when did the bogus legislature meet for the first time
Kansas Legislature During Kansas' first elections for a territorial government on March 30, 1855, nearly 5,000 Missouri men, led by United States Senator David Rice Atchison and other prominent pro-slavery Missourians, entered the territory, took over the polling places, and elected pro-slavery candidates.[3] The elections resulted in 13 pro-slavery members of the upper house of the territorial legislature and one free-state member, who resigned.[4] The lower house ended up with 25 pro-slavery members and one free-state member.[4] Free-Staters immediately cried foul, naming the new Kansas Territorial Legislature the Bogus Legislature.[5] After meeting for one week in Pawnee at the direction of Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder, the thirty-eight pro-slavery legislators reconvened at the Shawnee Manual Labor School between July 16 and August 30, 1855,[4] and began crafting over a thousand pages of laws aimed at making Kansas a slave state.