rtile spots in our whole territory . . . .

But whatever may be the effect of this land policy on the general
welfare, it has been deeply injurious to the Southern portion of the
Confederacy . . . . If all of the people born in North Carolina had
remained in its limits, our swamps and low grounds would have rivalled
the valley of the Nile in production, and our pine barrens would
have been flourishing with the vine, the olive, and the mulberry.
We have, therefore, reason to complain of the policy of this Government
. . . . Others may act as pleases them, but I will never sustain a
policy so detrimental to the people with whom I am connected . . . . If
these remarks be unavailing, the patriot should fear for the permanence
of the Republic."

The spirited debate, which took place in the House of Representatives,
on the question of the establishment of the Territorial government of
Iowa disclosed the fact that the creation of a new Territory at this
time west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri was of more than
local interest; it was, indeed, an event in the larger history of
America. Some few men were beginning to realize that the rapid
settlement of the Iowa country was not an isolated provincial episode
but the surface manifestation of a current that was of National depth.
Far-sighted statesmen whose eyes were neither blinded by the lights of
the moment nor yet always riveted upon that which for the time was most
brilliant, saw that a plain, common-looking pioneer farmer from across
the Mississippi had come upon the stage of National Politics and had
already begun to play a role in the great drama of American Democracy.
But even the prophets did not so much as dream that, within the memory
of men then living, the awkward amateur would take the part of a leading
actor in the play.

VII

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE TERRITORY

The Territorial epoch in our history began in 1836, when the Territory
of Wisconsin was established; it came to a close in 1846, when the State
of Iowa was organized and admitted into the Union. Two Constitutions
belong to this decade--the Organic Act of the Territory of Wisconsin,
and the Organic Act of the Territory of Iowa. These Constitutions are
very much alike both in form and content. Indeed, the latter was copied
from or modeled upon the former. An outline of either would fairly
indicate the content of the fundamental law for the whole Territorial
epoch. But to avoid unnecess