Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/408



convention then proceeded to elect an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and Norman W. Isbell was chosen by a vote of fifty-one to five. A vote was then taken for United States Senator. James Harlan received fifty-two votes to four scattering and was declared elected for six years from March 4, 1855.

The most important act of the session was the passage of a bill submitting to a vote of the people at the August election a proposition for a convention to revise the Constitution of the State. Among other important acts were the following: to provide for relocation of the Capital of the State to within two miles of the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines River; to provide for a Geological Survey, to be made by the geologist, to be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate; an act to establish an asylum for the deaf and dumb; an act for the suppression of intemperance, known as the prohibitory liquor law; an act adding to the county of Kossuth the territory of Bancroft County and the north half of Humboldt, and an act to establish a State Land Office.

The principal contests before this Legislature were the election of a United States Senator; the revision of the Constitution and prohibition of the liquor traffic. The election of James W. Grimes, as Governor, was the first victory of the Antislavery movement in Iowa. Up to 1854 the Territory and State had been controlled by the Democrats, and its votes in Congress, with one exception, *  had uniformly been given against the Antislavery or Free Soil movement, which was rapidly growing in the Northern States. Grimes was an earnest and outspoken opponent of the extension of slavery. A majority of the Legislature of 1854 was opposed to the Democratic party and sympathized with the growing Free Soil movement. The election of James Harlan to the United States Senate over the combined strength of the Democrats and

* Daniel F. Miller, Whig, member of Congress in 1840-51. John P. Cook, member of the 33d Congress, was a conservative Whig, and not in sympathy with the Free Soil wing of that party.