the evolution of
political institutions, customs precede statutes; written laws follow
unwritten conventions; the legal is the outgrowth of the extra-legal;
and constitutional government is developed out of extra-constitutional
government. One need not search the records of antiquity nor decipher
the monuments for illustrations of these truths; for in the early
political history of Iowa there is a recurrence of the process of
institutional evolution including the stage of customary law. Here in
our own annals one may read plainly writ the extra-legal origin of laws
and constitutional government.

Absence of legislative statutes and administrative ordinances on the
frontier did not mean anarchy and disorder. The early settlers of Iowa
were literally, and in that good old Anglo-Saxon sense, "lawful men of
the neighborhood," who from the beginning observed the usages and
customs of the community. Well and truly did they observe the customs
relative to the making and holding of claims. And as occasion demanded
they codified these customs and usages into "Constitutions,"
"Resolutions," and "By-Laws." Crude, fragmentary, and extra-legal as
were their codes, they nevertheless stand as the first written
Constitutions in the history of the Commonwealth. They were the
fundamental laws of the pioneers, or, better still, they were Squatter
Constitutions.

The Squatter Constitutions of Iowa, since they were a distinctive
product of frontier life, are understood and their significance
appreciated only when interpreted through the conditions of Western life
and character.

It was through cession and purchase that the United States came into
possession of the vast public domain of which the fertile farming fields
of Iowa formed a part. Title to the land vested absolutely in the
Government of the United States. But the right of the Indians to occupy
the country was not disputed. Until such right had been extinguished by
formal agreement, entered into between the United States and the
Indians, no white citizen was competent to make legal settlement
therein.

As early as 1785 Congress provided that no settlement should be made on
any part of the public domain until the Indian title thereto had been
extinguished and the land surveyed. Again, in 1807, Congress provided:
"That if any person or persons shall, after the passing of this act,
take possession of, or make a settlement on any lands ceded or secured
to the United States by an