History of the Constitutions of Iowa

by Benjamin Franklin Shambaugh

Article IX. placed restrictions upon banking and other business corporations.

Article X. deals with "Education and School Lands." It provides for a "Superintendent of Public Instruction" who shall be chosen by the General Assembly. It directs the General Assembly to provide for a system of common schools. It declares also that the General Assembly "shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral and agricultural improvement."

Article XI. outlines a system of local government which includes both the county and the township organization. The details are left to the General Assembly.

Article XII. provides for "Amendments to the Constitution." In the case of partial revision of the Constitution, the specific amendment must be passed by two successive General Assemblies and ratified by the people. When it is desired to have a total revision of the fundamental law, the General Assembly submits the question of a Constitutional Convention to a direct vote of the people.

Article XIII. provides a "Schedule" for the transition from the Territorial to the State organization.

From the view-point of subsequent events the most significant provision of the Constitution of 1844 was the one which defined the boundaries of the future State. There is, however, no evidence that the members of the Convention foresaw the probability of a dispute with Congress on this point, although Governor Chambers in his message of December, 1843, had pointed out its possibility should the people of Iowa assume to give boundaries to the State without first making application to Congress for definite limits. It was on the question of boundaries that the Constitution of 1844 was wrecked.

In the Convention the regular standing Committee on State Boundaries reported in favor of certain lines which were in substance the boundaries recommended by Governor Lucas in his message of November, 1839. Indeed, it is altogether probable that the recommendations of Robert Lucas were made the basis of the Committee's report. This inference is strengthened by the fact that the illustrious Ex-Governor was a member of the Committee. It will be convenient to refer to the boundaries recommended by the Committee as the Lucas boundaries.

The Lucas boundaries were based upon the topography of the country as determined by rivers. On the East was the great Mississippi, on the West the Missouri, and on the North the St. Peters. These natural boundaries were to be connected and made continuous by the artificial lines of the surveyor. As to the proposed Eastern boundary there could be no difference of opinion; and it was generally felt that the Missouri river should determine the Western limit.

On the South the boundary must necessarily be the Northern line of the State of Missouri. But the exact location of this line had not been authoritatively determined. During the administration of Lucas it was the subject of a heated controversy between Missouri and Iowa which at one time bordered on armed hostility. The purpose of the Convention in 1844 was not to settle the dispute but to refer to the line in a way which would neither prejudice nor compromise the claims of Iowa.

The discussion of the Northern boundary was, in the light of subsequent events, more significant. As proposed by the Committee the line was perhaps a little vague and indefinite since the exact location of certain rivers named was not positively known. Some thought that the boundary proposed would make the State too large. Others thought that it would make the State too small. Mr. Hall proposed the parallel of forty-two and one-half degrees of North latitude. Mr. Peck suggested the parallel of forty-four. Mr. Langworthy, of Dubuque, asked that forty-five degrees be made the Northern limit.