The State of Kansas and “the realization of the impossible”

On this day in 1861, Kansas becomes the 34th state to join the Union, doing so as a free state.

Here’s a portion of the preamble of the Kansas Constitution:

“We, the people of Kansas, grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges, in order to insure the full enjoyment of our rights as American citizens, do ordain and establish this constitution of the state of Kansas…”

Ingalls, Impossible, Immortality and Injustice

Additionally, the state motto, “Ad astra per aspera,” is a Latin phrase meaning “To the stars through difficulties.”
John James Ingalls coined the motto in 1861, the same year as statehood.  He elaborated that, “The aspiration of Kansas is to reach the unattainable; its dream is the realization of the impossible.”

Ingalls was a member of the Wyandotte constitutional convention, which admitted Kansas as a free state. He also served as a state senator.

Indeed, it was Ingalls who wrote: “Irrespective of creeds and theology, they are wise who would recognize God in the Constitution, because faith in a Supreme Being, in immortality and the compensations of eternity conduces powerfully to social order by enabling man to endure with composure the injustice of this world in the hope of reparation in that which is to come.”

Our Lost Founding recognizes this, and it exists to share this world-changing wisdom with you so that your citizenry here and in the hereafter may be well-founded.