ary repetition on the one hand and
confusion on the other, the title of the present chapter will be taken
to mean the Organic Act of 1838.

The Constitution of the Territory of Iowa is clearly an outgrowth of
American political development. In its provisions is summed up the final
product of that most interesting series of evolutionistic
transformations in Territorial government that took place throughout the
North and West.

The first in the long line of American Territorial Constitutions, and
the starting point of subsequent development, was the ordinance of the
Congress of the Confederation now familiarly known as "The Ordinance of
1787." Nor was this famous ordinance itself a code of _new_ political
principles. Consciously or unconsciously its framers drew largely
from the principles, forms, and practices of American government prior
to the Revolution. The analogy between the Colonial and Territorial
governments of America is too striking to be dismissed as accidental.
The relation of the United States to the Territories has always been of
a Colonial character. In the history of Territorial government the
Ordinance of 1787 stands as the Magna Charta of the West. But the Great
Ordinance like the Great Charter was in many respects crude, incomplete,
and un-American. Place it by the side of the Constitution of the
Territory of Iowa, and it is plain to see that in the course of fifty
years marked changes had taken place--especially in the direction of
democratization.

The Constitution of the Territory is a written instrument of twenty
sections or articles, containing in all about four thousand words. It
has no preamble, but is simply introduced by the enacting clause. As a
pure product of Congressional legislation it was promulgated upon the
legislative authority of Congress with the approval of the President of
the United States. In its origin, therefore, it resembles the Royal
Charters of Europe more than the written Constitutions of America. The
Constitution of the Territory was literally handed down to the people
who were governed under its provisions _without their own consent_
directly given.

The first section purports to create a new Territory, by fixing the
boundaries thereof and declaring that from and "after the third
day of July next, all power and authority of the Government of
Wisconsin, in and over the Territory hereby constituted shall cease." On
reading this section one is almost startled by