History of the Constitutions of Iowa Part 9

The Const.i.tution of 1844 as submitted by the Convention to Congress and to the people of the Territory of Iowa contained thirteen articles, one hundred and eight sections, and over six thousand words.

Article I. on "Preamble and Boundaries" acknowledges dependence upon "the Supreme Ruler of the Universe" and purports to "establish a free and independent government" in order "to establish justice, ensure tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure to ourselves and our posterity, the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Article II. as the "Bill of Rights" declares that "all men are by nature free and independent, and have certain unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." All political power is "inherent in the people;" for their "protection, security, and benefit" government is inst.i.tuted; and they, the people, have "the right at all times, to alter, or reform the same, whenever the public good may require it."

Following these cla.s.sic political dogmas of the American Revolution is a rather exhaustive enumeration of the fundamental rights of the individual, which at various times and in various ways had found expression in the state papers and Const.i.tutions of England and America, and which together const.i.tute the domain of Anglo-Saxon liberty and freedom.

Article III. defines the "Right of Suffrage" by limiting the exercise thereof to white male citizens of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been residents of the State six months next preceding the election, and of the county in which they claim a vote thirty days.

Article IV. proclaims the theory of the separation of powers in sweeping terms, and prescribes the const.i.tution of the law-making department. Herein the legislative authority was vested in a General a.s.sembly, which was organized on the bicameral plan. The members of the House of Representatives were to be chosen for two years, those of the Senate for four years. The regular sessions of the General a.s.sembly were to be held biennially.

Article V. on the "Executive Department" provides that the "Supreme Executive power shall be vested in a Governor, who shall hold his office for two years; and that a Lieutenant Governor shall be chosen at the same time and for the same term." The Governor must be a citizen of the United States and have attained the age of thirty years.

Article VI. organizes the "Judicial Department." It provides for a Supreme Court consisting of "a Chief Justice and two a.s.sociates," to be chosen by the General a.s.sembly for a term of four years. The District Court was to "consist of a Judge, who shall reside in the district a.s.signed him by law," and be elected by the people for the same term as the Judges of the Supreme Court.

Article VII. provides that the "Militia" shall be composed of "all able bodied white male persons between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years," except such persons as are or may be especially exempted by law. All details relative to organizing, equipping, and disciplining the militia were left to the General a.s.sembly.

Article VIII. on "Public Debts and Liabilities" prohibited the General a.s.sembly from contracting debts and obligations which in the aggregate would exceed one hundred thousand dollars.

Article IX. placed restrictions upon banking and other business corporations.

Article X. deals with "Education and School Lands." It provides for a "Superintendent of Public Instruction" who shall be chosen by the General a.s.sembly. It directs the General a.s.sembly to provide for a system of common schools. It declares also that the General a.s.sembly "shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral and agricultural improvement."

Article XI. outlines a system of local government which includes both the county and the township organization. The details are left to the General a.s.sembly.

Article XII. provides for "Amendments to the Const.i.tution." In the case of partial revision of the Const.i.tution, the specific amendment must be pa.s.sed by two successive General a.s.semblies and ratified by the people. When it is desired to have a total revision of the fundamental law, the General a.s.sembly submits the question of a Const.i.tutional Convention to a direct vote of the people.

Article XIII. provides a "Schedule" for the transition from the Territorial to the State organization.

From the view-point of subsequent events the most significant provision of the Const.i.tution of 1844 was the one which defined the boundaries of the future State. There is, however, no evidence that the members of the Convention foresaw the probability of a dispute with Congress on this point, although Governor Chambers in his message of December, 1843, had pointed out its possibility should the people of Iowa a.s.sume to give boundaries to the State without first making application to Congress for definite limits. It was on the question of boundaries that the Const.i.tution of 1844 was wrecked.

In the Convention the regular standing Committee on State Boundaries reported in favor of certain lines which were in substance the boundaries recommended by Governor Lucas in his message of November, 1839. Indeed, it is altogether probable that the recommendations of Robert Lucas were made the basis of the Committee's report. This inference is strengthened by the fact that the ill.u.s.trious Ex-Governor was a member of the Committee. It will be convenient to refer to the boundaries recommended by the Committee as the _Lucas boundaries_.

The Lucas boundaries were based upon the topography of the country as determined by rivers. On the East was the great Mississippi, on the West the Missouri, and on the North the St. Peters. These natural boundaries were to be connected and made continuous by the artificial lines of the surveyor. As to the proposed Eastern boundary there could be no difference of opinion; and it was generally felt that the Missouri river should determine the Western limit.

On the South the boundary must necessarily be the Northern line of the State of Missouri. But the exact location of this line had not been authoritatively determined. During the administration of Lucas it was the subject of a heated controversy between Missouri and Iowa which at one time bordered on armed hostility. The purpose of the Convention in 1844 was not to settle the dispute but to refer to the line in a way which would neither prejudice nor compromise the claims of Iowa.

The discussion of the Northern boundary was, in the light of subsequent events, more significant. As proposed by the Committee the line was perhaps a little vague and indefinite since the exact location of certain rivers named was not positively known. Some thought that the boundary proposed would make the State too large.

Others thought that it would make the State too small. Mr. Hall proposed the parallel of forty-two and one-half degrees of North lat.i.tude. Mr. Peck suggested the parallel of forty-four. Mr.

Langworthy, of Dubuque, asked that forty-five degrees be made the Northern limit.

Mr. Langworthy's proposition met with considerable favor among the people living in the Northern part of the Territory who desired to increase the size of the State by including a considerable tract North of the St. Peters. Mr. Chapman suggests the existence of sectional feeling in the matter of boundaries when he says, in reply to Mr.

Langworthy's argument, that "it was a kind of creeping up on the North which was not good faith to the South."

On October 14 the report of the regular Committee on State Boundaries was referred to a Select Committee consisting of representatives from the twelve electoral districts. But this Committee made no changes in the original report except to make the Northern boundary a little more definite.

As finally adopted by the Convention and incorporated into the Const.i.tution of 1844, the boundaries of the State were as follows: "Beginning in the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi river opposite the mouth of the Des Moines river; thence up the said river Des Moines, in the middle of the main channel thereof, to a point where it is intersected by the Old Indian Boundary line, or line run by John C. Sullivan in the year 1816; thence westwardly along said line to the 'Old Northwest corner of Missouri;' thence due west to the middle of the main channel of the Missouri river; thence up in the middle of the main channel of the river last mentioned to the mouth of the Sioux or Calumet river; thence in a direct line to the middle of the main channel of the St. Peters river, where the Watonwan river (according to Nicollet's map) enters the same; thence down the middle of the main channel of said river to the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi river; thence down the middle of the main channel of said river to the place of beginning."

In accordance with the act of the Legislative a.s.sembly of February 12, 1844, and section six of the "Schedule" it was provided that the new Const.i.tution, "together with whatever conditions may be made to the same by Congress, shall be ratified or rejected by a vote of the qualified electors of this Territory at the Township elections in April next." And the General a.s.sembly of the State was authorized to "ratify or reject any conditions Congress may make to this Const.i.tution after the first Monday in April next."

At the same time it was made the duty of the President of the Convention to transmit a copy of the Const.i.tution, along with other doc.u.ments thereto pertaining, to the Iowa Delegate at Washington, to be by him presented to Congress as a request for the admission of Iowa into the Union. For such admission at an early day the Convention, as memorialists for the people of the Territory, confidently relied upon "the guarantee in the third article of the treaty between the United States and France" of the year 1803.

It now remained for Congress and the people of the Territory to pa.s.s judgment upon the Const.i.tution of 1844.

XII

THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF 1844 SUBMITTED TO CONGRESS

The second session of the Twenty-Eighth Congress opened on Monday, December 2, 1844. On December 9, Senator Tappan presented to the Senate the Const.i.tution which had been framed by the Iowa Convention of 1844. It was referred at once to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Three days later Augustus C. Dodge, Delegate from the Territory of Iowa, laid before the House of Representatives a copy of the same instrument together with an ordinance and a memorial from the Iowa Convention. Here the doc.u.ments were referred to the Committee on Territories.

On January 7, 1845, through Mr. Aaron V. Brown, the Committee on Territories reported a bill for the admission of Iowa and Florida into the Union. This bill was read twice and referred to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, wherein it was considered on the three days of February 10, 11, and 13. It pa.s.sed the House of Representatives on February 13, 1844, by a vote of one hundred and forty-four to forty-eight.

The day after its pa.s.sage in the House of Representatives the bill was reported to the Senate. Here it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, from which it was reported back to the Senate without amendment on February 24. The Senate considered the measure on March 1, and pa.s.sed the same without alteration by a vote of thirty-six to nine. On March 3, 1845, the act received the signature of President Tyler.

The debate on the bill for the admission of Iowa under the Const.i.tution of 1844 is of more than local interest since it involved a consideration of the great question of National Politics in its relation to the growth of the West and the admission of new States.

When Iowa applied for State organization in 1844, Florida had been waiting and pleading for admission ever since the year 1838. The reason for this delay was very generally understood and openly avowed.

States should be admitted not singly but in pairs. Florida was waiting for a companion. And so in 1844 it fell to Iowa to be paired with the peninsula. The principle involved was not new; but never before had two States been coupled in the same act of admission. The object sought was plainly the maintenance of a _balance of power_ between the North and the South.

But back of the principle of the balance of power, and for the preservation of which that principle was invoked, stood Slavery. The inst.i.tution of free labor in the North must be balanced by the inst.i.tution of slave labor in the South, since both must be preserved.

And so the admission of Iowa and Florida had to be determined in reference to this all-devouring question of National Politics.

Upon examination it was found that the proposed Const.i.tution of Florida not only sanctioned the inst.i.tution of Slavery, but it positively guaranteed its perpetuation by restraining the General a.s.sembly from ever pa.s.sing laws under which slaves might be emanc.i.p.ated. On the other hand the Const.i.tution of Iowa, although it did not extend the privilege of suffrage to persons of color, provided that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State."

Now it so happened that the opposing forces of slave labor and free labor, of "State Rights" and "Union," came to an issue over the boundaries of the proposed State of Iowa. In the bill for admission, as reported by the House Committee on Territories, the boundaries asked for by the Iowa Convention in the Const.i.tution submitted by them were retained without alteration. But Mr. Duncan, of Ohio, had other limits to propose. He would have the new State of Iowa "bounded by the Mississippi on the East, by a parallel of lat.i.tude pa.s.sing through the mouth of the Mankato, or Blue Earth river, on the North, by a meridian line running equidistant from the seventeenth and eighteenth degrees of longitude West from Washington on the West, and by the Northern boundary of the Missouri on the South." Mr. Duncan pointed out that these were the boundaries proposed by Nicollet in the report which accompanied the publication in January, 1845, of his map of the basin of the upper Mississippi. He preferred the _Nicollet boundaries_ because (1) they were "the boundaries of nature" and (2) at the same time they left sufficient territory for the formation of two other States in that Western country.

On the other hand, Mr. Brown, Chairman of the Committee on Territories, said that the question of boundaries had been carefully investigated by his Committee, "and the conclusion to which they had come was to adhere to the boundary asked for by the people of Iowa, who were there, who had settled the country, and whose voice should be listened to in the matter."

Mr. Belser, of Alabama, was opposed to the Duncan amendment since it "aimed to admit as a State only a portion of Iowa at this time. This he would have no objection to, provided Florida is treated in the same way. He was for receiving both into the Confederacy, with like terms and restrictions. If Iowa is to come in without dismemberment, then let Florida enter in like manner; but if Iowa is divided, then let Florida be divided also."

Mr. Vinton, of Ohio, was the most vigorous champion of the Duncan amendment. He stood out firmly for a reduction of the boundaries proposed by the Iowa Convention because the country to the North and West of the new State, "from which two other States ought to be formed," would be left in a very inconvenient shape, and because the formation of such large States would deprive the West of "its due share of power in the Senate of the United States."

Mr. Vinton was "particularly anxious that a State of unsuitable extent should not be made in that part of the Western country, in consequence of the unwise and mistaken policy towards that section of the Union which has. .h.i.therto prevailed in forming Western States, by which the great valley of the Mississippi has been deprived, and irrevocably so, of its due share in the legislation of the country." As an equitable compensation to the West for this injustice he would make "a series of small States" on the West bank of the Mississippi.

Furthermore, Mr. Vinton did not think it politic to curtail the power of the West in the Senate of the United States by the establishment of large States, since in his opinion "the power of controlling this government in all its departments may be more safely intrusted to the West than in any other hands." The commercial interests of the people of the West were such as to make them desirous of protecting the capital and labor both of the North and the South.