the future State of Iowa were elected at the township elections in April. The delegates, thirty-two in number, met in convention at Iowa City on the first Monday in May, and formed a constitution which was submitted to a vote of the people at the August election, 1846, and ratified. A proclamation by Governor James Clark, of the territory, followed, and the first election under it for State officers and members of the General Assembly took place in October, 1846. And this is "the constitution as it was." It had a comparatively brief career. The people became dissatisfied with it and it was superceded by the constitution of 1857.

The constitution of 1857 is not a mere transcript or compilation, made up of constitutional law, borrowed from other constitutions. As a matter of course, it contains many provisions taken from the old constitution and common to State constitutions generally; but it has the merit and distinction of containing some important new provisions not found, it is believed, in other constitutions. I will speak of one or two as they occur to me. Section 4 of the bill of rights contains an important provision concerning the administration of justice. It relates to witnesses. The statutes of Iowa, all through our early history, and down to the winter of 1856-7, were stained by the presence of a law born of the spirit of the Dred Scott decision, and based upon its principles. This law said, in substance, this: "That no negro, mulatto, or Indian, or black person (whatever that may mean in addition to the three other classes) shall be a witness in any court or in any case against a white person." This law was repealed by the General Assembly that was in session at Iowa City. during a part of the time that our convention was in session. Our convention decided to bury that law so deep that there should be no danger of its resurrection. Hence the provision in these words: "Any party to a judicial proceeding shall have the right to use as a witness, or take the testimony of, any other person not disqualified on account of interest, who may be cognizant of any fact material to the case." This provision vindicates the doctrine of the equality of men before the law, and decrees that in all the broad limits of Iowa

there shall be no distinction of race or color with respect to the admissability of witnesses. Another new provision relates to the security of the permanent school and university funds. This provision amounts to an insurance of those funds against loss or damage, not exactly by fire, but by some agency worse than fire-by mismanagement, defalcation, or frauds of the agents or officers having charge of the funds. It is provided in Section 3 of Article 7, that all such losses shall be audited by the proper authorities and the amounts so audited shall be a permanent funded debt against the State in favor of the funds sustaining the loss bearing annual interest of not less than six per cent. This provision was suggested by some heavy losses which had been suffered by those funds, prior to that time, by the mismanagement and defalcations of its custodians. It has doubtless had a salutary effect, tending to throw around those funds a degree of sanctity which of right belongs to them, as well as being a guaranty of their integrity.

Another new constitutional provision was intended for the benefit of honorable members of the General Assembly. It was known that it sometimes happened that certain bills of doubtful expediency, if not something worse than that, became laws, for whose passage no member, except the member who introduced it, could be held directly responsible. The practice was apt to obtain in the last days of a session. when business had accumulated, and when the minds of members were apt to be engrossed with other matters. If afterwards the inquiry was made, "How did that bill pass; what members voted for it?" the answer would be, "Nobody seems to know." The journal is silent. It simply states that on such a day such a bill was read a third time and passed -read perhaps by its title, To the question, shall the bill pass, if one or two ayes were heard and no sound in the negative, it would be declared passed to the surprise afterward of members whose want of attention allowed it to become a law. In view of this practice, and to "reform it altogether," the new constitution (Section 17 of the Legislative Department) provides that no bill shall be passed unless by

the assent of a majority of all the members elected to each branch of the General Assembly, and the question upon the final passage shall be taken immediately upon its last reading, and the yeas and nays entered on the journal.

Now, there is another thing that the members of the convention of 1857 may be congratulated for having done, and that is for having put this fair city of Des Moines in the body of the constitution as the capital of the State-for having rescued the question of the location of the seat of government from the vortex of legislative contention, and for having placed it where the people could and did settle it maybe for all time.

If the stately structure on yonder hill, at once a credit to the state and a symbol of her greatness, whose dome seems ambitious of rising, like the monument of Bunker Hill, "till it meet the sun in its coming, until the earliest light of morning shall gild it and parting day linger and play upon its summit," may be supposed to have some relation to the Constitutional Convention of 1857, and especially if the exceptional growth of this beautiful city, a city which we have seen emerge from the chrysalis state of the "Raccoon Forks" to the rank of the foremost city in the State-not altogether accounted for by her natural advantages, aided by the intelligent energy of her people, may also be supposed to have some relation to that convention,, then I say how greatly more than handsome, how greatly more than princely, has now been the recognition of that relation in the splendid reception, the cordial welcome and large-hearted hospitality, accorded its surviving members on this occasion by her citizens.

I will close by saying that few periods of twenty-five years have possessed greater interest or greater historic importance than that of the last quarter century. It has been an era remarkable for progress, expansion and improvement in our own country, and to some extent throughout the world. It has been remarkable for progress in the achievements of inventive genius; remarkable for progress in the useful arts and applied sciences; remarkable for progress in the comity

and solidarity of nations, and in the principles of constitutional government; remarkable for progress in freedom of thought, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of speech, as well as for progress in civilization generally.

Without going into detail I may say that here at home we have seen our own State advance in population, development, wealth, influence, and in all the elements of greatness, to the rank of the foremost member of the republic.

We have seen her achieve, by the valor of her sons, a record for patriotism, whose all luminous glory shall endure as long as love of country and brave deeds are honored among

men.

We have seen our beloved country come forth from a baptism of fire and of blood, "redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled"-slavery abolished, a race enfranchised, the dogmas of state sovereignty, nullification, and secession, gone forever, and the last doubt removed that this great republic of ours is a nation and not a league of States a nation whose citizens, north, south, east and west, pointing to our now all glorious flag, may join, in heart and voice, in the rapt acclaim

"Forever float that standard sheet," over one country, one people, one destiny.

The Iowa dairy product last year was $42,000,000 in round numbers. That is about twice as much as the silver product of the entire country. If all consumed on the farms and in the homes in the way of butter and milk and other dairy preparations were considered the showing would be still better for the cows of Iowa. The cows and the hens are "a very present help in time of need."-Iowa State Register, Jan. 8, 1897.

THE HONORABLE ALFRED HEBARD.*

BY REV. DR. WILLIAM SALTER.

Mr. Hebard was born in Windham, Connecticut, May 10, 1811; he graduated at Yale college in 1832; his favorite studies were in civil engineering. After teaching in New Jersey, and in New London, Connecticut, he came to what was Wisconsin Territory in 1837, and opened and thoroughly im proved a large farm ten miles west of Burlington, a few miles beyond where Governor Chambers, the second governor of Iowa Territory, afterwards made his home. He has given a vivid description of those primitive days in his article on "The Border War Between Iowa and Missouri" (1840) in the first volume of this series of THE ANNALS, p. 651. Governor Lucas had commissioned him to raise a military company for that "war."

Mr. Hebard was present at the treaty with the Sac and Fox Indians, October 11, 1842, in which they ceded to the United States all the lands up to that time in their possession, retaining the occupancy of a portion until May 1, 1843, and of that west of a line running due north and south from the Painted or Red Rocks on the White Breast fork of the Des Moines river three years longer. "The large amount of land thus, acquired," in the language of Mr. Hebard, "has developed a food-producing, life-sustaining capacity unsurpassed by any tract of like extent on the face of the earth." At that treaty he served by appointment of Governor Chambers, with Mr. Arthur Bridgman, at that time a merchant of Burlington, afterwards of Keokuk, on a comimssion to examine the claims of traders against the Indians, and they adjusted claims to the amount of more than a quarter of a million of dollars. His article on that "Treaty and Its Negotiations,' in the first volume of THE ANNALS, p. 397, gives the testi

* A fine half-tone portrait of Mr. Hebard appeared in The Annals for January, 1895, page 651.