NJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
JAMES G. BLAINE,
_Secretary of State_.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States did by an act approved
on the 22d day of February, 1889, provide that the inhabitants of the
Territory of Dakota might upon the conditions prescribed in the said
act become the States of North Dakota and South Dakota; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the area comprising the
Territory of Dakota should for the purposes of the act be divided on
the line of the seventh standard parallel produced due west to the
western boundary of said Territory, and that the delegates elected as
therein provided to the constitutional convention in districts south of
said parallel should at the time prescribed in the act assemble in
convention at the city of Sioux Falls; and

Whereas it was provided by the said act that the delegates elected as
aforesaid should, after they had met and organized, declare on behalf
of the people of South Dakota that they adopt the Constitution of the
United States, whereupon the said convention should be authorized to
form a constitution and State government for the proposed State of
South Dakota; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution so adopted
should be republican in form and make no distinction in civil or
political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not
taxed, and not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States
and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that the
convention should, by an ordinance irrevocable without the consent of
the United States and the people of said States, make certain
provisions prescribed in said act; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitutions of North
Dakota and South Dakota should, respectively, incorporate an agreement,
to be reached in accordance with the provisions of the act, for an
equitable division of all property belonging to the Territory of
Dakota, the disposition of all public records, and also for the
apportionment of the debts and liabilities of said Territory, and that
each of said States should obligate itself to pay its proportion of
such debts and liabilities the same as if they had been created by such
States respectively; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that at the election for delegates
to the constitutional convention in South Dakota, as ther