doubled in 1856." It took but a few days or weeks for these new Minnesotans, after alighting from their steamers, to supply themselves with the necessary goods at rising towns like St. Paul, and to set their faces westward through the woods and openings to the promised lands. The whole country was in a natural glow of confidence, attended by the energetic bustle of rising towns and industries, the opening of roads, and the clearing and planting of the land. On the crest of this wave of prosperity, Minnesotans were prepared for anything that was big and new-schools, new towns, railroads, and statehood.

How powerful was the movement for statehood, and how soon it would have spurred reluctant politicians to action are matters not now capable of determination. Public opinion does not seem to have been much worked up over the question at any time. As late as the summer of 1856 there was very little space devoted to the question even in leading St. Paul papers. The politicians and the interests they represented were entirely awake to the situation, however. Statehood must come sooner or later. But before statehood, there must be a division of the territory-that was conceded; and upon the particular mode of division depended the location of the capital and other state institutions, the prosperity of the towns affected, and the value of town lots.

A little explanation of the problem of dividing the territory is required. Minnesota territory, extending as it did to the Missouri and White Earth. rivers at the west, had almost exactly twice the area of the present state, or approximately 166,000 square miles. Within this great area were to be found fertile, rolling uplands in the south, a fine stretch of hardwood forests in the east central and central portions, a great northeastern triangle of evergreen timber, the fertile valley of the Red River of the North in the north central region (a splendid reach of land full of streams and lakes), and beyond that the higher, grassy and almost treeless lands extending to the Missouri and White Earth rivers. In the southeastern corner of this great region agriculture had gained a sure foothold as early as 1854. Lumbering was already the established industry up the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers. There were rumors, also, of great coal and mineral resources not yet discovered in the north. Within this extensive region, so full of undeveloped resources, lay rivers and harbors which would ultimately give its people access by water to the east via the Great Lakes, to the Canadian north, and to the south.

It was very clear, however, that Congress would never consent to the admission of this imperial domain as a single state. Members of Congress from the North were inclined to create as many northern states as possible

Folwell, Minnesota, p. 121.

7 Robinson, Early Econ. Cond. and the Devel. of Agri. in Minn., p. 43.

to maintain the balance in the Senate with the South. Wisconsin had come in with only 54,000 square miles, Iowa with 56,000, and Illinois with 56,000, to speak of only the more immediate neighbors of Minnesota. Minnesota territory, with 166,000 square miles, would make three states of this average size. It was to be expected, therefore, that at least two would have to be created. The question early presented itself as to whether, when Minnesota came to apply for admission as a state, it should ask for a north and south or an east and west division of the territory.

This important question came to be freighted with a great deal of sectional and personal hostility in 1856 and 1857. From early territorial days the small triangle of land between the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers, including the towns of Stillwater, St. Paul, and St. Anthony had maintained a commercial and a political predominance in the territory. Up to 1855 it probably contained the bulk of the population, and in consequence it controlled the legislature and the territorial delegate to Congress. It had contrived to locate the great public institutions of the future, the university, the capitol, and the prison, at St. Anthony, St. Paul, and Stillwater, respectively. These institutions meant much to the prosperity of the towns concerned.

The greater number of the immigrants of 1855 and 1856 settled on the "treaty lands" west of the Mississippi, between the northern boundary of Iowa and the Minnesota river. Many of these settlers must have come part of the way west with the great stream of immigration then setting in toward Kansas. They came, moreover, from the same regions, from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the old Northwest. In their political views they seem to have been, or soon to have become, Republicans. What must have been their dismay upon taking up their residence in southern Minnesota, to find how isolated and impotent they were politically. The territory was under the control of the "Moccasin Democracy" of Stillwater, St. Paul, St. Anthony, and the north. Under the apportionment of 1855, which had been made just at the commencement of the great influx already mentioned, there was no possibility of southern Minnesota attaining equality of representation. The capitol at St. Paul was almost inaccessible to the southern population at certain seasons of the year. It was easy under the circumstances to imagine all sorts of political trickery going on at the capital. Men living in southern Minnesota did not have to be Republicans to grow suspicious of St. Paul; many undoubtedly joined the Republican party because it promised early to be strong enough to break the power of the St. Paul-Stillwater region, the stronghold of the territorial Democracy. Many people in southern Minnesota wanted to see some of the federal

Moran, in Minn. Hist. Col., 8:148-49.

The Indian treaties which opened up the lands west of the Mississippi to settlement were negotiated in 1851 and 1852. Minn. in Three Cen., 2:291-324.

appropriations spent in their own region, west of the Mississippi. They wanted the capital more accessible and the government closer to their homes. Another element in the general situation must not be neglected, namely, the great need of railroads and the hopes of a congressional land grant for that purpose. Early in the history of the territory, before the federal government had adopted a settled policy of giving public lands for railroad building, there had been talk of railroads in Minnesota to connect Lake Superior with the Mississippi and to link up the navigable waters of the upper Mississippi with those of the Red River of the North.10 To the people in southern Minnesota, however, newcomers from the east and farmers who must rely on the east for markets, the great object came to be to get direct rail connections with Chicago. They had no great interest in any projects to connect them with St. Paul and the north, particularly if they could bring about a division of the territory which would enable them in a few years to deprive that city of the capitol. Plans were therefore formed by them for railroads connecting with the lines to Chicago at points on the lower river like Winona, and running thence westward through the agricultural regions of the southern part of the territory. It is not unlikely that they favored and supported the plans discussed in Congress in 1856 for the Pacific railroad.

The people of the St. Paul region had entirely different plans. They wished a system of railroads centering in St. Paul and St. Anthony, consolidating the entire Minnesota region by giving all parts of the territory direct access to these two towns by rail, as they already had it by water via the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, and connecting with the eastern lines at some point near Stillwater only after passing through both of the other towns. Mr. Rice is reported to have opposed the Pacific railroad bill of 1856. He "refused to sanction any routes not calculated to benefit actual settlements, and to consolidate the flourishing settlements which have sprung up over your territory." At about the same time his organ, the Pioneer and Democrat, argued cogently that any railroad to the north Pacific coast ought to be routed through St. Paul.12 Thus was the issue joined between southern Minnesota and the St. Paul region.

Hoping to take advantage of this sectional feeling, a group of clever and ambitious men laid plans both daring and comprehensive. One of these men was Governor Gorman who, though a Democrat, had not been able to get on harmoniously with the party leaders in St. Paul, and who had, therefore, no great attachment to the place. Other members were drawn from various parts of the territory, but principally from the southern counties. At one time or another Joseph Rolette and other leaders from the far north worked in harmony with this group. A combination of north and south

10 Minn in Three Cen., 4:337 ff.; Minn. Hist. Col., 15:3-4.

11 Pioneer and Democrat, Jan. 26, 1857. The reporter was Ben. Perley Poore. 12 Ibid., Jan. 14, 1857.

against the central region was at one time foreshadowed, but did not fully materialize. Undoubtedly the foundation of common interest was too

narrow.

The essential elements in the plan to deprive St. Paul, St. Anthony, and Stillwater of their predominant position were somewhat as follows: First, to get the people to express a preference for an east and west division of the territory at about 46° north latitude, the southern portion to extend to the Missouri river. Second, with this much accomplished the scheme appears to have been to present a bill for the organization of the southern portion as a state. St. Paul and its neighboring cities would thus be left in the far northeastern corner of the state, or might even be left out altogether, as some proposed to draw the lines. In either case, in or out, St. Paul would be deprived of its political predominance, for under a new apportionment southern Minnesota would get a large increase of representation, while by the division of the territory the Democracy of St. Paul would lose the support of the constituencies of the upper Mississippi and the Red river valleys. This much accomplished, the constitutional convention itself, or the legislature, could proceed to the third step, that of removing the capital to a more central location in the state. St. Peter was the town selected for the honor. Rounding out the entire plan was the proposal to get at the same time, or as soon as possible after the creation of the new state, a grant of federal lands for the building of a system of railroads to run primarily east and west through the state, beginning at Winona and other down-river towns, and running west to the Missouri river, with a junction of several of the lines at or near St. Peter. In all things, Winona and St. Peter were to be preferred to the group of rival towns farther north.

2. THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF 1856. Whether the plan here outlined had been fully formulated by the time the legislature met in January, 1856, is not clear, for, indeed, the whole plan is somewhat vague and appears rather as a growth or an evolution than as a sharply defined plan of action. It is very likely, however, that it was in the making even before 1856. Governor Gorman was already at swordspoints with Rice and the other Democratic leaders in St. Paul, but if he had actually joined forces with the east- and west-line group, he concealed his intentions very cleverly in his annual message. In one part of it he did, indeed, remark in passing that "The people of Minnesota must, at no very distant day, expect to be admitted into the Union as a State," but in an earlier passage in the same message he said: "I trust I shall be pardoned if, in this connection, [the population, resources, and prosperity of the territory] I suggest the propriety and public policy of our remaining a territory for a few years, without manifesting too much eagerness to assume the mantle of state sovereignty. Our progress is rapid,