CHAPTER XXIV DIVISION OF THE TERRITORY The Territory of Dakota was organized by the Congress of the United States by the act of March 2, 1861. Prior to the passage of this act by Congress, a few enterprising spirits had crossed the confines of Minnesota and Iowa, and established homes along the banks of the big Sioux and Missouri rivers, and founded the cities of Sioux Falls, Vermilion and Yankton, but settlements in North Dakota were principally at Pembina, until the Northern Pacific Railroad crossed the Red River and founded the City of Moorhead on the east bank and Fargo on the west. From that time forward settlers, attracted by the liberal provisions of the homestead law, and the rich agricultural lands of the Red River Valley, poured into North Dakota in streams, and the population increased from 2,405 in 1870 to approximately one hundred and eighty thousand in 1889, when Dakota was divided on the seventh standard parallel and North Dakota admitted as a state in October, 1889. The act of Congress creating the territory is known as the "Organic Act"-it was the constitution of the territory, its charter of government. A territory is a state in a chrysalis form, and the bonds which clothe this chrysalis form are broken only with the consent of Congress. In states, all the sovereign power is in the people, but so far as a territory is concerned, the sovereign power is lodged in Congress. A territory has no original or sovereign power of legislation, all its powers are delegated by Congress, and while the people of the state may create governments with legislative, executive and judicial powers, the people of a territory cannot do so until authorized by Congress. The enterprising, virile people who had established homes in the territory had come largely from the old states, though many came from the northern states of Europe and Canada. They understood the principles upon which this government was founded, and were restive under the territorial form, regarding it as servile, and therefore intolerable. They wanted relief from the irresponsibility of appointed rulers and judges, and a voice in the selection of those who should govern them. The rapid increase in the population and material wealth demanded, as its people believed, for the promotion of their welfare and the betterment of the varied interests, a more permanent form of government than was possible under the territorial form prescribed by Congress. The division of the Territory of Dakota into two states or territories on an east and west line along the seventh standard parallel was a burning question from the creation of the territory until its consummation in 1889. Hence a brief review of the territorial days is essential to a clear understanding of the causes and Vol. I-24 influences which induced Congress to form the State of North Dakota. and admit it as a sovereign state to the Union. The Territorial Legislature of 1871 adopted a memorial to the Congress, praying for the division of the territory on the forty-sixth parallel of latitude, and similar memorials were adopted by the Legislatures of 1872, 1874, 1877. The construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad across the state to Bismarck in 1873 intensified the interest of the people in division, and from that time forward the movement. for division constantly figured in congressional annals. As early as 1873, Senator Ramsey of Minnesota introduced a bill in the United States Senate for a territory for the north half, to be known as Pembina. The bill was defeated. In 1875, Senator Windom of Minnesota introduced a bill in the United States Senate for the creation of the Territory of North Dakota, and providing a temporary government therefor. This bill was favorably reported from the committee on territories in the Senate and passed by the Senate. It went to its death in the committee of territories in the House. The question of division and admission was before every session of Congress, either by bills on division and admission, by petitions of residents of the territory, memorials of its Legislatures or by resolutions of conventions called to consider the subject, for a period of sixteen years. The real battle for division and admission began in the territorial legislative session of 1883. That assembly established a university at Grand Forks, an insane asylum at Jamestown, and a penitentiary at Bismarck. It authorized the issuance of bonds to construct necessary buildings, and provided that in the event of division, the bonds should be assumed and paid by North Dakota, and made quite liberal appropriation, in view of the financial condition of the territory, for the maintenance of these institutions for the ensuing two years. It also located an agricultural college at Fargo, but made no appropriation therefor. The location was conditioned upon the donation of a suitable site of at least forty acres by the citizens of Fargo. The condition was never complied with, and there was no agricultural college in the north half of the territory until statehood. It located the Normal School at Minto, in Walsh County, but made no appropriation therefor. That assembly also passed an act for the removal of the capital from Yankton, through a capital commission of nine persons, who were authorized and empowered to remove the capital from Yankton, and locate it at some place more convenient and accessible to the people generally. It was urged as a reason therefor that the great railroad systems which now traverse the State of South Dakota would, in the selection of a site by the Legislature, control the location to the detriment of the people, whose interests would be better safeguarded by a commission. The Legislature left the selection of the site to the judgment of the commission, but as a majority of the commission were from that part of the territory now constituting the State of South Dakota, it was assumed that some town in the central portion thereof would be selected. Some members of the Legislature who voted in favor of the law creating the commission claimed there was a passive understanding, in fact an agreement by the proponents of the measure, that the commission would select as a site for the "seat of government" the Town of Redfield, situated in nearly the central part of South Dakota, and save for this understanding the commission scheme would have been defeated. No proof of such agreement was ever forthcoming, and the |