Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/320



states, and the weight of slave representatives in Congress. It met with warm opposition from the non-slave-holding states, and as a counter movement they came forward with a similar proposition in regard to Iowa. After being fully, freely and even angrily discussed at various meetings of the committee, the proposition to divide Florida was carried, and that to divide Iowa was rejected by a strictly sectional vote. When the bill came into the House, where the relative strength of the sectional parties was reversed, the action of the committee was overruled by a large majority. The clause for the division of Florida was stricken out, and the boundaries of Iowa, in opposition to my earnest protest, were subjected to considerable curtailment.

“This was effected by votes of members from north, east and west, irrespective of party divisions. The amendment to reduce was proposed by Mr. Duncan (Democrat) from Ohio, and supported by Mr. Vinton (Whig), who in a lucid and cogent manner represented the injury which the creation of large states would inflict upon the western country. He forcibly exhibited the great wrong done to the West in times past by Congress in dividing its territory in overgrown states, thereby enabling the Atlantic portion of the Union to retain supremacy in the United States Senate. He showed that it was the true interest of the people of the valley of the Mississippi that new states should be of reasonable size, and he appealed to western members to check that legislation which had heretofore deprived the western country of its due representation in the Senate. I advert to the remarks of Mr. Vinton, because their irresistible force was admitted by all except the delegations from the South. The House had a few days previous to this discussion passed a law for the annexation of Texas, by which five new states may be added to the Union. This furnished an additional reason why my protest was disregarded, inasmuch as our fellow citizens from the non-slave holding states were desirous by moderate division of remaining free territory of the Union to give to the free states a counterbalancing influence.”

Mr. Dodge was again nominated for Delegate in Congress by the Democratic Convention which met at Iowa City on the 11th of June, 1845. The Whigs nominated Ralph P. Lowe on the 13th of June. The last Legislature, in anticipation of the admission of Iowa as a State, had, during the winter of 1844-5, postponed the session of the Legislature until May, 1845. But the Constitution with the boundaries of the proposed State as fixed by Congress, met with determined opposition from the people. The natural western boundary was the Missouri River, and