Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1886 — PLEADING FOR DAKOTA. [ARTICLE]

PLEADING FOR DAKOTA.

Senator-lltect Edgerton Presents Arguments for the Admission of the Southern. Half of tho Territory. [Washington Special.] The Dakota delegation, headed by Senators Edgerton and Moody, called upon. President Cleveland by appointment, and were heard upon the questions cf dividing the Territory of Dakota, admitting to Statehood the southern half, and organizing the northern portion into North Dakota Territory. The President listened attentively to the delegation for an hour. Senator Edgerton did most of the talking. After reciting the steps taken by the Territory which resulted in the meeting of the constitutional convention, he said: “It haß been said that there was no authority for calling she constitutional convention; in. other words, that the law enacted by'the Legislature is without authority, and consequently void. I will toot examine the question as to whether the organic act passed by Congress investing the Legislature with the power to legislate upon all rightful subjects of legislation not prohibited by that act gave the Territorial Legislature power to provide by law for a constitutional convention or not. That is not necessary for our present purpose. When statutes are silent, precedents make law. While the Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall have power to admit new States, it nowhere provides, in direct terms or by implication, what steps shall be taken to bring the matter of admission of a new State to the attention of Congress, or how or with whom the first steps shall be initiated. Precedents have varied in many instances. Congress has initiated proceedings by providing for a convention in other cases, and not a few conventions have assembled by authority of the people of the Territory. * A Louisville woman has complained! to the Mayor that her two-story brick house has been stolen and carried away. Roscoe Conklin g will, it is Baid, be invited by Congress to deliver the eulogy on Gen. Grant some time in March.