The Law & Order Party was organized at a meeting in Leavenworth on October 3, 1855. A Free-State Party had been formed at a meeting at Big Spring in August and a convention in Topeka in September. The pro-slavery members of the Law & Order Party felt it necessary to counter a growing free-state opposition to the measures passed by the Bogus Legislature and to appeal to southerners across the nation to come to their aid. One of the resolutions of the Law & Order meeting expressed their attitude toward free-state opposition:
"Resolved, That we hold the doctrine to be strictly true, that no man or set of men are at liberty to resist a law passed by a legislative body, legally organized, unless they choose by their actions to constitute themselves rebels and traitors, and take all the consequences that legitimately follow the failure of a revolution." [Cutler, History, Part 23]
Eleven members of the Bogus Legislature took part in the Law & Order Party. Those who did were at the core of the pro-slavery movement.
Wilson Shannon (1802-1877)
Governor of the Territory and President of the Law & Order Convention. An Ohioan from a Virginia family, he favored the pro-slavery side.
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