ed which proposed to substitute the boundaries as
described in the Constitution of 1844. On a test ballot the vote of
the Convention stood twenty-two to eight in favor of the amendment.
This was on the eighth of May. Six days later a resolution instructing
the Committee on Revision to amend the article on boundaries so as to
read as follows was adopted by a vote of eighteen to thirteen:

"Beginning in the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi river,
at a point due east of the middle of the mouth of the main channel of
the Des Moines river; thence up the middle of the main channel of the
said Des Moines river, to a point on said river where the northern
boundary line of the State of Missouri, as established by the
Constitution of that State, adopted June 12th, 1820, crosses the said
middle of the main channel of the said Des Moines river; thence
westwardly, along the said northern boundary line of the State of
Missouri, as established at the time aforesaid, until, an extension of
said line intersects the middle of the main channel of the Missouri
river; thence, up the middle of the main channel of the said Missouri
river, to a point opposite the middle of the main channel of the Big
Sioux river, according to Nicollet's map; thence up the main channel
of the said Big Sioux river, according to said map, until it is
intersected by the parallel of forty-three degrees and thirty minutes
north latitude; thence east, along said parallel of forty-three
degrees and thirty minutes, until said parallel intersects the middle
of the main channel of the Mississippi river; thence down the
middle of the main channel of said Mississippi river to the place of
beginning."

These were in substance the compromise boundaries which were first
proposed in Congress by the Committee on the Territories on March 27,
1846. Their precise description, however, was the work of the Iowa
Convention. Congress promptly adopted this description in the Act of
August 4, 1846, by striking out the words of the bill then pending and
inserting the language of the Iowa Convention as used in the Preamble
to their Constitution.

XVIII

THE ADMISSION OF IOWA INTO THE UNION

When submitted to the people the Constitution of 1846 was vigorously
opposed by the Whigs who insisted that it was a party instrument.
Their attitude and arguments are nowhere better set forth than in the
address of Wm. Penn Clarke to the electors of the counties of
Muscatin