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A History Of The Constitution Of Minnesota
A History Of The Constitution Of Minnesota Author:William Anderson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE TERRITORY OF MINNESOTA I. The Passage Of The Organic Act. The first bill to organize the territory of Minnesota, as has been related, was intr... more »oduced prematurely into Congress in 1846 by Morgan L. Martin, the delegate from Wisconsin.1 The next effort was put forth early in 1848 when Senator Douglas brought in a similar bill. This proposal proving unsatisfactory, at Douglas's own request it was recommitted to his committee, reconsidered, amended, and brought in again, too late for further action that summer.2 The beginning of the next session found the matter again before Congress. To Minnesotans the need was more urgent than ever, but Congress took its usual deliberate course. On January 18, the day on which the House voted down an appropriation for "Wisconsin Territory," the bill came up for brief debate in the Senate.8 A more extended discussion followed the next day. There was no studied opposition to the bill. True, there were some ominous rumblings from one southern senator to the effect that the creation of new territories in the northwest was detrimental to the "particular interests" of his section, but even among the southern members the consensus was that Minnesota should not be left without laws and that if the population were large enough, a territorial organization should be set up. The bill passed the Senate on the same day without a record vote. In the House the bill fell upon evil days. It devolved upon Sibley to urge its adoption in the face of a hostile Whig majority. Not until February 22, after a fruitless attempt ten days earlier, was he able to procure a suspension of the rules, discharging the committee of the whole on the state of the Union from consideration of the bill, so that it could be taken up directly by the House.4 He at once...« less