Chapter 1 cont.

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our people will carry the system still further, and before long the Rocky Mountains will be scaled and the valley of the Columbia River included in our domain." He declared that it was high time to call a halt. The policy had been deeply injurious to the South. "If all the people born in North Carolina had remained in its limits, our swamps and low grounds would have rivaled the valley of the Nile in production and our pine barrens would have been flourishing with the vine, the olive and the mulberry. Others may act as it pleases them, but I will never sustain a policy so fraught with disaster to the people with whom I am connected. If these remarks be unavailing, the patriot should fear for the republic." Senator Ewing declared that he would not object to giving each rascal who crossed the river one thousand dollars in order to get rid of him. They were otherwise referred to as a lawless and undesirable rabble. These and similar utterances were inspired by prejudice, jealousy and ignorance, ignoring the real purpose of the so-called "squatters." Notwithstanding all this, the well organized opposition came to naught. Iowa became a territory and her territorial government began in 1836 and closed in 1846.

    General Henry Dodge was the first territorial governor. His successor was Robt. Lucas, venerable in years and of wide political influence. He was born in Virginia, was governor of Ohio two terms and had served in the legislature in that state in 1832, when he was named as the chairman of the first National Convention of the Democratic party. Armed with the authority of a commission from President Van Buren, he arrived in Burlington in August, 1838. His administration was noted for free use of the veto power and he often clashed with the Territorial Legislature when their views did not coincide with his own. It was early in the session of the Council that it was resolved "that when an act was presented to the governor for approval he shall within reasonable time make known to the House in which said act shall have originated, his approval thereof; or if not approved,

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the act shall be returned with his objection thereto." Some time after the Governor said officially, "I see no place in the organic law that vests the Council and House of Representatives with the right to dictate to the Executive in the discharge of his official duties." The Council then took steps towards the regulation by statue of all official intercourse between the legislative and executive departments of the territorial government. The Governor vetoed this bill, closing his official objection with the statement that "any act will be retained under advisement or returned to the Legislative Assembly with my objections at such time and in such way and manner as I may for the time being deem to be most advisable." The House and Council by resolution asked the Governor to respond with his approval or rejection, immediately after the act should be presented to him. The Governor respectfully declined to agree to this. James W. Grimes, a member, reported that the Governor's executive veto was uncalled for and unwarranted. Other members proposed that the people should be heard by those who represented them; that their wishes should be regarded in preference to the authority of the Federal Government or a Federal officer; that as free men they could not acquiesce in such high handed proceedings. Another resolution was passed, stating that Robert Lucas was unfit to be governor of a free people and asking the President to recall him immediately. In this both houses joined, declaring that he who dares not defend their rights in the hour of peril, "stand as a sentinel to guard them, would be unworthy of the name of freeman." The Governor's faults were all paraded before the President, who took no action in the matter. The Legislature met again in 1839, when the Governor, without alluding to the tempest through which he had passed, closed his message as follows: "It is with heartfelt gratitude to Almighty God that I am through His special providence permitted to address this Legislative Assembly." In this message the Governor presented strong reasons in favor of creating a state and called attention to

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the fact that the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois had made rapid strides after they emerged from territorial to state government.

   Again in 1840 he renewed his recommendation and the matter was submitted to the people to provide for a State Constitutional Convention. The official returns showed a signal defeat of the proposed measure, there being 937 votes for and 2907 against. The three years of office of Governor Lucas had expired without seeing his hopes realized and he could hardly be expected to be re-appointed as the Whigs had elected William Henry Harrison to the presidency. John Chambers of Kentucky, who was appointed to the governorship, proved a fortunate selection. A man of experience and sound judgment, Governor Chambers believed that the population had so increased that statehood was fully warranted. The "Distribution Act," which provided that Iowa, along with twenty-six other states, should participate in the pro rata distribution of the vast proceeds from the sale of public lands, and the fact that five hundred thousand acres of land for internal improvements should be granted to each new state, were reasons still further warranting admission to the Union. This, he insisted, would overcome the objections of the voters to the expense of government, as the revenue would amply provide for this, and taxation, therefore, be no heavier than in territorial form, where the expense was borne by the general government. Like his predecessor, he importuned the third Legislature to pass an act providing for an expression of opinion on the part of the people at the polls, which was immediately put into effect and approved on Feb. 16, 1842. A "viva voce" vote on "convention" or "no convention" resulted as before, in a declaration against statehood, after the most notable and exciting campaign in territorial history. The struggle had now largely been transferred to politics and it became a strife for party supremacy. There were ambitious and aspiring patriots who would be willing to serve the people in positions of honor and

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trust~~for a consideration. Both the Democrats, who were in the majority, an the Whigs, who hoped to gain ascendency [ascendancy] by seizing upon some issue that would capture the voters, entered the campaign with the spirit so characteristic of blind party zeal. The election of August 1842 was disappointing to the advocates of statehood, the returns showing every county against it. The Whigs were elected and the Democrats chagrined. Another year passed on and Governor Chambers again declared that as there were 75,000 people in the territory, it should certainly be admitted as a state, and again recommended that the wishes of the people be ascertained by a vote. He advised the Assembly further "to apply to Congress to fix and establish during the present session a boundary for the proposed state and to sanction the calling of a convention to make provision for our reception into the Union as soon as we shall be prepared to demand it." He said: "The establishment of a boundary for us by Congress will prevent the intervention of any difficulty or delay in our admission into the Union which might result should we assume limits which that body might not be disposed to concede us." The viva voce vote was taken at the township election in 1844. The campaign was very similar to the preceding one~~parties divided a[s] before~~but there had been a reversal of public sentiment and the proposition for "convention" carried by a majority larger than that by which it had been defeated two years before. Accordingly, at the August election of the same year, seventy-five delegates were elected, the Democrats winning a great victory over their opponents an electing more than two-thirds of their members. The convention met at Iowa City, adopted a constitution and fixed boundaries that did not meet with the approval of Congress, the reason being given that they embraced too wide a territory.

    By an act approved March 3, 1845, the House adopted the following boundary by a vote of ninety for and forty against: "Beginning at the mouth of the Des Moines River, thence by the

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middle channel of the Mississippi to a parallel of latitude passing through the mouth of the Mankato or Blue Earth River; thence west along said parallel of latitude to a point where it is intersected by the meridian line 17 degrees 30 minutes west of the meridian of Washington City; thence due south to the northern boundary line of the State of Missouri; thence eastward following that boundary to a point at which the same intersects with the Des Moines River; thence by the middle channel of that river to the place of beginning."

    Had this boundary line been accepted, the line of our state would have been forty-two miles north of the present one and would have included eleven counties of the state of Minnesota. The state would have been about 180 miles wide from east to west and about 250 miles long from north to south and would have lost the Missouri slope. The western boundary would have been on a line from Green and Carroll counties to a point a short distance west of the town of Prescott in Adams county. The proposed boundaries were considered by the people of the territory as an outrage and, rather than submit, they determined to patiently wait, believing that in all probability the natural geographical boundary~~the Missouri River~~would in time be conceded. The eagerness for statehood came near throwing Montgomery county beyond the border of Iowa. So doubtful the proposition seemed that even the representative in Congress, Hon. A. C. Dodge, advised the people to ratify the constitution and accept the proposed boundaries, stating that he knew "the country along the Missouri was fertile, but the dividing ridge of the waters running into the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which had been been called 'the hills of the prairie,' is barren and sterile." He also said the he "believed it would be impossible under the circumstances to obtain a single square mile more." The people, however, rejected the proposition by a majority of 996, the result being a surprise to all. They were not so much interested in the national policies as they were in creat-

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ing a grand and compact state between two rivers. One member of Congress declared that it was simply and outrage for the people to endeavor to carve out a state to suit themselves; that they might even become so whimsical as to extend the boundary line westward to the Columbia River.

   Stephen A. Douglas, of the Committee on Territories, acting in harmony with his idea, which afterwards became the established principle of this eminent statesman~~the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty" (allowing the people to settle their local affairs in their own way)~~reported in favor of the present boundaries of our state. What was known as the "Lucas boundary" was supplanted by the "Duncan Amendment" but it was only by a sharp contest both in Iowa and in Washington, and consequently, much delay, that both branches of Congress agreed upon the LUcas Boundary, by which the western limits of our state were fixed by the Missouri River on the west and the middle channel of the Big Sioux River until it is intersected by the parallel of 43 degrees and 30 minutes, then east until said parallel intersects the middle channel of the Mississippi. The boundary question from the first was of absorbing interest. It wrecked the constitution of 1844 and narrowly escaped defeat in 1846, when it carried by a majority of 456 our of a total of 18,528 votes.

    At the first state election, Ansel Briggs, Democrat, was elected by a majority of 61 votes. The same party also elected a majority of the members of the General Assembly.

    Gathered in the old stone Capitol at Iowa City, in the presence of the General Assembly, Judge Charles Mason, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, administered the oath to the first governor of Iowa. Sixteen days later the constitution received the signature of President Polk, it having been in the meantime submitted to Congress and approved. Therefore from the 28th day of December, 1846, Iowa has been on equal footing with the other commonwealths of the American Union.

    In the evolution of human society, the making of a state, fol-

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lows the law of progress plainly indicated by Nature. The glory of the state is not in the fertility of its soil, the beauty of its scenery or desirable water courses, but rather in the character, intelligence, enterprise and patriotism of its citizens. In tracing the history of our territorial epoch, it becomes a matter of wonder that the people of the formative period should have had the wisdom to lay the governmental foundations so securely and to insist on what appears to us now to be the natural as well as most logical boundary lines, and to frame a constitution that has so well met the needs of our commonwealth with little or no important alteration. The most eminent judges and lawyers of the present day declare the first code of Iowa to have been a monument of legal wisdom and a model for succeeding legislation.

    The main actors at this stage of our history "were the political pathfinders in our political history; the real makers of our fundamental laws." They were typical Americans~~the western Yankees, if you please~~men of spirit, of nerve, of broad and liberal views, of tolerance of opinions; in fact, the typical man whose spirit still today dominates this great state of our. They were farmers, lawyers, merchants, preachers and teachers. They were were for the most part men of the best ancestry, who traced their origin to the Pilgrim Fathers rather than to the slave holding population of the south. They were welded together by the law of attraction for a common purpose and a common end. Until statutory enactment their natural reverence for right and justice was their only law. In another place in this book it will be the pleasure of the writer to make special mention of three men who assisted in creating our state, who were members of the territorial and early state legislatures, and whose names will be forever associated with the historic record of Iowa and Montgomery County.