TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD
In his message of January, 1853, Governor Ramsey had prophesied a
population of more than half a million in ten years. Governor Gorman,
in a message three years later, figuring on an increase of 114 per
cent. in the previous year, advised the legislature that they might
expect a population of 343,000 in two years, and 750,000 one year later.
In the course of that year the newspapers began to discuss the question
of statehood, and when the legislature of 1857 assembled, Governor
Gorman’s proposition to call a convention without awaiting the
initiative of Congress received early consideration. A bill to provide
for a census and a constitutional convention was passed by large
majorities in both houses, but seems to have been lost by the enrolling
committee of the council, and was not presented for executive approval.
Pending action on this bill the houses passed a memorial to Congress
praying for an enabling act. Delegate Rice, much too enterprising a
politician to neglect his duty to constituents desirous of statehood,
early in the session of 1857 had introduced a bill to enable the people
of Minnesota to organize as a state and come into the Union. Besides a
little pleasantry about the formation of a sixth state in part out of
the old Northwest Territory, while the ordinance of 1787 had provided
for five only, there was no opposition to the bill in the House. It
found, however, a hard road to travel in the Senate. The ostensible
ground of opposition was that the bill allowed white inhabitants of the
territory, aliens and all, to vote for delegates to the convention. An
amendment to confine the suffrage to citizens of the United States
prevailed by a close vote on a late day in February. In this amendment
it was known the House would not concur, and the opposition were
content. A reconsideration was obtained, however, by the friends of the
bill, and a long debate followed, in the course of which the actual
ground of opposition was revealed. The “equilibrium of the Senate” was
threatened, and might be destroyed by the senators the new state should
elect. Regret was expressed that Iowa and Wisconsin had been admitted
as states, and one senator revived a letter of Gouverneur Morris in
which that statesman denied the right of Congress to admit new states
on territory acquired after the adoption of the constitution.
The alien suffrage amendment, however, was rescinded, and the bill as
it came from the House passed by a vote of 31 to 22; every negative
vote came from south of Mason and Dixon’s line. It may be conjectured
that the object of the Minnesota legislature in nursing along its bill
to form a state government without an enabling act of Congress was to
let Congress know that its action was not indispensable.
The enabling act as passed February 26, 1857, was in the form which had
become traditional, and embodied the usual grants of public lands for
schools, a university, and public buildings. The boundaries of the
proposed state were those of the territory except that on the west,
which was drawn in from the Missouri River to the line of the Red, thus
reducing the area about one half. Revised computations give Minnesota
84,287 square miles, or about 54,000,000 acres.
The act provided for an election of delegates to a convention on the
first Monday in June, under the existing election laws of the
territory. An ambiguous clause authorizing the election of “two
delegates for each representative,” according to the apportionment for
representatives to the territorial legislature, ignoring councilors as
such, became the occasion of trouble. The Minnesota legislature, in an
act of May 23, appropriating $30,000 for the expenses of the
convention, provided that each council district should have two
delegates, and each representative district also two. The number of
delegates was thus fixed at 108, instead of 68.
Governor Gorman on April 27 called a special session of the legislature
to take any necessary action regarding the coming convention, and to
dispose of a railroad land grant which Congress had made. This will
engage attention later. Governor Gorman, however, did not officially
survive to coöperate in the making of the state constitution. Mr. Rice,
warmly attached to President Buchanan, who had come into office in
March, would, it was well known, secure Governor Gorman’s early
retirement to private life. They had not been of much comfort to one
another in railroad and other matters. Governor Gorman resigned, and
was succeeded by the Hon. Samuel Medary of Ohio, who had done good
party service through his newspaper and otherwise. He was a gentleman
of excellent character, but remained in Minnesota too short a time to
identify or even acquaint himself with her people and interests.
The Whigs had never been strong in the territory, nor well organized.
The “Moccasin Democracy” had become habituated to control, and expected
indefinite enjoyment of official emoluments. The passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska bill by Congress on May 26, 1854, rudely disturbed this
pleasant dream. A new party of protest against the introduction and
maintenance of African slavery in the territories, under active
national protection, sprang into being. A Republican convention met in
St. Paul, July 28, 1855, adopted a platform, and nominated candidates
for territorial offices. It also nominated the leader of the movement,
William R. Marshall, to succeed Mr. Rice as delegate to Congress. Mr.
Rice had too many electors personally attached to himself to be beaten.
It has been thought, however, that Marshall might have won but for a
“prohibition” plank in the platform, which lost him the German vote. At
the election of 1856 the Republicans obtained a working majority in the
lower house of the legislature to meet in the following winter. As the
day drew on for the election of delegates to the convention both
parties were anxious about the result. The Democrats held on to the
hope of recovering control; the Republicans were none too confident
that they could hold their slight balance of power. The issue was
declared by the leading Democratic newspaper to be “White Supremacy
_versus_ Nigger Equality.” The vote was unexpectedly light, and the
results were not clearly decisive. In a few districts “councilor”
delegates had been distinguished on the ballots from “representative”
delegates; in most cases they had not. In the St. Anthony district the
canvassing officer gave certificates of election to Republican
candidates who had received fewer votes than the Democratic, on the
ground that the Democratic ballots had not distinguished the nominees
for councilor and representative delegates.
The control of the convention would, it was maintained, depend on the
action of the committee on credentials to be appointed by the presiding
officer. To capture the “organization” became the object of each of the
nearly balanced parties. It chanced that the enabling act had not
specified the hour for the assemblage of the convention. The excited
and suspicious leaders were unable to agree informally. To make sure of
being on hand the Republican delegates repaired to the capitol late on
the Sunday night preceding the first Monday in June, and remained
there, as one of them phrased it, “to watch and pray for the Democratic
brethren.” These did not appear till a few moments before twelve
o’clock noon of the appointed day. Immediately upon their entrance in a
body into the representatives’ hall Charles L. Chase, secretary of the
territory and a delegate, proceeded to the speaker’s desk and called to
order. At the same moment John W. North, a Republican delegate,
designated by his colleagues, called to order. A motion to adjourn was
made by Colonel Gorman, and the question was taken by Chase, who
declared it carried. The Democrats left the hall to the Republicans,
who proceeded to organize the convention. Fifty-six delegates presented
credentials in proper form and took their oaths to support the
constitution of the United States.
At noon of Tuesday the Democratic delegates assembled about the door of
the hall, and, finding it occupied by citizens who refused to give them
place, met in the adjacent council chamber and proceeded to organize
the convention. Henry H. Sibley was made chairman, on motion of Joseph
R. Brown, and later became president of the body. From that day till
the close of their labors, August 28, the two conventions sat apart.
St. Anthony was represented by six delegates in each, so that the whole
number participating was one hundred and fourteen. Their proceedings,
published in separate volumes, show a commendable diligence in
business. An undue amount of time was given to oratory in defense of
the legitimacy of the respective moieties.
As the delegates had for examples the constitutions of all the states
carved out of the Northwest Territory, and in particular of the very
recent ones of Wisconsin and Iowa, the task of framing the various
articles was not burdensome. Most of them were adopted, with little or
no debate, as reported from the standing committees. The Republicans
refused by a two-thirds vote to tolerate negro suffrage. A proposition
to submit to Congress the division of the existing territory by an east
and west line on the latitude of 45° 15′, or 45° 30′, was much
discussed in both bodies. It was so much favored by the Republicans
that a change of three votes would have given it a majority. The
Democrats, attached to St. Paul and strong in the northern counties,
gave the scheme slight support.
The absurdity of the situation was apparent, but pride restrained both
bodies from taking a first move towards coalescence. At length on the
8th of August Judge Sherburne, a member of the Democratic convention,
highly respected by Republicans as well, proposed the appointment of
conferees to report a plan of union. The venerable jurist saw his
resolution indefinitely postponed, after a debate abounding in heroic
rhetoric. Two days after, the Republicans passed a preamble and
resolutions in the exact terms of those of Judge Sherburne and sent
them to President Sibley. A select committee, headed by Gorman, advised
that no communication could be entertained which questioned the legal
status of the Democratic body. The report was unanimously adopted.
By this time the Republican delegates had found themselves at a certain
disadvantage, from which relief was to many very desirable. The
Democratic treasurer of the territory had refused to honor their pay
accounts, and they were serving the public at their own expense.
Doubtless from extraneous overtures made by them, the two bodies on the
morning of August 18 adopted resolutions to appoint conferees. These
were immediately named and began their duties. By this time all the
necessary articles had been drafted, and as both bodies had drawn from
the same sources the conference committee had an easy task. Those
wrought out by the Democratic delegates, who were the older and more
experienced men, were chiefly adopted. When Judge Sherburne on August
27 laid before the Democratic convention the report of the conferees,
with the comforting assurance that it was composed of the Democratic
material “almost altogether,” the chair was obliged to exercise no
little firmness to restrain a turbulent opposition. A test vote showed
a majority of more than three fourths for adoption. The final vote went
over.
The next morning, August 28, both bodies agreed to the report without
amendment. There was some resistance in the Republican end, but it gave
way when a leader assured the dissentients that they had a dose to
swallow, and they might as well shut their eyes and open their mouths
and take it. Two copies were made of the one constitution thus agreed
to, one of which was signed by the officers and members of each body
respectively. The Republican manuscript remains in the state archives.
Joseph R. Brown expressed the opinion that the split into two bodies
had been economical. Had the convention met in one body, the orators by
their revilings and vituperations would have prolonged the session till
the end of the year and the expenses would have been doubled. Spite of
the generous endeavor of this delegate, the Democrats refused to agree
that the Republicans should draw their pay. A subsequent legislature
provided for them. Both parties were quite content with the
constitution; the Democrats for what they had conserved, the
Republicans for germs of future development.
* * * * *
The boom period which culminated in 1857 was nowhere more exuberant
than in Minnesota. The swelling tide of population of the previous two
years had brought in a body of speculators who presently gorged
themselves with the unearned increments of land and town lot values.
The whole population caught the fever and bought for the expected rise.
The country people found ready sale for produce in the growing towns,
and the merchants profited by their prosperity. The resulting elation
and extravagance were at no time more abounding than in the closing
days of the constitutional convention.
It was the 24th of August when the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance
and Trust Company of New York precipitated the liquidation of
incredibly multiplied credits in the East. A week later the tardy mails
brought the news to St. Paul, and nowhere in the country did the panic
strike with greater violence. The little money, real and promissory,
sank out of sight. Deposits ceasing, the banks suspended. Eastern
exchange rose to ten per cent. Assignments, foreclosures, attachments,
and executions made law practice the only profitable pursuit. The horde
of speculators who had infested the towns and villages abandoned their
holdings and made their escape. According to J. Fletcher Williams, the
lamented historian of St. Paul, that city lost fifty per cent. of its
population. From the crest of a high wave of fancied opulence, the new
state was thus suddenly plunged into a deep trough of adversity and
despondence; and it was a long day before she rose to the level of
normal prosperity.
The keenest of all disappointments was the postponement of railroad
building. A score or more of chartered companies could not borrow
enough ready cash to pay for their surveys. A generous congressional
act of 1857, engineered by Delegate Rice, had made the Minnesotians of
all classes joyous. That act bestowed on the territory and expectant
state a grant of public lands equal to nearly a ninth of its whole
area, to aid in the building of railroads. It is probable that this
benefaction was all the more willingly bestowed because the territory
had three years before been deprived of a noble grant by no fault of
her own. The act did not convey the lands to the state, but made the
state a trustee for four different railroad “interests” each aspiring
to build its portion of a system of roads coextensive with the state.
The legislature of 1857, in the extra session already mentioned,
accepted the trust created by the congressional grant, recognized the
four companies to construct each its part of the system, and pledged to
each its allotted lands as they should be earned by the completion of
successive twenty-mile stretches of road. With a bird in the bush the
Minnesota people were childishly happy. They saw a thousand miles of
railway as good as built, spreading population far and wide and
carrying the produce of an empire to waiting markets.
It was a good fortune for the territory that the organic law gave it no
power to run in debt. It was equally unfortunate that a corporation
created by it could and did run in debt. In the same February of 1851
in which Delegate Sibley secured from Congress the reservation of the
two townships of land to endow a university, the Minnesota legislature
created the University of Minnesota, to be located at or near St.
Anthony’s Falls. The act provided for a board of twelve regents to be
elected by the legislature in joint session, in classes for six-year
terms. The gentlemen immediately elected, among them Sibley, Ramsey,
Rice, North, and Marshall, commanded, as they deserved, the confidence
of the people. The board organized on the last day of May, 1851, and
resolved to open a preparatory department as soon as possible. One of
their number, Franklin Steele, gave a bunch of lots in St. Anthony’s
Falls near the site of the well-known Winslow Hotel, later occupied by
the Northwestern Industrial Exposition building; others subscribed
money; and a few books were thrown in to be the nucleus of the library.
In a wooden building 30 by 50 feet, two stories and a basement, the
preparatory school was opened on November 26. It continued a useful
existence till the close of 1854. By this time the regents, among whom
there had been changes of personnel, became desirous to open the
“university proper.” In that year they had located through competent
experts several thousand acres of the lands reserved by Congress on the
best pine in the Stillwater district. The lands they could not sell,
but they did despoil them by selling the “stumpage,” and used the money
as collected for university purposes. They bought the heart of the
present campus, twenty-five acres, more or less, for $6000, paying cash
$1000 and giving their notes for the remainder. The stumpage receipts
were too small and came in too slowly to warrant large expenditures for
development. On February 28, 1856, the legislature authorized the
regents to borrow $15,000 on twelve per cent. bonds secured by mortgage
on the campus; $5000 to pay the balance due on the campus, $10,000 for
a building. In August of the same year the board, much deteriorated by
a late election, voted by a majority of one to close a contract for a
building to cost $49,000, to be completed within eighteen months. When
a year later, almost to a day, the panic struck, the building was
nearly complete and large sums were due the contractors. The sales of
pine stopped and collections for previous sales ceased. The concern was
bankrupt and so remained for nearly a decade. A paragraph of the state
constitution, retained against no slight opposition, confirmed the
location of the university and devolved all university lands and
endowments then existing or to be thereafter granted on the “University
of Minnesota.”
The closing year of Minnesota’s territorial existence was diversified
by an Indian butchery, horrible indeed in its immediate incidents, but
especially noteworthy for its contribution to later atrocities. For
many years a renegade band of the Wah-pé-ku-te tribe of the Sioux had
wandered in the Missouri valley under the leading of one Inkpaduta
(Scarlet Point). In the spring of 1857 these Indians were hunting in
northwestern Iowa, and on March 6 or 7 fell upon the little settlement
of Spirit Lake in Henderson County, murdered some forty persons, as
estimated, and carried four women into captivity. Marching on the
little hamlet of Springfield, some fifteen miles to the north, in
Martin County, Minnesota, they found but few victims, because a refugee
from Spirit Lake had arrived before them. The news of these outrages
did not reach Agent Flandrau at the Lower Sioux agency till the 18th.
Upon his requisition, Captain Alexander Bee, commanding the little
garrison at Fort Ridgely, with his company of infantry, led a lively
but fruitless pursuit of Inkpaduta, who had gone off to the Missouri.
It was well understood that so long as the miscreant held the four
women, no punishment could be inflicted on him. In May two young
annuity Sioux, who had been hunting westward, brought one of the women
(Mrs. Markle) into the agency. They had bought her with their horses
and guns, and asked $500 each as reward, which Agent Flandrau and
Missionary Riggs paid, half in cash and half in a promissory bond of
extraordinary character which the traders cashed. This generosity had
its intended effect to call out volunteers for the rescue of the other
captives. Two capable Christian Sioux were selected, furnished with
transportation and plenty of Indian goods and sent out. After six days’
march they came upon the dead body of one of the women, and presently
learned that another had been put to death. In a camp of Yanktons they
found the fourth, Miss Gardiner, and bought her for two horses, seven
blankets, two kegs of powder, a box of tobacco, and some trinkets. Only
one half of the $10,000 appropriated by the Minnesota legislature was
needed to cover the cost of these rescues.
The Indian authorities, local and national, now resolved to visit
Inkpaduta with just punishment, and decided upon the plan of enlisting
volunteers among the annuity Sioux to pursue and capture the scoundrel
and his band. Few or none offered themselves. Summer came on and 5000
Indians had gathered about the agencies for the annual payment. A
number of councils were held, in the course of which the agent
threatened to withhold the payments until Inkpaduta had been brought
in. This threat had some effect, but presents of blankets and
provisions had more. At length, on the 22d of July, an expedition of
106 Indians and four half-breeds was started for the James River
country. It returned August 3, bringing two women and a child as
prisoners, but no Inkpaduta. In vain did Major Cullen, superintendent
of Indian affairs for the territory, who had come to the Sioux
agencies, insist that Inkpaduta should be brought in, and by the
Indians themselves, and declare that there would be no payment of
money, goods, or provisions till the murderers should be in his hands.
The Sioux, although by this time on the verge of starvation, would not
stir. They were sullen and defiant. A special agent sent from
Washington advised the superintendent to make believe that the Indians
had done all they could, and might therefore be paid off. It was late
in September when the Indians got their money and goods and marched off
to their fall hunts. They had had their way with the agents of the
Great Father, and suspected that he was not so powerful as they had
been told he was. He had not been able to run down Inkpaduta and his
little band. What could he do against the great Sioux nation of many
thousands?
* * * * *
The new constitution of Minnesota closed with a supplementary
“schedule” of provisions temporary in nature. All territorial rights,
actions, laws, prosecutions, and judgments were to remain in force
until proper action under state authority. All territorial officers
were to continue their duties until superseded by state authority. A
referendum of the constitution was ordered for October 13 (1857), at
which time all the officers designated by the constitution were to be
elected under the existing territorial election law. Every free white
male inhabitant of full age, who should have resided in the state for
ten days before the election, was authorized to vote. Section four of
the enabling act required the United States marshal, so soon as the
convention should have decided in favor of statehood and admission, to
take a census of the population. This was not completed during the life
(forty-two days) of the convention. It being, therefore, impracticable
to divide the state into congressional districts, it was made a single
district. In the belief that the population must be near 250,000,
provision was made for electing three representatives in Congress. The
completed census yielded the disappointingly small total of 150,037.
Governor Medary and two delegates were made a canvassing board.
While the constitution was acceptable to all, the two parties put forth
all possible effort to capture the offices. The canvass showed the vote
on the ratification of the constitution to be: Yeas, 36,240; nays, 700.
The Democrats obtained a majority of the legislators and nearly all the
state and national officers. The candidates for the governorship were
Sibley and Ramsey, the former winning by the slender majority of 240 in
a total of 35,340. The claim was made that this majority was obtained
by irregularities in making the returns, but there was no contest.
The schedule had fixed the early date of December 3 for the assemblage
of the legislature, in the expectation shared by all that within a few
days thereafter Congress would admit the new state to the Union, and
her senators and representatives elect to their seats. A half year,
however, was to run by during which Minnesota, as described by Governor
Sibley, hung like the coffin of the prophet of Islam between the
heavens and the earth. The legislature met, December 2, 1857, and in
joint convention, by the close vote of 59 to 49, decided to recognize
Mr. Medary as “governor.” In his message he recognized the body as a
state legislature. Still there was doubt about the legal status of the
houses, and there was little desire to undertake business which might
turn out to be illegitimate. The Republican members entered formal
protests against any legislation. There was, however, one bit of
business which the Democratic majority felt could not be postponed; and
that was the election of two United States senators. That was virtually
settled in caucus. Henry M. Rice, as everybody expected, was nominated
without opposition. The second place, for the short term, went, after
several ballotings, to General James Shields, who was a newcomer and
little known in Minnesota. He had served with distinction in the
Mexican War, filled many offices in his former state of Illinois, and
served a term in the Senate of the United States. It was a bitter pill
for such Democratic wheel-horses as Sibley, Brown, and Gorman to
swallow. Franklin Steele never forgave Rice for failing, as he claimed,
to throw the election to him. Shields was everybody’s second choice,
and the expectation was that his personal influence in Washington would
procure many good things for the state.
* * * * *
President Buchanan, for reasons not apparent, did not transmit the
Minnesota constitution—the Democratic version—to the Senate till near
the middle of January, 1858. A fortnight later the bill to admit was
reported from the committee on territories. The same kind of opposition
now broke out as had impeded the progress of the Minnesota enabling act
a twelvemonth before. Southern senators were loath to see a new
Northern state come in, even with a Democratic delegation awaiting
admission to both houses. They were also technical and persistent about
holding to the traditional custom of admitting states alternately slave
and free. It was the turn for a slave state to come in, and Kansas with
her infamous “Lecompton” slave constitution was knocking at the door.
To give the right of way to the “English bill” admitting Kansas,
dilatory measures were successfully resorted to. A debate covering
twenty-three pages of the “Congressional Globe” took place on the
question whether the Senate would consider the Minnesota bill. That
having been agreed to on the 24th of March, days of tedious wrangling
followed upon objections raised by opponents. The election, it was
argued, was void for frauds committed; aliens had been allowed to vote;
the still incompleted census was farcical; some assistant marshals had
destroyed the returns they should have given in; in some instances
there was not one tenth as many people found in precincts as had voted.
The right of the state to three, two, or even any representative in
Congress was questioned. Minnesota was still a territory, and
territories had no right to representation in the Senate or in the
House, except by a delegate having no vote. There had been no legal
convention, it was said, and no legitimate constitution had been
adopted by the people. The debate went on till April 8, when, the
English bill admitting Kansas having been put through the Senate, the
opposition ceased and the Minnesota bill passed with but three
dissenting votes, out of fifty-two. The palaver occupies nearly one
hundred pages of the “Globe.” The bill now went to the House, and there
the English bill stood in its way till the 4th of May. The pro-slavery
opposition at once showed itself under cover of the same objections
which had been so tediously debated in the Senate. There had been no
proper convention, the election was void for frauds, the territorial
legislature in session was presuming to act as a state legislature, and
the like. In the course of a wrangle on the matter of alien voting, a
Missouri member in a heated moment revealed the actual ground of the
opposition. He said, “I warn gentlemen of the South of the
consequences.... The whole territories of the Union are rapidly filling
up with foreigners. The great body of them are opposed to slavery. Mark
my words; if you do it, another slave state will never be formed out of
the territories of this Union.” There was also an attack on the bill
from an unexpected quarter. John Sherman of Ohio introduced a
substitute, annulling all proceedings so far had, and providing for a
new convention in Minnesota. In his speech he declared there had been
no convention, but only two mobs. The number of delegates had been
unlawfully raised from 68 to 108. All proceedings under the enabling
act, including the election of October 13, were void. A printed letter
was circulated among Republican senators and representatives from which
Mr. Sherman had evidently derived his allegations. This document came
from a Minnesota Republican source and evidenced the desire for an
entire new deal. There was ground for hope that in new elections the
Republican party might overcome the slight Democratic pluralities. This
move on the political chessboard had the effect to rally Democratic
support to the pending bill for admission of Minnesota with her waiting
delegation. A new election might change its complexion. On May 11 the
bill was passed by the vote of 157 to 38. The next day it received the
presidential approval, and Messrs. Rice and Shields, who had been
living since December at their own charges, were sworn as senators.
The Senate bill, concurred in by the House, allowed Minnesota but two
representatives. Three had been elected and had been waiting for five
months to be seated. To eliminate one of these, lots were drawn, and
George L. Becker, the best man of the three, was thrown out. The two
who had drawn the long straws filed their credentials, and the House
committee on elections informed the House that they had no knowledge of
a third representative-elect from Minnesota. Two days of ineffective
contention over the legitimacy of the elections of the lucky two,
Messrs. William W. Phelps and James M. Cavanaugh, followed. The vote to
admit stood 127 to 63. The records of debates and proceedings cover 225
columns of the “Globe,” of 1000 words each or thereabout.
During the months the Minnesota representatives had been on the anxious
bench, the delegate, W. W. Kingsbury, who had been elected on Mr.
Rice’s promotion to the Senate, had been comfortably occupying his seat
in the House. When Messrs. Phelps and Cavanaugh were sworn in, Mr.
Kingsbury did not vacate his seat, but claimed the right to represent
that part of the Territory of Minnesota west of the Red River line
excluded from the state. The Democratic majority of the committee on
elections strongly recommended that the claim be allowed, the
Republicans dissenting. The House decided that the portion of Minnesota
excluded from the state was a district without government, and not
entitled to representation in Congress. The admission of Minnesota
wrought the dissolution of the territory, a decision exactly in the
teeth of that by which Mr. Sibley had been recognized as a delegate
from the rump of Wisconsin Territory in 1848.
* * * * *
So soon as Governor Medary had approved the bill for the election of
senators he took his departure and devolved the executive upon Charles
L. Chase, the secretary of the territory. Till the middle of winter the
legislative bodies of 1857-58 were so uncertain about their legal
status that they were chary of multiplying statutes. Then there was a
change of opinion, and the members were encouraged to believe
themselves true state legislators. Their confidence so stiffened that
on the 1st of March they voted to submit to the electors an amendment
to the constitution authorizing the state officers-elect to qualify on
May 1, whether Congress should have admitted the state or not; and
appointed April 15 proximo as the day for the election. It is probably
true that railroad interests had to do with this change of heart. As
already related, the four companies to which the great congressional
land grant had been made over by the previous legislature had not been
able to borrow a dollar by hypothecation of their inchoate properties.
There were examples of state assistance in railroad building under like
circumstances, by way of lending state credit. The Minnesota companies
now asked the legislature for like aid. That body was willing enough,
but there stood in the constitution adopted, but yet awaiting approval
by Congress, a section forbidding in terms the loan of the credit of
the state in aid of any individual, association, or corporation. But
the constitution was still in the green tree; why not amend it for so
worthy a purpose? Accordingly, the accommodating houses presently
submitted a second amendment to the electors, to be voted on at the
same time as the former. This amendment added to the section forbidding
the loan of the state’s credit an exception, allowing such loan for the
purpose of facilitating railroad construction, to the amount of five
million dollars. Such was the beginning of the “five million loan”
transaction, which was not closed till near the end of the century, and
then in a manner not clearly honorable to the state. The two amendments
were passed upon by the electors on the day appointed (April 15). That
authorizing the state officers elect to enter upon their duties on May
1 received an “imposing majority,” the figures of which have not been
found. The officers elect, however, wisely took no advantage of this
provision, but awaited the admission of the state. The “five million
loan” amendment was carried by the overwhelming majority of 25,023 to
6733. It was only, as alleged, a “loan of credit.” In no conceivable
event, the people were assured, could they be taxed to pay in cash the
debt nominated in the bonds to be issued.
On May 13 the mail or a private hand brought from La Crosse, Wisconsin,
the telegraphic news of the admission of the state to the Union on the
previous day. The documentary evidence came some days later, and on the
24th the state officers elected in October, 1857, took their oaths and
proceeded to their duties. It lacked one week of nine years since
Governor Ramsey proclaimed the beginning of the territorial government.
Three days after the state officers took up their duties there took
place within an easy day’s drive of the capital the last serious
encounter of the Sioux and Chippeways on Minnesota soil. The lower
Sioux, who late in 1853 reluctantly retired to their reservations on
the upper Minnesota, were wont to return in summer weather in
straggling companies to their old homes. They were generally harmless,
and the merchants got a little profit on their trade. Shakopee and his
band of one hundred and fifty had early in the summer of 1858 come down
and gone into camp near the town which bears his name. One of his
braves, fishing in the river (the Minnesota) at an early hour, was
fired upon. Shakopee’s men instantly recognized the sound as coming
from a Chippeway gun. They gathered at Murphy’s Ferry and, presuming
that the hostile shot came from one of some very small party, they let
their women put thirty or forty of them across. They did not suspect
that back on the timbered bluff a mile distant there lay in hiding one
hundred and fifty or more Chippeway warriors who had sneaked down from
Mille Lacs through the big woods east of Minnetonka. They were wary,
however, and placed themselves in ambush in a narrow space between two
lakelets. The Chippeways, out for scalps, with a boldness unusual among
Indians, charged down from the bluff twice or more, without dislodging
the Sioux. The day was not old when they gave up the effort and
departed in haste for their homes, carrying their wounded and perhaps
some dead. Four of their corpses were left to the cruel mercies of the
Sioux, who scalped, beheaded, and otherwise mutilated them. Such was
the so-called “Battle of Shakopee,” May 27, 1858.