at "the surest guaranty, which could be had for
the fidelity and good conduct of all public officers, was to make them
directly responsible to the people."

The outcome of the discussion was a compromise. The Judges of the
Supreme Court were to be named by the General Assembly; but the Judges
of the District Court were to be elected by the people.

That the pioneers of Iowa, including the members of the Convention of
1844, were Democratic in their ideals is certain. They believed in
Equality. They had faith in Jeffersonianism. They clung to the dogmas
of the Declaration of Independence. They were sure that all men were
born equal, and that government to be just must be instituted by and
with the consent of the governed. Such was their professed philosophy.
Was it universally applicable? Or did the system have limitations? Did
the Declaration of Independence, for example, include negroes?

The attitude of the Convention on this perplexing problem was perhaps
fairly represented in the report of a Select Committee to whom had
been referred "a petition of sundry citizens praying for the admission
of people of color on the same footing as white citizens." This same
Committee had also been instructed to inquire into the propriety of a
Constitutional provision prohibiting persons of color from settling
within the State.

In the opening paragraph of their remarkable report the Committee
freely admitted (1) "that all men are created equal, and are endowed
by their Creator with inalienable rights," and (2) that these rights
are "as sacred to the black man as the white man, and should be so
regarded." At the same time they looked upon this declaration as
"a mere abstract proposition" which, "although strictly true when
applied to man in a state of nature, . . . . becomes very much
modified when man is considered in the artificial state in which
government and society place him."

The Committee then argued that "government is an institution or an
association entered into by man, the very constitution of which
changes or modifies to a greater or less extent his natural rights.
Some are surrendered others are modified . . . . In forming or
maintaining a government it is the privilege and duty of those who are
about to associate together for that purpose to modify and limit the
rights or wholly exclude from the association any and every species of
persons who would endanger, lessen or in the least impair the
enjoyment