History of the 1889 South Dakota Constitution.

• Author: Garry, Patrick M.

1. INTRODUCTION

   This Article presents a narrative history of the formation of the 1889 South Dakota Constitution. It focuses on events pertaining to the three constitutional conventions preceding the ratification of the 1889 Constitution. This Article does not address the many subsequent amendments to the South Dakota Constitution, including the amendments instigated by the Constitutional Revision Commission established in 1969.

   1. THE PURSUIT OF STATEHOOD

   1. The Dakota Territory

      President Buchanan signed the bill that established the Dakota Territory on March 2, 1861. (1) Within this territory were included the present states of North and South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The first territorial legislature convened on March 17, 1862 in Yankton, chosen as the first territorial capital over Sioux Falls, an older town, and Vermillion, the largest town in Dakota. (2)

      After the creation of the Dakota Territory, the federal government, being preoccupied with the war, paid relatively little attention to it. (3) Congress, however, subsequently created the Idaho Territory, which included the current states of Wyoming and Montana, leaving the Dakota Territory with just the current states of North and South Dakota. (4) In 1864, Montana was organized as its own territory and Wyoming rejoined the Dakota Territory. (5) Then, again in 1869, Wyoming was separated and organized as its own territory. (6) The last change made to the Dakota Territory occurred in 1882, when a small area was carved away from the territory along the Niobrara River and ceded to Nebraska.

      As soon as there was sufficient population, the settlers in the Dakota Territory began taking steps to achieve statehood. (7) After 1868, efforts intensified toward the admission of Dakota, either as a single state or two different states. (8)

      During the Great Dakota Boom of 1878 to 1887, the population in both northern and southern Dakota grew significantly, which in turn further intensified the movement for division. Spanning the years 1880 to 1884, settlers in the Dakota Territory increased a quarter of a million. (9) Many of these settlers ended up in the James River Valley area. (10) Mapmakers also experienced difficulty maintaining revised maps due to increased railroad construction. (11) The railroad was an instrumental factor in creating the State of South Dakota. (12) From 1872 to 1880, seven hundred miles of railway were added, with construction during the following four years increasing even more. (13) This construction activity fueled conjecture over town sites and disputes concerning county seat locations. (14)

      As the population in the territory increased, and to accommodate the growth of population in the northern and central sections of Dakota, debate ensued over moving the capital. (15) When the territorial legislature met in Yankton in January of 1883, a capital commission of nine persons was charged with finding a new location. (16) This process was accompanied by much political infighting and scheming, and as a result, the commissioners disagreed over a suitable location for the capital in the central or southern part of the territory. (17)

      The eventual selection of Bismarck as the new capital outraged people in the southern counties. (18) A lot of blame and criticism regarding the move was focused on the ever-controversial Governor Ordway. (19) To secure the transfer of the capital to Bismarck, Governor Ordway had engaged in much political deal-making with potential opponents of the move--deal-making that included establishing a number of educational and other territorial institutions in the hometowns of various legislatures who in turn promised to vote for the transfer. (20)

      Not only had Governor Ordway made numerous political deals so as to locate the capital at Bismarck, but he had also vetoed a bill calling for a constitutional convention for southern Dakota. Many southern county residents viewed the Governor as a corrupt and deceitful politician. (21) This led the forces for statehood to intensify their activities as an opposition to Governor Ordway, who was perceived as an agent for outside interests. (22) Indeed, outside interests often preferred a territorial system of government because their influence in Washington gave them more power to control appointments to the territorial government. (23)

      After the move of the capital from Yankton to Bismarck, the anti-Ordway movement accelerated, as did the campaign for separate statehood. Intensifying their efforts to guarantee separate statehood for the southern half, the residents of the southern counties pushed to divide the territory (24) At a meeting in Huron in June of 1883, the delegates, without the approval of the territorial legislature, voted to hold a constitutional convention in Sioux Falls in September. The delegates also expressed opposition to Ordway's actions during the previous legislative session, calling for Ordway to be penalized for seeking to influence legislators by means of veto threats, political promises, or removal from political office. These concerns were later incorporated into the constitution when South Dakota became a state in 1889.

      Another important motive for statehood was the desire to preserve the school lands and insulate them from the kind of corruption seen in the territorial government. (25) "The school lands consisted of two sections in every ... township, set [aside] by the United States government for the creation of a ... public school ..." system, to be permanently funded by the proceeds of the sale of those lands. (26) However, because of the rush of settlers and the increasing scarcity of good land, many school lands were occupied illegally by squatters. Trespassers had even begun cutting down timber on those lands. (27) Consequently, General Beadle felt that these sections would be lost unless a state constitution imposed a minimum monetary value on those lands so that they would not be sold at too low a price. (28) After witnessing the eastern states divest their school lands at such a low price, Beadle resolved that such a result not happen in South Dakota. (29)

      At the time, land was generally valued at less than ten dollars an acre. Fearing that land speculators might buy the school lands at a nominal price and then resell them later for a higher price, Beadle believed that the safety of the school lands depended on the admission of South Dakota as a state. (30) He advocated for a clause in the state constitution prohibiting the sale of school land for less than ten dollars an acre. (31) In this way, Beadle merged together the issues of statehood and school lands. (32)

      An obstacle to South Dakota's drive to statehood involved national politics. The national elections of 1882 had produced a Democratic House of Representatives, but by that time, the southern half of Dakota had become a strong Republican territory. (33) Almost eighty percent of the population was Republican. (34) The opposition to South Dakota statehood in Washington, D.C., therefore, stemmed largely from the resistance of a Democratic Congress to admit a state that was certain to send two more Republicans to the United States Senate. As a result, the congressional debate on the issue of statehood rested almost entirely on a partisan basis. (35)

      However, the arguments against statehood were oftentimes not framed in such blatantly partisan terms. For instance, opposition forces led by Senator Vest of Missouri argued that the Dakota Territory should not be divided into two different states, that there were other states in the Union with even larger landmasses. They argued "that the movement for division was entirely political--division would mean more jobs for the local politicians." (36) As Vest argued:

      There is not upon this continent a more homogenous tract of territory than the territory of Dakota. It is homogenous in climate, homogenous in soil, homogenous in population. There is no line of mountains, there is no river, there is nothing to divide them except political ambition and personal rivalry. (37) In reply, a leading advocate for South Dakota statehood, Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, argued, "It is a disgraceful thing to say upon the floor of the Senate to 300,000 American citizens living in the Territory of Dakota that they should not be admitted to statehood because the prevailing opinion was Republican." (38)

      In addition to a Democratic Congress, Democrat Grover Cleveland won the presidency in 1884. Cleveland then appointed Louis Church as the only Democratic governor in the history of the territory. (39) Governor Church opposed the division of Dakota Territory into two separate states, favoring the admission of Dakota Territory as a single state. Because of this stand, residents in the southern part of the territory tried to impeach him. (40)

      Aside from national politics, another hindrance to statehood involved a dispute over the Yankton County railroad bonds. Yankton County, which had sold bonds to eastern investors in the early 1870s, had not paid interest on those bonds. (41) In a suit that reached the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court declared that Yankton County, which had tried to repudiate the bonds, must pay its creditors. (42) When the county commissioners refused to do so, eastern creditors, assisted by the territorial legislature, petitioned Congress to withhold statehood for southern Dakota until the railroad bond issue was settled. (43) The Republican leader, Senator Hale of Maine, persuasively argued, "the people of Dakota have not yet shown themselves capable of self-government unrestrained by federal supervision." (44)

      The obstacles to statehood for South Dakota largely disappeared when Benjamin Harrison won the presidential election of 1888, beating Grover Cleveland. President Harrison had been a strong supporter of statehood for South Dakota during his time as senator from Indiana. At the same time, the Republican...