Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/423



5. Local or special laws were not to be passed on certain subjects, and in no case where a general law could be made applicable.

6. No money was to be appropriated for local or private purposes, unless by a vote of two-thirds of the members of each branch of the General Assembly.

7. The number of Senators was limited to fifty, and the number of Representatives to one hundred.

8. The office of Lieutenant Governor was created.

9. The office of Supreme Judge was made elective.

10. The limit of State indebtedness was increased from $100,000 to $250,000. In case of insurrection, invasion or defense in time of war this limit might be exceeded.

11. Banks could be established under laws enacted by the Legislature, provided such laws were approved by a majority of voters at a general or special election.

12. A State Board of Education was created.

13. The Capital of the State was permanently fixed at Des Moines, and the State University was permanently located at Iowa City.

14. To submit to a vote of the people a proposition to strike the word “White” from the article on suffrage (the effect of which would be to permit negroes to vote if the proposition should be adopted).

The census of 1856 gave the population of the State 517,875, an increase in two years of 193,474, more than double the population of four years before. The past two years had been a period of great prosperity in Iowa. The crops had been good, prices satisfactory, railroads were now entering the State, settlements were spreading over the prairies at a rate unprecedented. Spring wheat was the principal crop, yielding often from twenty-five to thirty-five bushels per acre, of plump grain, selling at from $1.10 to $1.35 per bushel. Very often the crop on forty acres would pay for one hundred and sixty acres of the best prairie land. Two years before the first railroad had reached the Mississippi, opposite Iowa, and now two hundred and forty-six miles had been built within its limits.

The Sixth and last General Assembly, under the old Constitution, met at Iowa City on the first day of December, 1856. The Senate was organized by the election of W. W.