election showed that the Democrats
had succeeded in electing Ansel Briggs, their candidate for Governor,
by a majority of one hundred and sixty-one votes. The same party also
captured a majority of the seats in the first General Assembly.

Following the directions of the Schedule in the new Constitution,
Governor Clarke issued a proclamation on November fifth in which he
named Monday, November 30, 1846, as the day for the first meeting of
the General Assembly. On December second the Territorial Governor
transmitted his last message to the Legislature.

It was on Thursday morning, December 3, 1846, that the Senators and
Representatives assembled together in the hall of the House of
Representatives in the Old Stone Capitol to witness the inauguration
of the new Governor. Here in the presence of the General Assembly
Judge Charles Mason, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
Territory, administered the oath of office to the first Governor of
the State of Iowa.

Twelve days after the inauguration of the State Governor at Iowa City,
Mr. Dodge presented to the House of Representatives at Washington a
copy of the Constitution of Iowa. The document was at once referred to
the Committee on the Territories, from which a bill for the admission
of Iowa into the Union was reported through Mr. Stephen A. Douglas on
December seventeenth. It was made a special order of the day for
Monday, December twenty-first, when it was debated and passed.
Reported to the Senate on the twenty-second, it was there referred to
the Committee on the Judiciary. This Committee reported the bill back
to the Senate without amendment. After some consideration it passed
the Senate on December twenty-fourth. Four days later it received the
approval of President Polk. The existence of Iowa as one of the
Commonwealths of the United States of America dates, therefore, from
the TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF DECEMBER, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND
FORTY-SIX.

The act of admission declares that Iowa is "admitted into the Union on
an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever,"
and provides that all the provisions of "An Act supplemental to
the Act for the Admission of the States of Iowa and Florida into the
Union" approved March 3, 1845, shall continue in full force "as
applicable to the State of Iowa." The conditions contained in the
provisions of this act, which had been substituted by Congress in lieu
of the provisions of the Ordinance subm