Three score years and ten after the declaration went forth from
Independence Hall that "all men are created equal," and fifteen years
before the great struggle that was to test whether a nation dedicated to
that proposition can long endure, Iowa, "the only free child of the
Missouri Compromise," was admitted into the Union on an equal footing
with the original States.
Profoundly significant in our political evolution are events such as
these. They are milestones in the progressive history of American
Democracy.
To search out the origin, to note the progress, to point to the causes,
and to declare the results of this marvelous popular political
development in the New World has been the ambition of our historians.
Nay more, the "American experiment" has interested the talent of Europe;
and our political literature is already enriched by De Tocqueville's
"_Democracy in America_," by von Holst's "_Constitutional and Political
History of the United States_," and by Bryce's "_American
Commonwealth_." Ever since its adoption the Constitution of the
"Fathers" has been the most popular text-book of constitution drafters
the world over.
At the same time it is strangely true that the real meaning, the
philosophical import, of this interesting political drama has
scarcely anywhere been more than suggested. A closer view reveals the
fact that all of the documents themselves have not yet been edited, nor
the narrative fully told. At present there is not a chapter of our
history that is wholly written, though the manuscript is worn with
erasures.
To be sure, Bancroft has written exhaustively of the Colonies; Fiske has
illuminated the Revolution and portrayed the "Critical Period;"
Frothingham has narrated the "Rise of the Republic;" Parkman has vividly
pictured events in the Northwest; McMaster has depicted the life of the
people; von Holst has emphasized the importance of slavery; Rhodes has
outlined more recent events; and a host of others have added paragraphs,
chapters, monographs, and volumes to the fascinating story of the
birth and development of a Democratic Nation. But where are the classics
of our local history? Who are the historians of the Commonwealths?
These questions reveal great gaps in our historical literature on the
side of the Commonwealths. Nor have the omissions passed unnoticed.
Bryce likens the history of the Commonwealths to "a primeval forest,
where the vegetation is rank and through which scarcely a trail has been
cut." And yet it is clearly evident that before the real import of
American Democracy can be divined the forest must be explored and the
underbrush cleared away.
This is not a plea for localism or particularism. On the contrary, it
suggests the possibility of a broader view of our National life. It
points to the source of our political ideals. For nothing is more
misleading than the inference that the life of our people is summed up
in the Census Reports, the Journals of Congress, and the Archives of the
Departments at Washington.
The real life of the American Nation spreads throughout forty-five
Commonwealths. It is lived in the commonplaces of the shop, the factory,
the office, the mine, and the farm. Through the Commonwealths the spirit
of the Nation is expressed. Every American community, however humble,
participates in the formation and expression of that spirit.
Thus the real significance of the Commonwealth in any philosophical
consideration depends not so much upon its own peculiar local color as
upon the place which it occupies in the life and development of the
larger National whole.
It is so with Iowa. Here within the memory of men still living a new
Commonwealth has grown to maturity, has been admitted into the Union,
and now by common consent occupies a commanding position in National
Politics. It is, moreover, from the view-point of these larger relations
that the political and constitutional history of Iowa will ultimately be
interpreted. No amount of interest in merely local incident or narration
of personal episode will suffice to indicate the import of Iowa's
political existence. He who essays to write the history of this
Commonwealth must ascend to loftier heights.
To narrate briefly the history of the Constitutions of Iowa, and therein
to suggest, perhaps, somewhat of the political ideals of the people
and the place which this Commonwealth occupies politically in the
progressive history of the larger Commonwealth of America, is the
purpose of these pages.