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Office of Gov. Dennis Daugaard
500 E. Capitol Ave.
Pierre, S.D. 57501
605-773-3212
125th Anniversary Feature
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Contact: Jim Soyer at 605-773-5689 or Jim.Soyer@state.sd.us
On The Road To Dakota Statehood
By Jim Soyer
The first organized effort to separate Dakota Territory into parts occurred in 1871 when the territorial Legislature petitioned Congress for the creation of two territories with the division line being the 46th parallel.
It failed.
In 1877, a proposal to create a new territory called “Eldorado” or “Lincoln” from near the Missouri River to the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming also failed.
In 1879, General Williams Beadle began another effort to promote division and also statehood.
In 1882 and 1883, conventions were held in Canton, Huron and Sioux Falls. In spite of Territorial Gov. Nehemiah Ordway’s objections, in November, 1883, the people ratified a state constitution that had been written at the Sioux Falls meeting.
Both Ordway and the statehood promoters went to Washington and lobbied Congress.
The southern faction also attempted to remove Ordway from office after the Territorial Capital was moved from Yankton to Bismarck in 1883. But, the push for statehood was stopped.
Events of the 1880s began to solidify the notion that any division of Dakota Territory should be north and south instead of east and west as some residents preferred. But, as late as 1886, Congress considered legislation that would have created an East Dakota and a West Dakota with the division being the Missouri River.
Separate railroad systems in the north and the south, economic ties to different major eastern cities and the growth of separate systems of public institutions moved public opinion to favoring a north/south division.
The question of statehood was a very partisan issue at the local and national levels. Some Democrats wanted the continuation of territorial status to retain the power and perks of appointive office from the national Democrat administration of President Grover Cleveland. If statehood was to be approved, national Democrats hoped the Dakota Territory would be admitted as one state because the population was perceived to be largely Republican. They preferred two new Republican senators coming to Washington, D.C., from one Dakota over four coming from two Dakotas.
The same logic existed at the local level. With territorial status, most official positions were appointive and in the hands of Democrats. With statehood, most offices would be elective and probably held by Republicans.
Even though another election in 1887 showed that the people favored two states, Cleveland’s newly appointed territorial governor, Louis K. Church, continued to support statehood on the condition of admitting Dakota as one state.
Votes for one-state admission were strongest in the northern areas because future North Dakotans feared permanent territorial status if a “southern” Dakota was admitted to the Union by itself.
In a flyer, pro-divisionists argued that two smaller states would be better for the country because “the larger the state and farther the people away from the seat of legislation, the more fraud, the greater the corruption, combinations and appropriations.” They used 1880 census figures to show that larger states taxed their citizens at higher levels per capita than smaller states. They also argued that since Dakota Territory was already spending more money than the state of Wisconsin, statehood’s time had come.
The Huronite newspaper editorialized that if division didn’t occur, “future generations, eating the bitter fruits, would rise up on revolution and rebellion!” They also wrote that the possibility of Dakota being divided into four states should be explored.
Some extreme pro-divisionists argued that statehood was an immediate right that, if not granted, should be taken. They argued that the entity of Dakota was no longer a territory needing supervision from afar. They called territorial government a “miserable burden” and claimed that the territory was like a government mule with “no pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.”
They explained, “When a sufficient number of well disposed people, within proper boundaries, organize local self-government for themselves, in accord with the form and spirit of the general government of the United States, the necessity of Congressional control is gone and rightfully disregarded … the organic act is fulfilled, not defied … just a law of Congress for the erection of a building is fulfilled and falls into ity when the building is finished.”
One delegate to the 1888 Pro-Division Convention in Huron advocated that it would be entirely proper to “sit down” on the carpetbagging territorial government and establish immediately a government of the people and by the people.
But, the mainstream pro-divisionists argued against gaining admission by force and ridiculed extremists with rhetoric: “It is somewhat annoying to have men of acknowledged intelligence and patriotism put their noses down to the blood … and come howling along … but the keen enemies of every good cause find their occasional dupes who are tenfold more serviceable to them than any intentional pal.”
The rhetoric on both sides tended to be outrageous at times. For example, one chauvinistic argument claimed that the Dakota frontier women should support statehood because “pioneer life is even more grievous to women than to men, and especially to American women, bred to pleasant surroundings of the old homes in the states, and transferred to the treeless prairies and frequently flowerless gardens of the far northwest.”
The assumption seemed to be that statehood would instantly change the Dakota environment. What they forgot was that most Dakota women had worked just as hard or harder than their men to clear the land, plant crops, fight droughts and contend with the difficulties of frequent pregnancies. Dakota females had proven themselves to be skillful, hard-working survivors, with or without statehood.
The anti-divisionists claimed that the call for two states was the idea of rabblerousing Republicans who wanted to get their hands on the public tax money. To counteract the argument, pro-divisionists invited lawyers, ministers, farmers, businessmen and newspapermen to hold mini-conventions in conjunction with the 1888 Huron pro-division meeting. But, one anti-division newspaper responded that doctors should have also been invited to the meeting as well so that they could “proceed at once to hold an inquisition of lunacy” on the supporters of division. The anti’s also attacked pro-divisionist Hugh Campbell, saying that statehood was as “comic” as Campbell’s plan to build a canal between Winnipeg and Big Stone along the Red River that would connect with the Minnesota River and provide navigable waters from Winnipeg to Saint Paul.
The paper characterized Campbell as “quite ferocious in appearance and speech … but entirely harmless.”
In the summer of 1888, territorial Democrats and Republicans both met in Jamestown. Democrats endorsed one state. Republicans passed a resolution calling for division and two states. Nationally, the Democrats re-nominated President Cleveland and endorsed the one-state position with the added feature that the residents of Dakota could divide into two states at a later date if they so desired. Texas has a similar provision in their admission to the Union which allows them to divide into as many as five states.
Republicans nominated Ohio Senator Benjamin Harrison for President and endorsed the two-state idea. For several years in Congress, Harrison had championed the idea of two states. The question of division was one of the major issues debated in the presidential elections of 1888 and Harrison’s victory at the polls assured statehood for two Dakotas.
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