Kansas Investigating Committee
Artist
Unknown
Date1856
MediumSalt print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 5 1/8 × 7 1/8 inches (13.02 × 18.1 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.205
Signednone
InscribedFrom the John R. Johnston album with handwritten notation on paper, housed inside mat, in black pen: "Kansas Investigating Comm. [?] Report"
Markingsnone
On View
Not on viewCollections
Terms
The question of slavery led to "Bleeding Kansas"-a period of violent clashes between advocates and opponents of slavery in the Kansas Territory. In March 1856, Congress created a committee to investigate allegations of voting fraud and other irregularities. The members of the Kansas Investigating Committee included John Sherman of Ohio, William Howard of Michigan and Mordecai Oliver of Missouri. Their investigation in the spring of 1856 confirmed the suspicions of Congress. This photograph may have been intended for reproduction in one of the illustrated newspapers of the period.
John Sherman, John Sherman's Recollections of Forty Years in The House, Senate, and Cabinet: An Autobiography, Vol. 1 (New York and Chicago: Werner Company, 1895): 113. J. J. Nicolay and John Hay, "Abraham Lincoln: A History, The Border Conflict," Century Magazine 34:1 (May 1887): 90; Mary Sherman-Wills, "The Fight for Kansas," Archipelago 6:3 (2003): n.p.
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Southworth & Hawes
ca. 1850-1851; printed 1912
2020.11.4
