Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-08-28

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was placed upon section 3 of article q
to meet the emergency.
No one, until now, ever had the au-
daclty to claim that congress had the
legal power to prevent the admission
of a state upon the presentation of Gre
dentlals such as the proposed state OF
Dakota has to show in respect CT every
requirement under the constitution.
You may ask why we are so anxious
for admission. / would answer for Da-
kota:
Ii with our territory, our population,
our productiveness and our taxes we
were not anxious for emancipation
from this condition of almost servile
%vassalage we would be unworthy to be-
come a sovereign State among the
states of the union.
The term, servile vassalage, is used
advisedly, permit me to state.
Soon after the war it was a serious
question as to what was or should be
the status Of the states which had Sc
ceded.
Many good men thought they should
be governed in the same way you are
now governing Dakota.
Your friends denounced this plan,
and they said a condition of territorial
vassalage-then a favorite term with
them-was inconsistent with and dan
gerous to a republican government
The large majority of republicans tho't
SO too.
And the Territory is q vassal.
The only officer elected by the people
CT Dakota is the delegate to congress
and he has no vote in the house of rep.
r%esentatives. What is he but a vassal ::
Your president appoints our COVER.
nor, secretary, and Judges, and the gov.
ernor who is paid and employed not by
the territory, but by the general gov.
eminent, appoints our territorial Off.
GERS.
The territory ofDakota has built and
is maintaining a peniGentiary in each
section of the territory, an insane asy-
lum and a university for each Dakota,
besides other public institutions. But
every Il Of these institutions must
be run by officers appointed by your
governor.
Not a dollar Of the t~erritory's own
money can be disbursed except by your
appointees or sub-appointees.
There is, then, sue a thing as terri
torial %vassalage, and Dakota presents
to-day the anomalous spectacle of a
state disfrailchised.
There is another phase Of this ques-
ton to which l ask your attention. The
enemies of Dakota claim that when
She is admitted it must be as a whole:
that the rapid increase Of states in the
northwest is dangerous to the older
states. In other words, they seek to in
graft upon our American system a
maxim of European politics, to-wit,
the equilibrium Of power.
We are cited to the case Of Texas.
Let us compare Teas with Dakota,
if you please.
The facts briefly recited are these:
The unity Of Texas is not
one, and that Texas is the outgrowth
of a different condition of things. if
not a different civilization.
We have brought With us to this ter
ritory the ideas Of the northern and
middle states.
We have been educated to believe
that the nearer the ruler is to the peo-
pie the safer are the liberties of the
people. and that our republican institu-
tions are safer while the power is dis
tributed among fifty medium-sized
instead of being concentrated
practically IN the hands of a few popu-
lous and wealthy empires that have
grown up to a.vast estate by virtue of
their immense area of agricultural
land.
1 would ask you, as a citizen Of Del
aware, to view this same question from
another standpoint.
Suppose the theory Of large states
5he size OF Texas and Dakota should
1t would require no prophetic eye to
thedangers possible to the small
states in the future.
The possibility Of such a state of
was what your fathers and mine
against in the formation of
The government.
Possibly the enemies to the division
Of Dakota are in favor OF a few power
and imperial states rather than the
older and safer plan.
Dakota has now an area of l5e.932
square miles. When divided each por-
ton will have about $4,000 square miles
equal to tWenty-four states like Della
ware, and larger than any one of thirty
the present states IN the union.