bore the cold winds of history so that liberty might take root.
Reeder’s woodchopper disguise was not defeat; it was endurance to fight the next day for the sake of truth. If he could defy a president for the integrity of an election, what storms might we weather today? May we too stand firm in the storm, defying the drifts of relativism and walking the clear path of justice with thankful hearts.
Phill Kline is a former state legislator and the former Attorney General of Kansas. He is currently a law professor.
So, it is possible for a Democrat to do the right thing. There is one today who defies his party’s path to destruction, Senator Fetterman. He seems to have common sense and a sense of right from wrong, something his party rejects.
Wonderful history article for the upholding convictions and values. The nation needs to revolve around these values.
If only those democrats with the sense of decency would dare to come out of the closet and stand for what is right and do what they swore to do.
Historical 1855 lesson much needed for today’s 2026 battle for the hearts, minds, freedoms, and liberties that citizens of our Republic face. Mid-terms will tell whether We The People will stand and fight as Reeder did. Let’s hope so.
Reeder was a rare example of integrity and bravery that is not common today, and maybe never was. Thank you for sharing his story.
It is waaaaay too bad the folks who need to hear this, will not. They are too busy being young and spoiled and oblivious to the real world. But they gots pink and purple and green and blond hair with BLACK roots, don’tchaknow?
An unsung hero who is worthy of a concert in his honor!