Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1878-02-26
PETITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES

Dakota Territory. unanimously A.
opted at . Public Mesting Held In
the Cats OF Yankeon February o.. 1878.
10 the Con9ress n the Uxited &ates:
Your %petitioners citizens Of Yankton
county, Dakota territory, respectfully petit
ton and pray that the bill introduced into
the senate Of the United STATES by Senator
Saunders, Of Nebraska, providing for the
erection ofthe territory of Lincoln by a d.
vision Of the territory Of Dakota upon the
one hunndreth meridian of longitude west
from Greenwich, may not be passed and be-
come u law.
We earnestly protest and remonstrate
against the said measure because it has been
presented without consultation with or the
advice Of the citizens of Dakota vitality in
terested therein, and is contrary to the
present and permanent best interests ofnear-
ly all the citizens of Dakota and of those
that shall come hereafter, contrary to good
policy and against the general welfare.
1t dieregards the present and permanent
welfare of the people of south eastern Da-
kota, four fifths Of the population Of the ter
ritory, the pioneers of its settlement and de-
velopment, who have struggled and endured
to the point Of full success, as the wards Of
the nation, and trusting to its pledges, ex
press and implied, that favor and not dis
advantage would be shown them, and that at
least those right things would be lone
which are good for us and for all alike and
not wrong to us which is favor to no one.
The proposed division violates every
natural law, disregards manifest and para
mount obstacles. opposes all the laws and
lines Of immigration and commerce, and
ignores the whole territorial policy and ex-
p~erience of the United States.
1t not only is contrary to natural bounda-
ries, combines remote sections which can
never have . unity of interests or policy or
be governed under a common code of laws,
but it separates homogeneous people and
communities of natural interest, and urges
all this present and permanent wrong by
arguments of the most weak and transient
character. 1t is reckless of our welfare and
fatal to our prosperity without a single ad-
vantage to the people it claims to benefit.
1t is the scheme of ambitious individuals
for the advancement Of special privileges
and the very time, manner and nature of
the movement show that these are only to
be accomplished at the cost of common
right, vested interests and the public advan-
taRe.
The organization Of Dakota gave implied
guarantees that settlers upon the public
domain who redeemed it from the wilder
ness and though eighteen years of toll and
hardship added it to the uses of c%iviliza-
ton, should have law for their protection
and their enterprise should moi be cut off
and opposed by hostile and wholly unantici-
pated boundaries like these. Now there
are sixty thousand of the worthiest citizens
in southern Dakota who in the year just
closed have given to the world Eve million
bushels of wheat as only one item of their
coxmerce. Twenty counties have been
here organized with all the machinery Of
good local government, and others are year
ly added. Many thousands of homes, with
schools, churches and every other evidence
of worth, besides all our trade and COM
merce, protest against this blow at our pros.
perity. If local selfgovernment be the
nurse of liberty and a first claim of every
Anglo Saxon community, then should you
extend some protection to us who are wholly
in your power and lack all those guarantees
which are the glories of the states.
In this regard We appeal to the long and
uniform expression Of the sentiments Of our
territory by its legislative assembly. 1t has
by repeated memorials, passed for many
years without an opposing voice, prayed for
a division by an east and west line on or
near the 10th parallel Of north latitude, and
such . division is at once in happy har-
mony with every law or interest which the
present measure violates. Upon the ex-
pectation of success in our petitions for that
action vast social and commercial interests
have been founded.
No other plan would ever have been
suggested but by itinerant adventur.
ers, political tricksters and place
hunters who do not ever rep
resent the people they claim to, and have
their entire possessions in the carpet bags
they carry with them, and who deceive not
only the author and mover of this measure
but all good men who give them any Gre
dence.
1t has been the policy Of congress to create
homogeneous communities. Its first great
territorial act, the ordinance of 1887,
which has by its fruit, been the salvation of
the nation, has been followed by Others in
general harmony Herewith. The successive
territories and states have been given natu-
raj and reasonable boundaries within fair
differences Of climate and latitude. This
measure proposes all the %incongruity of a
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