of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 116-117
IOWA'S FIRST LEGISLATURE. Hawkins Taylor was a member of the first Iowa territorial legislature £rom Lee county and afterward became a man of note and influence. Prior to his death he spent several years in Washington City and in 1884 contributed the article given here to the State Register:
"I propose to write up the first territorial legislature of Iowa that met in Burlington in the old Zion Methodist church on Third street, on the 12th of November, 1838, now more than forty-five years ago. At this time very few of the members of the present legislature of the state of Iowa had tasted their mother's milk, and at that time few of the members had ever seen a railroad. The settlers did not get free homes as the settlers do now, and they had preemption laws, but had to pay $1.25 per acre for their land or risk its being entered by a speculator. Money was scarce and times hard but there was good will, the latch string was out at every cabin, and no one thought of locking the doors of cabin or stable. If one settler from sickness or any other cause needed help, his neighbors gave him the assistance, whether to cultivate his crops or pay for his land. There were few statute laws but the people were a law unto themselves, and there is never much injustice in such localities, where the ministers of the gospel are a part, and respected part, of the community. It is when civilization and courts assume control that locks are needed. It is the certainty of conviction and punishment that brings terror to the evil doer. There was certainty of punishment then. There is not much fear of certainty of punishment now, if the swag justifies the risk. At that time the man who attempted to rob his neighbor was speedily settled with, and without court expense.
"After this preface, the reader will not be surprised to have me say that no legislature in the state, not excepting the present one, ever had more talent and honest, earnest work in preparing proper laws for the people than the first Iowa territorial legislature in proportion to members, and there certainly has never been more dignified or efficient presiding officers than General J. B. Brown, of the council, and Colonel W. H. Wallace, of the house. I have never seen in the senate or house of congress, with the exception of Vice President Dallas, the same dignity and observance of the rules as in that first territorial legislature, both in the council and house.
"There were thirteen members of the council and twenty-six members of the house, all newcomers to each other, and naturally, among the members some odd characters. They were from all parts of the Union, and each member was interested in incorporating in the laws of the territory the laws of the state of his former residence. The territory had laws under the Territory of Michigan, and then under, or a part of, Wisconsin, but the new legislature had no code of laws to work on or from. A large majority of the members were from Indiana, Illinois, or the south, and were interesting anti-Yankee, so much so that even Ohio was classed as a Yankee state and unfortunately, the legislature at the out-set got into a quarrel, first with the secretary of the territory (Conway) about pocket knives, and then with the governor about the number of employes of the legislature, and that quarrel lasted up to the end of the session. Governor Lucas had been governor of Ohio for two terms, had presided over the Baltimore convention in 1832, that renominated 'Old Hickory.' He wore his hair like Old Hickory and looked like him, and was proud of it, claiming the Roman virtues of that old hero. He was a classleader of the Methodist church and felt that it was his special duty to civilize the swell mob of settlers and legislators that he had been appointed to govern. He was an economist of the strictest Holman order, and the legislature, following the example of the Wisconsin legislature, had elected a full corps of officers, some ten in the council and a third more in the house, to which the governor had entered his earnest protest. There had some half dozen followers come with the governor from Ohio, some of them very indiscreet friends, and they contributed largely to the quarrel. The council refused to confirm the governor's nominees and the governor would reappoint and the council would persevere in rejecting them.
"An old fellow by the name of King, who kept a tavern where a good many members boarded, was nominated for justice of the peace and rejected almost a dozen times. King was called 'The Bell Ringer.' He had a bell on a post out in the street that he rang before meals. On one occasion Hempstead, of Dubuque, afterward governor, when King had been rejected ten or a dozen times, on the arrival of a message from the governor, inquired of the president of the council if the 'aforesaid Bell Ringer was back again.'
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