is intended as a narrative essay, it has been thought best to omit
all foot-note citations to authorities. For the original sources
upon which the essay is largely based the reader is referred to the
author's collections of documentary materials which have been published
by the Iowa State Historical Society. Quotations used in the body of the
text have been reprinted _literatim_ without editing.

The Convention of 1857 and the Constitution of 1857 have been little
more than noticed in chapters XIX and XX. An adequate discussion of
these subjects would have transcended the limits set for this volume by
several hundred pages.

The author wishes to express his obligations to his friend and
colleague, Professor W. C. Wilcox, of the University of Iowa, who has
carefully read the proof-sheets of the whole volume.

BENJ. F. SHAMBAUGH.
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
JULY, 1902

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION
II. A DEFINITION
III. THE CONSTITUTION MAKERS
IV. SQUATTER CONSTITUTIONS
V. THE TERRITORY OF WISCONSIN
VI. THE TERRITORY OF IOWA
VII. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE TERRITORY
VIII. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE TERRITORY AMENDED
XI. AGITATION FOR A STATE CONSTITUTION
X. THE CONVENTION OF 1844
XI. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1844
XII. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1844 SUBMITTED TO CONGRESS
XIII. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1844
DEBATED AND DEFEATED BY THE PEOPLE
XIV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1844 REJECTED A SECOND TIME
XV. THE CONVENTION OF 1846
XVI. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1846
XVII. THE NEW BOUNDARIES
XVIII. THE ADMISSION OF IOWA INTO THE UNION
XIX. THE CONVENTION OF 1857
XX. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1857

_AN HISTORICAL ESSAY_

I

INTRODUCTION

Three score years and ten after the declaration went forth from
Independence Hall that "all men are created equal," and fifteen years
before the great struggle that was to test whether a nation dedicated to
that proposition can long endure, Iowa, "the only free child of the
Missouri Compromise," was admitted into the Union on an equal footing
with the original States.

Profoundly significant in our political evolution are events such as
these. They are milestones in the progressive history of American
Democracy.

To search out the origin, to note the progress, to point to the causes,
and to declare the results of this marvelous popular political
development in the New World has been the ambition of our hist