, in the midst of an important revolution, 'old
things are to be done away and all things are to become new.' The
structure and organization of our government are to be changed,
territorial relations with the parent government are soon to cease,
and Iowa must soon take upon herself the duties and the
responsibilities of a sovereign State. But before this important
change can be fully consummated, it is necessary for us to form a
republican constitution, for our domestic government. Upon you,
gentlemen, a confiding people have entrusted this high responsibility.
To your wisdom, to your prudence, to your patriotism, they look for
the formation of that instrument upon which they are to erect the
infant republic--under your auspices the youngest and fairest daughter
of the whole American family is to commence her separate political
existence, to take her rank in the Union of the American States, and
to add her star to the proud flag of our common country. Recollect,
gentlemen, that the labor of your hands, whatever may be its fashion,
will not be the fashion of a day, but permanent, elementary, organic.
It is not yours to gild or to finish the superstructure, but to sound
the bottom, to lay the foundation, to place the corner stone. Unlike
the enactments of mere legislation, passed and sent forth to-day and
recalled to-morrow, your enactments, when ratified by the people are
to be permanent and lasting, sovereign and supreme, governing,
controlling and directing the exercise of all political authority,
executive, legislative and judicial, through all time to come."

Mr. Leffler hoped that the Convention would frame a Constitution which
would, "in all its essential provisions, be as wise and as good if not
wiser and better than any other instrument which has ever yet been
devised for the government of mankind," so that "Iowa, young, beautiful
and blooming as she now is, endeared to us by every attachment
which can bind us to our country, may at no distant day, for every thing
that is great, noble or renowned, rival if not surpass the proudest
State of the American confederacy."

On the same day, and after the election of officers, the report of the
Committee on Rules was taken up, slightly amended, and adopted. In the
afternoon Mr. Hall, who came from a back county in which no newspapers
were printed, moved "that each member of the Convention have the
privilege of taking twenty copies weekly of the newspapers published in