important subject."

Following the suggestion of the Chief Executive the Assembly provided by
law for obtaining the wishes of the people at the annual August
elections. All who favored the calling of a Convention were required to
write "convention" on their ballots; while all who opposed the
proposition were required to write "no convention." The law having been
approved by the Governor on the last day of July, very little time was
left for its consideration by the electorate before the elections.

When the official returns were counted the Governor in a proclamation
declared the result to be 937 votes for and 2,907 votes against a
Convention. The defeat, which was decisive, indicated that the squatters
had not yet paid for their claims. And so the Organic Act of 1838
continued to serve the people of Iowa as the code of fundamental law.
Robert Lucas was disappointed, but he had to admit that the Territory
went on increasing in population and wealth with phenomenal rapidity,
notwithstanding the "facts" in the history of the Old Northwest. Not
even the "imperfect conditions of Territorial government" seemed to
affect in the slightest degree the economic prosperity and improvement
of this frontier community.

The overwhelming defeat of the Convention proposition at the polls
checked for a time all agitation in favor of a State Constitution. Even
the Governor, who up to this time had been its most sanguine advocate,
declared in his message of November that since the people had expressed
their preference for Territorial Government, "all further legislation on
the subject at the present session" is precluded. The question now
remained in _statu quo_ for over a year, that is, from August, 1840, to
December, 1841.

In the meantime Robert Lucas had served out his full term of three
years. There was no chance for his reappointment since the Democrats had
lost the Presidency in the elections of 1840. The new Whig President,
William Henry Harrison, appointed John Chambers, of Kentucky, to
succeed the Ohio statesman. Again Iowa was fortunate in securing as
Governor a man of experience and of National reputation.

When Governor Chambers sent his first message to the Legislative
Assembly in December, 1841, he thought he had reason to believe that if
the question of a Convention were again submitted to the people there
would be evidenced by them a marked change in sentiment. Why? The answer
was clearly set forth in the messag