Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/324



be to accept the proposed dismemberment of the fair proportions of Iowa. The contest was fierce and bitter but patriotism and good judgment prevailed.

The Constitution was rejected by a majority of 996, thus securing the preservation of Iowa, embracing the entire western slope to the Missouri River. It was a critical period in Iowa history, and the people of the State will never cease to honor the three young men who, by their courage and wisdom, preserved for all time its symmetrical proportions.

A new Legislature was chosen at this election, which convened at Iowa City on the 5th of May, 1845. It was organized by the election of S. C. Hastings, of Muscatine, President of the Council; James M. Morgan, of Burlington was elected Speaker of the House.

The Democrats had a large majority in each branch of the Legislature and the leaders of that party were exceedingly anxious for the admission of Iowa as a State. They secured the passage of an act providing that the rejected Constitution should again be submitted to a vote of the people at the August election with. the boundaries as fixed by the Constitutional Convention. It was expressly provided in the act for submission that, if the Constitution should be adopted, it should not be held to be an acceptance of the boundaries designated by Congress and the admission of the State should not be completed until the conditions that might be imposed by Congress should be ratified by a vote of the people; and that the election of State officers should be postponed until the State was finally admitted. The proposition was strongly opposed by the Whig members of the Legislature, but was carried by a strict party vote.

The Whigs prepared a protest, embracing their objections to the bill, which was entered upon the journal of the House and subsequently published in the Whig papers of the Territory. When the bill was submitted to Governor Chambers he promptly vetoed it, but it was approved