ator Tappan presented to the
Senate the Constitution which had been framed by the Iowa Convention
of 1844. It was referred at once to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Three days later Augustus C. Dodge, Delegate from the Territory of
Iowa, laid before the House of Representatives a copy of the same
instrument together with an ordinance and a memorial from the Iowa
Convention. Here the documents were referred to the Committee on
Territories.

On January 7, 1845, through Mr. Aaron V. Brown, the Committee on
Territories reported a bill for the admission of Iowa and Florida into
the Union. This bill was read twice and referred to the Committee of
the Whole House on the State of the Union, wherein it was considered
on the three days of February 10, 11, and 13. It passed the House of
Representatives on February 13, 1844, by a vote of one hundred and
forty-four to forty-eight.

The day after its passage in the House of Representatives the bill was
reported to the Senate. Here it was referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary, from which it was reported back to the Senate without
amendment on February 24. The Senate considered the measure on March
1, and passed the same without alteration by a vote of thirty-six to
nine. On March 3, 1845, the act received the signature of President
Tyler.

The debate on the bill for the admission of Iowa under the
Constitution of 1844 is of more than local interest since it involved
a consideration of the great question of National Politics in its
relation to the growth of the West and the admission of new States.

When Iowa applied for State organization in 1844, Florida had been
waiting and pleading for admission ever since the year 1838. The
reason for this delay was very generally understood and openly avowed.
States should be admitted not singly but in pairs. Florida was waiting
for a companion. And so in 1844 it fell to Iowa to be paired with the
peninsula. The principle involved was not new; but never before
had two States been coupled in the same act of admission. The object
sought was plainly the maintenance of a _balance of power_ between the
North and the South.

But back of the principle of the balance of power, and for the
preservation of which that principle was invoked, stood Slavery. The
institution of free labor in the North must be balanced by the
institution of slave labor in the South, since both must be preserved.
And so the admission of Iowa and Florida had to be