USA > Iowa > Clay County > History of Clay County, Iowa, from its earliest settlement to 1909 > Part 3
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In 1841 John Chambers succeeded Robert Lucas as governor, and in 1845 he gave place to James Clarke. The territorial legislature held its eighth and last' session at lowa City in 1845. James Clarke was the same year appointed the successor of Governor Chambers and was the third and last territorial governor.
THE TERRITORY BECOMES THE STATE OF IOWA.
The territory of Iowa was growing rapidly in its population and soon began to look for greater things. Her ambition was to take on the dignity and import-
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ance of statehood. To the furtherance of this landable ambition the territorial legislature passed an act, which was approved February 12, 1844, providing for the submission to the people the question of the formation of a state constitution and providing for the election of delegates to a convention to be convened for that purpose. The people voted on this at their township elections the following April. The measure was carried by a large majority and the members elected assembled in convention at Iowa City, October 7. 1844. On the Ist day of No- vember following the convention completed its work and adopted the first state constitution. By reason of the boundary lines of the proposed state being unsat- isfactorily prescribed by congress the constitution was rejected at an election held August 4, 1845, by a vote of seven thousand two hundred and fifty-six to seven thousand two hundred and thirty-five. May 4. 1846, a second convention met at Iowa City, and on the 18th of the same month another constitution pre- scribing the boundaries as they are now was adopted. This was accepted by the people August 3 by a vote of nine thousand four hundred and ninety-two to nine thousand and thirty-six. The new constitution was approved by congress and Iowa was admitted as a sovereign state in the Union. December 28, 1846, and the people of the territory, anticipating favorable action by congress, held an election for state officers October 26. 1846, which resulted in the choice of Ansel Briggs for governor: Elisha Cutler, Jr., secretary ; James T. Fales, auditor : Morgan Reno, treasurer ; and members of both branches of the legislature.
The act of congress which admitted Iowa into the Union as a state gave her the sixteenth section of every township of land in the state, or its equivalent, for the support of the schools. Also seventy-two sections of land for the com- pletion of her public buildings ; the salt springs within her limits, not exceeding twelve in number, with sections of land adjoining each other; also in considera- tion that her public lands should be exempt from taxation by the state the state was given five per cent. of the net proceeds of the public sale of public lands within the state.
The constitutional convention of 1846 was made up largely of democrats, and the instrument contains some of the peculiar tenets of the party of that day. All banks of issue were prohibited within the state. The state was prohibited from becoming a stockholder in any corporation for pecuniary profit. and the general assembly could only provide for private corporations by general statutes. The constitution also limited the state's indebtedness to one hundred thousand dollars. It required the general assembly to provide for schools throughout the state for at least three months during the year. Six months' previous residence of any white male citizen of the United States constituted him an elector.
At the time of the organization of the state Iowa had a population of one hundred sixteen thousand six hundred and fifty-one. as appears by the census of 1847. There were twenty-seven organized counties, and the settlements were being rapidly pushed toward the Missouri river.
The western boundary of the state, as now determined. left Iowa City too. far toward the eastern and southern boundary of the state. This was conceded. Congress had appropriated five sections of land for the erection of public build- ings. and toward the close of the first session of the general assembly a bill was introduced providing for the relocation of the seat of government. involving to.
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some extent the location of the state university, which had already been dis- cussed. This bill gave rise to much discussion, and parliamentary maneuvering almost purely sectional in its character. February 25, 1847, an act was passed to locate and establish a state university, and the unfinished public buildings at Iowa City, together with the ten acres of land on which they were situated, were granted for the use of the university, reserving their use, however, for the general assembly and state officers until other provisions were made by law.
Four sections of land and two half sections were selected in Jasper county by the commissioners for the new capital. Here a town was platted and called Monroe City. The commissioners placed town lots on sale at a cost exceeding the receipts. The town of Monroe was condemned and failed of becoming the capital. An act was passed repealing the law for the location at Monroe, and those who had bought lots there were refunded their money.
By reason of jealousies and bickerings the first general assembly failed to elect United States senators, but the second did better and sent to the upper house of congress Augustus Cæsar Dodge and George Jones. The first representatives were S. Clinton Hastings, of Muscatine, and Shepard Leffler, of Des Moines county.
The question of the permanent seat of government was not settled, and in 1851 bills were introduced for its removal to Fort Des Moines. The latter locality seemed to have the support of the majority, but was finally lost in the house on the question of ordering it to a third reading. At the next session, in 1853, a bill was again introduced in the senate for the removal of the seat of govern- ment. However, the effort was a more final vote and was just barely defeated. At the next session the effort was successful, and on January 15, 1855, a bill relo- cating the capital of the state of Iowa within two miles of the Raccoon fork of the Des Moines river and for the appointment of commissioners was approved by Governor Grimes. The site was selected in 1856 in accordance with the pro- visions of this act : the land being donated to the state by citizens and property holders of Des Moines. An association of citizens erected a temporary building for the capitol and leased it to the state at a nominal rent.
THE STATE BECOMES REPUBLICAN.
The passage by congress of the act organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and the provision it contained abrogating that portion of the Missouri bill that prohibited slavery north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, was the beginning of a political revolution in the northern states, and in none was it more marked than in the state of Iowa. Iowa was the "first free child born of the Missouri compromise." In 1856 the republican party of the state was duly organized in full sympathy with that of other states, and at the ensuing presiden- tial election the electoral vote of the state was cast for John C. Fremont. Another constitutional convention assembled at Iowa City in January, 1857. One of the most pressing demands for this convention grew out of the prohibition of banks under the old constitution. The practical result of this prohibition was to flood the state with every specie of "wildcat currency." The circulating medium was made a part of the free-bank paper of Illinois and Indiana. In addition to this
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there was paper issued by Iowa brokers, who had obtained bank charters from the territorial legislature of Nebraska, and had their pretended headquarters at Omaha and Florence. The currency was also variegated with the bills of other states, generally such as had the best reputation where they were least known. This paper was all at two, and some of it from ten to fifteen per cent. discount. Every man who was not an expert at detecting counterfeit bills and who was not posted in the methods of banking institutions did business at his peril. The new constitution adopted at this convention made ample provisions for house banks under the supervision of the laws of the state, and other changes in the old constitution were made that more nearly met the views of the people.
The permanent scat of government was fixed at Des Moines and the uni- versity at Iowa City. The qualifications of electors remained the same as under the old constitution, but the schedule provided for a vote of the people upon a separate proposition to strike out the word "white" from the suffrage clause. Since the early organization of Iowa there had been upon the statute books a law providing that no negro, mulatto or Indian should be a competent witness in any suit at law or proceeding to which a white man was a party. The general assem- bly of 1856-7 repealed this law, and the new constitution contained a clause for- bidding such disqualification in the future. It also provided for the education of "all youth of the state" through a system of common schools.
THE CAPITAL REMOVED TO DES MOINES.
October 19, 1857. Governor Grimes issued a proclamation declaring the city of Des Moines to be the capital of the state of Iowa. The removal of the archives and offices was commenced at once and continued through the fall. It was an undertaking of no small magnitude. There was not a mile of railroad to facili- tate the work and the season was unusually disagreeable. Rain, snow and other accompaniments increased the difficulties, and it was not until December that the last of the effects-the safe of the state treasurer, loaded on two large "bobsleds," drawn by ten yoke of oxen-was deposited in the new capitol. Thus Iowa City ceased to be the capital of the state after four territorial legislatures, six state legislatures and three constitutional conventions had held their regular sessions there.
In 1870 'the general assembly made an appropriation and provided for a board of commissioners to commence work of building a new capitol. The cornerstone was laid with appropriate ceremonies November 23. 1871. The esti- mated cost of the building was two million five hundred thousand dollars, and the structure was finished and occupied in 1884, the dedicatory exercises being held in January of that year. Hon. John A. Kasson delivered the principal ad- dress. The state capitol is classic in style, with a superstructure of buff lime- stone. It is three hundred and sixty-three feet in length, two hundred and forty- seven feet in width, with a central dome rising to the height of two hundred and seventy-five feet. At the time of completion it was only surpassed by the capitol building of the state of New York, in Albany.
CLIMATE.
In former years considerable objection was made to the prevalence of high winds in Iowa, which is somewhat greater than in the states south and east. But
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climatic changes have lessened their grievance. The air, in fact, is pure and generally bracing ; so during the winter. Thunderstorms are also more violent in this state than in those of the east and south, but not near so much so as toward the mountains. As elsewhere in the northwestern states, easterly winds bring rain and snow, while westerly ones clear the sky. While the highest tem- perature occurs in August, the month of July averages the hottest and January the coldest. The mean temperature of April and October nearly corresponds to the mean temperature of the year, as well as to the seasons of spring and fall, while that of summer and winter is best represented by August and December. "Indian summer" is delightful and well prolonged.
TOPOGRAPHY.
The state lies wholly within and comprises a part of a vast plain. There are no mountains and scarcely any hilly country within its borders; for the highest point is but one thousand two hundred feet above the lowest point; these two points are nearly three hundred miles apart, and the whole state is traversed by gently-flowing rivers. We thus find there is a good degree of propriety in re- garding the whole state as belonging to a great plain, the lowest point of which within its borders, the southeastern corner of the state, is only four hundred and forty-four feet above the level of the sea. The average height of the whole state above the level of the sea is not far from eight hundred feet, although it is over a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. These remarks are, of course, to be understood as only applying to the state at large or as a whole. On examining its surface in detail we find a great diversity of surface by the formation of val- leys out of the general level, which have been evolved by the actions of streams during the unnumbered years of the terrace epoch. These river valleys are deep- est in the northwestern part of the state, and consequently it is. there that the country has the greatest diversity of surface and its physical features are most strongly marked.
It is said that ninety-five per cent. of the surface of Iowa is capable of a high state of cultivation. The soil is justly famous for its fertility, and there is probably no equal area of the earth's surface that contains so little untillable land or whose soil has so high an average of fertility.
LAKES AND STREAMS.
The largest of lowa's lakes are Spirit Lake and Okoboji, in Dickinson county : Clear Lake, in Cerro Gordo county, and Storm Lake, in Buena Vista county. Its rivers consist of the Mississippi and Missouri, the Chariton, Grand, Platte, One Hundred and Two. Nodaway, Nishabotany, Boyer, Soldier, Little Sioux, Floyd, Rock, Big Sioux, Cedar, Wapsipiunicon, Turkey and Upper Iowa.
IOWA AND THE CIVIL WAR.
Iowa was born a free state. Her people abhorred the "peculiar institution" of slavery, and by her record in the war between the states proved herself truly loyal to her institutions and the maintenance of the Union. By joint resolution in the general assembly of the state in 1857 it was declared that the state of
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Iowa was "bound to maintain the union of these states by all the means in her power." The same year the state furnished a block of marble for the Washing- ton monument at the national capital and by order of the legislature there was inscribed on its enduring surface the following: "Iowa-Her affections, like the rivers of her borders, flow to an inseparable Union." The time was now come when these declarations of fidelity and attachment to the nation were to be put to a practical test. There was no state in the Union more vitally interesed in the question of national unity than Iowa. The older states, both north and south, had representatives in her citizenship. Iowans were practically immigrants bound to those older communities by the most sacred ties of blood and most enduring recollections of early days. The position of Iowa as a state, geographically, made the dismemberment of the Union a matter of serious concern. Within her borders were two of the great navigable rivers of the country, and the Mississippi had been for years its highway to the markets of the world. The people could not entertain the thought that its navigation should pass to the control of a for- eign nation. But more than this was to be feared. The consequence of intro- ducing and recognizing in our national system the principle of secession or dis- integration of the states from the Union. "That the nation possessed no consti- tutional power to coerce a seceding state," as uttered by James Buchanan in his last annual message, was received by the people of lowa with humiliation and distrust. And in the presidential campaign of 1860, when Abraham Lincoln combated with all the force of his matchless logic and rhetoric this monstrous political heresy, the issue was clearly drawn between the north and the south, and it became manifest to many that in the event of the election of Lincoln to the presidency war would follow between the states. The people of Iowa nursed no hatred toward any section of the country, but were determined to hold such opinions upon questions of public interest, and vote for such men as to them seemed for the general good, uninfluenced by any threat of violence or civil war. So it was that they anxiously awaited the expiring hours of the Buchanan administration and looked to the incoming president as to an expected deliverer that should rescue the nation from the hands of traitors and the control of those whose resistance invited her destruction. The firing upon the flag at Fort Sumpter aroused a burning indignation throughout the loyal states of the repub- lic, and nowhere more intense than in Iowa. And when the proclamation of the president was published, April 15, 1861, calling for seventy-five thousand citizen soldiers to "maintain the honor, the integrity and the existence of our national union, and the perpetuity of popular government," they were more than willing to respond to the call. Party lines gave way, and for a while, at least, party spirit was hushed and the cause of our common country was supreme in the affections of the people. Fortunate indeed was the state at this crisis in having a truly representative man as executive of the state. Thoroughly honest and as equally earnest, wholly imbued with the enthusiasm of the hour, and fully aroused to the importance of the crisis and the magnitude of the struggle upon which the people were entering, with an indomitable will under control of a strong common sense, Samuel J. Kirkwood was, indeed, a worthy chief to organize and direct the energies of the people in what was before them. Within thirty days after the date of the president's call for troops the first Iowa regiment was mustered into
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service of the United States, a second regiment was in camp ready for the service and the general assembly of the state was convened in special session and had, by joint resolution, solemnly pledged every resource of men and money to the na- tional cause. So urgent were the offers of companies that the governor condi- tionally accepted enough additional companies to compose two regiments more. These were soon accepted by the secretary of war. Near the close of May the adjutant-general of the state reported that one hundred and seventy companies had been tendered the governor to serve against the enemies of the Union. The question was eagerly asked : "Which of us will be allowed to go?" It seemed as if Iowa was monopolizing the honors of the period and would send the largest part of the seventy-five thousand wanted from the whole north. There was much difficulty and considerable delay experienced in fitting the first three regiments for the field. For the first regiment a complete outfit of clothing was extem- porized, partly by the volunteer labor of loyal women in the different towns, from material of various colors and qualities obtained within the limits of the state. The same was done in part for the second infantry. Meantime an extra session of the general assembly had been called by the governor to convene on the 15th of May. With but little delay that body authorized a loan of eight hundred thousand dollars to meet the extraordinary expenses incurred and to be incurred by the executive department in consequence of the emergency. A wealthy mer- chant of the state, ex-Governor Merrill, immediately took from the governor a contract to supply a complete outfit of clothing for three regiments organized, agreeing to receive, should the governor so elect, his pay therefore in the state bonds at par. This contract he executed to the letter, and a portion of the cloth- ing was delivered at Keokuk, the place at which the troops had rendezvoused, in exactly one month from the day in which the contract had been entered into. This clothing was delivered to the soldiers, but was subsequently condemned by the government, for the reason that its color was gray, and blue had been adopted as the color to be worn by the national troops. Other states had also clothed their troops, sent forward under the first call of President Lincoln, with gray uniforms, but it was soon found that the Confederate forces were also clothed in gray, and that color was at once abandoned for the Union soldier.
At the beginning of the war the population of Iowa included about one hun- dred and fifty thousand men presumably liable to render military service. The state raised for general service thirty-nine regiments of infantry, nine regiments of cavalry and four companies of artillery, composed of three years' men, and four regiments and one battalion of infantry composed of one hundred days' inen. The original enlistments in these various organizations, including one thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven men raised by draft, numbered about sixty-nine thousand. The reenlistments, including upwards of seven thousand veterans, numbered nearly eight thousand. The enlistments in the regular army and navy and organizations of other states will, if added, raise the total upwards of eighty thousand. The number of men who, under special enlistments and as militia, took part at different times in the operations of the exposed borders of the state was probably five thousand.
Every loyal state of the Union had many women who devoted much time and great labor toward relieving the wants of our sick and wounded soldiery, but for
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Iowa can be claimed the honor of inaugurating the great charitable movement, which was so successfully supported by the noble women of the north. Mrs. Harlan, wife of Hon. James Harlan, United States senator, was the first woman of the country among those moving in high circles of society who personally visited the army and ministered to the wants of the defenders of her country. In many of her visits to the army Mrs. Harlan was accompanied by Mrs. Joseph T. Fales, wife of the first state auditor of Iowa. No words can describe the good done, the lives saved and the deaths made easy by the host of noble women of Iowa, whose names it would take a volume to print. Every county, every town, every neighborhood had these true heroines, whose praise can never fully be known till the final rendering of all accounts of the deeds done in the body. The contributions throughout the state to "sanitary fairs" during the war were enormous, amounting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Highly suc- cessful fairs were held in the principal cities and towns of the state, which all added to the work and praise of the "Florence Nightingales" of lowa, whose heroic sacrifices have won for them the undying gratitude of the nation. It is said to the honor and credit of Iowa, that while many of the loyal states, older and larger in population and wealth, incurred heavy state debts for the purpose of fulfilling their obligations to the general government of Iowa, while she was foremost in duty, while she promptly discharged all her obligations to her sister states and the Union, found herself at the close of the war without any material additions to her pecuniary liabilities incurred before the war commenced. Upon final settlement after restoration of peace her claims upon the federal govern- ment were found to be fully equal to the amount of her bonds issued and sold during the war to provide means for raising and equipping her troops sent into the field and to meet the inevitable demands upon her treasury in consequence of the war. It was in view of these facts that Iowa had done more than her duty during the war, and that without incurring any considerable indebtedness, and that her troops had fought most gallantly on nearly every battlefield of the war, that the Newark ( New Jersey) Advertiser and other prominent eastern journals called łowa the "Model State of the Republic."
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
School teachers were among the first immigrants to Iowa. This gives point to the fact that the people of Iowa have ever taken a deep interest in education, and in this direction no state in the Union has a better record. The system of free public schools was planted by the early settlers, and it has expanded and improved until now it is one of the most complete, comprehensive and liberal in the country. The lead-mining regions of the state were first to be settled by the whites, and the hardy pioneers provided the means for the education of their children even before they had comfortable dwellings for themselves. Wherever a little settlement was made the schoolhouse was the first thing undertaken by the settlers in a body, and the rude, primitive structures of the early times only disappeared when the communities increased in population and wealth and were able to replace them with more commodious and comfortable buildings. Perhaps in no single instance has the magnificent progress of the state of Iowa been more marked and rapid than in her common school system and in her schoolhouses.
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