Halderman, John Adams

Life Span
to
    Full name
    John Adams Halderman
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    7
    Family
    John A. Halderman (father), Susan Henderson Rogers (mother), Anna B. Dorrien (wife)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    McKendree College (IL); Xavier College (OH) ; University of Louisville (KY)
    Occupation
    Politician
    Military
    Diplomat
    Attorney or Judge
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Republican
    Government
    Hayes Administration (1877-81)
    Diplomat
    State legislature
    State judge
    Local government
    Military
    Union Army

    John Adams Halderman (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Halderman probably arrived in the Kansas Territory in October 1854. In November he became private secretary to the territory's first governor, Andrew Reeder. Subsequently, as secretary of the first territorial council in 1855, Leavenworth County's first probate judge in 1855-1856, a member of the territorial council of 1857, and a Douglas delegate to the 1860 national convention, he worked to make Kansas a Democratic state. But, like his Illinois mentor Douglas, in 1857-1858 he opposed the infamous Lecompton constitution, which sought to force slavery on an unwilling Kansas populace. He even purchased a partnership in the Leavenworth Journal as an oracle for that opposition. "While I controlled or owned it [the Journal]," wrote Halderman in 1881, "it favored a free state in Kansas, fought Lecompton, and supported Douglas." The split among "proslave" partisans over the ill-advised Lecompton effort further weakened the fledgling Kansas Democracy, and Halderman's party-building efforts were to no avail. The Free State (Republican) party won the day in Kansas, and at some point during the Civil War (probably in 1861), Halderman switched his party allegiance.
    Virgil W. Dean, "Halderman, John Adams," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00307.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Halderman, John Adams," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/12704.