Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/341



5. One term only for the President. 6. Improvement of rivers and harbors by the general Government. 7. Condemned the administration of James K. Polk. 8. Condemned the State constitution recently adopted, with pledge to labor for its speedy amendment.

The Legislature to be chosen was expected to elect two United States Senators and three judges of the State Supreme Court. The election resulted in the success of the Democratic candidates. S. C. Hastings and Shepherd Leffler, Democrats, were elected to Congress.

On the 15th of December, A. C. Dodge, Delegate from Iowa, presented to the House of Representatives the Constitution of the State of Iowa.

It was referred to the Committee on Territories and on the 17th Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, from that committee, reported a bill for the admission of Iowa into the Union. On the 21st the bill passed the House and was sent to the Senate. On the 24th it was taken up in the Senate, having been approved by the judiciary committee. After an attempt to amend it had failed, the bill passed the Senate. On the 28th of December, 1846, the President signed the bill and Iowa became a State. On the 29th Shepherd Leffler and Serranus C. Hastings, who were in Washington, took the oath of office and their seats as the first Representatives in Congress from the State of Iowa. Congress granted to the new State for the support of public schools the sixteenth section of each township, amounting in the aggregate to 1,013,614 acres.

On the 5th of June, 1846, a treaty had been concluded with the Pottawattamie Indians, who occupied a large tract of country in the western portion of the State, by which they relinquished their lands in Iowa to the United States. By the terms of the treaty the Indians were not required to remove from their lands until two years had elapsed. But a series of events transpired in neighboring States which hastened the occupation of their lands before the time fixed.