d the Indians who rescued her $400
each for their services. The territory made an appropriation on the
fifteenth day of May, 1857, of $10,000 to rescue the captives, but as
there were no telegraphs or other speedy means of communication, the
work was all done before the news of the appropriation reached the
border. My outlay, however, was all refunded from this appropriation. I
afterwards succeeded, with a squad of soldiers and citizens, in killing
one of Ink-pa-du-ta's sons, who had taken an active part in the
massacre, and that ended the first serious Indian trouble that Minnesota
was afflicted with.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

By the end of the year 1856 the Territory of Minnesota had attained such
growth and wealth that the question of becoming a state within the Union
began to attract attention. It was urged by the government at Washington
that we were amply capable of taking care of ourselves, and sufficiently
wealthy to pay our expenses, and statehood was pressed upon us from that
quarter. There was another potent influence at work at home. We had
several prominent gentlemen who were convinced that their services were
needed in the senate of the United States, and that their presence there
would strengthen and adorn that body, and as no positive opposition was
developed, the congress of the United States, on the 26th of February,
1857, passed an act, authorizing the territory to form a state
government. It prescribed the same boundaries for the state as we now
have, although there had been a large number of people who had advocated
an east and west division of the territory, on a line a little north of
the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude. It provided for a convention
to frame the constitution of the new state, which was to be composed of
two delegates for each member of the territorial legislature, to be
elected in the representative districts on the first Monday in June,
1857. The convention was to be held at the capital of the territory, on
the second Monday of July following. It submitted to the convention five
propositions to be answered, which, if accepted, were to become
obligatory on the United States and the State of Minnesota. They were in
substance as follows:

1. Whether sections 16 and 36 in each township should be granted to the
state for the use of schools.

2. Whether seventy-two sections of land should be set aside for the use
and support of a state university.

3. Whethe