sons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice president of the United States, representatives in congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Of Persons Disqualified and Removal of Disabilities.

SEC. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in congress, or elector of president and vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.

Debts of United States, and Debts Incurred in Aid of Rebellion. SEC. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Congress Given Power to Enforce.

SEC. 5. The congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Right of Citizenship not to be Abridged, etc. *ART. XV. SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to

*The fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the fortieth congress, on the 27th of February, 1869, and was declared in a proclamation of the secretary of state, dated March 30, 1870, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven states. Kansas ratified it in January, 1870.

vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Power to Enforce Given Congress.

SEC. 2. The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

KANSAS.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS.

As EARLY as 1542 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, a Spaniard, commanded an expedition which marched from Mexico to the northern boundary of Kansas, in search of gold and silver.

In the Smithsonian report for 1869, page 337, Gen. J. H. Simpson, U. S. A., says that "Coronado continued his explorations northwardly to the 40° of latitude, where he reached a province which the Indians called Quivira."

Coronado said: "The province of Quivira is 950 leagues (3,230 miles) from Mexico. The place I have reached is the 40° of latitude. The earth is the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain; for while it is very strong and black, it is very well watered by brooks, springs and rivers. I found prunes (wild plums) like those of Spain, some of which were black; also, some excellent grapes and mulberries." He traversed "mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome, and bare of wood." "All that way the plains are as full of crooked-back oxen as the mountain Serena in Spain is of sheep." This is the first authentic account of the buffalo. The route of Coronado was through that part of Kansas now embraced in the counties of Barber, Kingman, Reno, Harvey, McPherson, Marion, Dickinson, Geary, Riley, Pottawatomie and Nemaha. Coronado left Quivira, or Kansas, in April, 1542.

The following statement is copied from Brantz Mayer's History of Mexico, vol. I, p. 145: "Between the years 1540 and 1542, an expedition was undertaken for the subjugation of an important nation which, it was alleged, existed far to the north of Mexico. A Franciscan missionary, Marcos de Naza, reported that he had discovered, north of Sonora, a richi and powerful people inhabiting a realm known as Quivara, or the Seven Cities, whose capital, Cibola, was quite as civilized as an European city. After the report had reached and been considered in Spain, it was determined to send an armed force to this region in order to explore, and if possible to reduce the Quivarans to the Spanish yoke. Mendoza had designed to intrust this expedition to Pedro de Alvarado, after having refused Cortez permission to lead the adventurers-a task which he had demanded as his right. But when all the troops were enlisted, Alvarado had not yet reached Mexico from Guatemala, and, accordingly, the Vice

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roy despatched Vasquez de Coronado at the head of the enterprise. At the same time he fitted out another expedition, with two ships, under the orders of Francisco Alarcon, who was to make a reconnoissance of the coast as far as the 36°, and, after having frequently visited the shores, he was, in that latitude, to meet the forces sent by land. Coronado set forth from Culiacan with 350 Spaniards and 800 Indians, and after reaching the source of the Gila, passed the mountains to the Rio del Norte. He wintered twice in the region now called New Mexico, explored it thoroughly from north to south, and then, striking off to the northeast, crossed the mountains, and wandering eastwardly as far north as the 40° of latitude, he unfortunately found neither Quivara nor gold. A few wretched ruins of Indian villages were all the discoveries made by these hardy pioneers, and thus the enchanted kingdom eluded the grasp of Spain forever. The troop of strangers and Indians soon became disorganized, and disbanded; nor was Alarcon more successful by sea than Coronado by land. His vessels explored the shores of the Pacific carefully, but they found no wealthy cities to plunder, nor could the sailors hear of any from the Indians with whom they held intercourse."

Bradford Prince (Historical Sketches of New Mexico, 1883,) thinks that Quivara "consisted of a succession of towns and villages on small streams which ran into this main river," and that Coronado "traversed parts of the Indian Territory and Kansas, and finally stopped on the borders of Missouri," north of Kansas City.

The following is copied from Hale's History: "M. Dutisne, a French officer, was sent from New Orleans, in 1719, by Bienville, the governor, into the territory west of the Mississippi. He visited the village of the Osage Indians, five miles from the Osage river, at eighty leagues above its mouth. Thence he crossed to the northwest, one hundred and twenty miles, over prairies abounding in buffalo, to the villages of the Panionkees or Pawnees. Here were two villages, of about one hundred and thirty cabins, and two hundred and fifty warriors each, who owned nearly three hundred horses. They were not civilized, he says, but readily accessible on receiving a few presents. Fifteen days more westward marching brought him to the Padoucahs, a very brave and warlike nation. Here he erected a cross, with the arms of the king, September 27, 1719. In his report of his expedition, he gives the details which we have quoted, and notices the salines and masses of rock salt found to this day in the region he travelled over. He found the Osages at the spot which they still occupy. If his measurements were exact, his first Pawnee or Panionkee village was near the mouth of Republican Fork. Fifteen days westward travel must have been up the valley of one of the forks of the Kanzas river; but the name of the Padoucah Indians is now lost. From

the time he reached the Osage villages, Dutisne was exploring the territory of Kanzas."

Dutisne was the first Frenchman who trod this soil. His line of travel in Kansas, coming in along the Osage, was probably through the counties of Linn, Miami, Franklin, Osage, Lyon, Morris, Geary, and then west some two hundred miles. On this supposition he crossed Coronado's route near Fort Riley, thus making that point the junction of the great trails made by the Spanish and French explorers.

De Bourgmont made a journey through northern Kansas in 1724, starting probably from the bend of the river where Atchison now stands. LePage Du Pratz, in his History of Louisiana, published in Paris in 1757, publishes a report of the journey. This report is published in full in Andreas's History of Kansas, 1883.

The English defeated the French in Canada in 1760, completing the conquest of that country, and leaving Louisiana alone to France. France ceded Louisiana to Spain on the third of November, 1762. On the same day all the region east of the Mississippi, except the island of New Orleans, was yielded by France to England, by the treaty of Fontainebleau. October 1, 1800, a treaty was concluded between Napoleon, the first consul of the French republic, and the king of Spain. By the third article of the treaty, the king of Spain agrees to retrocede to the French republic "the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it." Spain had held Louisiana thirty-seven years—from 1763 to 1800.

On the 30th of April, 1803, a treaty was concluded at Paris between the United States and the French republic, by the terms of which France ceded Louisiana to the United States.

The province of Louisiana thus purchased comprised 1,160,577 square miles. The whole domain of the original thirteen colonies was only 820,680 square miles. The amount ultimately paid by the United States, in principal and interest, was more than $27,000,000.

An act was passed by congress on the 31st of October, 1803, authorizing the president to take possession of the ceded territory, and in accordance with this act formal possession was taken of Louisiana on the 20th of December, 1803, by Claiborne and Wilkinson, the United States commissioners; the surrender was made by Laussot, the colonial prefect of the French republic of New Orleans; subsequently (in the month of March, 1804,) Amos Stoddard, of the United States army, received the formal surrender of the upper province of Louisiana from Don Carlos De Hault De Lassus, the lieutenant governor at St. Louis.

The territory comprised within the limits of Kansas was part of the territory of Louisiana thus ceded by France to the United States.