Part One — 1803-1857
Iowa's Forgotten Founding:
Who Built Our Government, and What Did They Promise?
The three constitutions, their framers,
and the declaration that all political power belongs to the people.
With a brief history of subsequent reforms
By Sondra Wilson | Updated October 8, 2026
About This Series:
The Birth of a New Iowa Constitution
Most Iowans are familiar with the founding of the United States. We recognize names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. We learn about the three branches of government, the separation of powers, and the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men.
From childhood, we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, promising liberty and justice for all.
But how much do we know about the founding of Iowa?
How many Iowans can name even one person who helped write our state's Constitution? How many know that Iowa drafted three constitutions between 1844 and 1857—or that our founders debated how to prevent government institutions from becoming more powerful than the people they were established to serve?
Iowa's current Constitution was written in 1857, nearly 170 years ago. Since then, generations of Iowans have fought to expand rights, improve public institutions, and make their government more accountable.
Yet significant questions remain about whether our present institutions adequately protect the principles upon which our government was established.
We learn that our government was divided into three separate branches to prevent the concentration of power. But the founders designed three branches of government—not two competing political parties. When officials across those branches organize around shared political agendas, questions arise about whether our institutions provide the independent checks and balances they were intended to maintain.
We are also taught that every citizen deserves due process, equal protection, and access to justice. Yet Iowans who turn to our courts can encounter immunity doctrines, complicated procedural requirements, restrictions on jury trials, and legal precedents that limit the remedies available to them.
Having spent years researching Iowa's legal institutions and navigating some of these barriers personally, I have come to believe that a substantial divide exists between the democratic ideals we learn about and the legal mechanisms available to enforce them.
We are a government of laws. But laws do not become just merely because they have been enacted or upheld by a court.
That is why this project began.
A new Iowa Constitution is now being drafted.
This four-part series documents the historical research, legal concerns, constitutional reform precedents, and proposed safeguards informing that effort.
We begin by examining what Iowa's founders established and the principles they intended their government to uphold. We then investigate how subsequent laws and judicial decisions reshaped the institutions responsible for protecting those principles.
Next, we examine previous attempts to reform Iowa's Constitution and the historical and legal pathways available for constitutional change.
Finally, we introduce the developing text of a proposed new Iowa Constitution—one intended to establish more accessible courts, meaningful governmental accountability, stronger democratic safeguards, and a modern Bill of Rights.
This is not an effort to restore Iowa to 1857. It is an effort to learn from our history and draft a constitutional framework capable of protecting Iowans in the twenty-first century.
The proposed Constitution will be developed through public examination, constructive criticism, and participation. Its provisions will require careful legal review and refinement.
The process of writing a new Iowa Constitution has begun. This series explains why, how, and what is being proposed.
The Four-Part Series
Part One — Iowa's Forgotten Founding: Who Built Our Government, and What Did They Promise?
An examination of Iowa's three constitutions, the people who wrote them, and the founding debates over political rights, elected judges, corporate privileges, common schools, and the people's authority to reform their government.
Part Two — How Far We've Fallen: The Laws and Doctrines That Reshaped Iowa's Government
An examination of judicial and governmental immunity, restrictions on jury trials, barriers to legal remedies, the evolution of judicial selection, and the exclusion of independent and third-party candidates from aspects of Iowa's political process.
Part Three — The People's Power to Reform Government: Iowa's Constitutional Convention History
A history of Iowa's attempts to call constitutional conventions after 1857, including the 1920 controversy, together with lessons from Rhode Island and an examination of the constitutional procedures available for reform.
Part Four — A Proposed New Iowa Constitution: Drafting a Government for the People
An introduction to a developing constitutional draft addressing judicial accessibility, jury-trial protections, governmental accountability, public education, political participation, landownership, and a modern Bill of Rights that includes proposed protections for healthcare, LGBTQ+ equality, and other fundamental rights.
The final installment will also explain how Iowans can examine the proposed language, offer constructive criticism, contribute ideas, and participate in the reform effort.
Our goal is not simply to revisit Iowa's founding ideals, but to examine how those principles can be strengthened and made enforceable for future generations.
Let us begin with the history.
Table of Contents — Part One
Iowa's Forgotten Founding:
Who Built Our Government, and What Did They Promise?
Iowa's Founding and Constitutional History
The Indigenous Nations This Land Was Taken From
1844–1857: The Three State Constitutions of Iowa
What Kind of Government Did the Founders Envision?
Political Power Was Not Supposed to Depend on Wealth
The Founders Wanted the People to Directly Elect Their Supreme Court Justices
Iowa's Founders Were Concerned About Corporate Privileges and Legislative Corruption
One System of Common Schools: Education and the Preservation of Free Government
Iowa's Founders Warned Against Government Becoming Its Own Master
The Constitution Was Designed to Be Improved and Reformed
The Constitution Belongs to the People — Not the Institutions Created Under It
Endnotes and Historical Sources
The Indigenous Nations This Land Was Taken From
Long before Iowa became a state, the land was home to Indigenous nations, including the Sauk, Meskwaki, Ioway, and others whose histories extended back generations.[1]
In 1803, the United States acquired France's claim to the region through the Louisiana Purchase, although the Indigenous peoples living there had not agreed to surrender their homelands.[1]
Following the Black Hawk War of 1832, the United States secured the treaty commonly known as the Black Hawk Purchase, through which the Sauk and Meskwaki relinquished a large tract of eastern Iowa under the pressure of military defeat. The agreement opened the way for expanding American settlement. Subsequent treaties and forced removals brought additional land under United States control.[2]
In 1838, Iowa became a separate U.S. territory. As its population grew, residents began debating what kind of government they wanted, who should hold political power, and whether they should become a state.[3]
1844-1857:
The Three State Constitutions of Iowa
Iowa's first attempt to establish a state constitution came in 1844. Delegates gathered in Iowa City and drafted a framework for a new government. But voters rejected the proposed constitution twice in 1845, with disagreements over Iowa's proposed boundaries playing a major role.[4]
A second constitutional convention convened in 1846. This time, the proposed constitution was ratified, and on December 28, 1846, Iowa became the 29th state.[5]
Just eleven years later, Iowans decided their constitution needed substantial revision. Among their concerns were banking restrictions that had hindered the state's developing economy and questions about how judges should be selected.
Governor James W. Grimes supported submitting the question of constitutional revision to the people. Following voter approval, 36 delegates assembled in Iowa City in January 1857, with former legislator and judge Francis Springer presiding over the convention.[6]
The delegates debated banking, political representation, education, corporate privileges, judicial authority, and the people's power to change their government.
Voters approved the new constitution on August 3, 1857, by 40,311 votes to 38,681—a comparatively narrow margin.[6]
That 1857 Constitution, as subsequently amended, remains Iowa's fundamental law today.
What Kind of Government Did the Founders Envision?
Although the founders disagreed over many details, the constitutional documents they produced express several enduring principles about the purpose and limits of government.
One of the clearest statements appeared as early as the 1844 Constitutional Convention.
James Grant, an early Iowa territorial lawmaker, future district judge, and one of the principal architects of Iowa's original Bill of Rights, chaired the convention's Committee on the Bill of Rights.
The committee proposed the following declaration:
"All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people; and they have the right at all times, to alter, or reform the same, whenever the public good may require it." [7]
That principle survived the rejected 1844 Constitution, appeared in the 1846 Constitution, and was preserved in Article I, Section 2, of the 1857 Constitution.
It remains there today.[8]
The meaning of this declaration deserves attention. The Constitution does not describe government as an institution established to preserve its own authority, reputation, or institutional interests.
It declares that political power belongs to the people and that government exists for their protection, security, and benefit.
The framers also placed explicit protections for individual liberty in the Bill of Rights.
Article I, Section 9, declares:
"The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate" [9]
Article I, Section 6, prohibits granting special privileges or immunities to one class of citizens that do not equally belong to others on the same terms.[10]
And Article I, Section 7, protects freedom of speech and publication while expressly providing that individuals remain responsible for abusing that freedom.[11]
These provisions reflect a constitutional design that places individual liberties, limitations on governmental power, and public accountability among the fundamental principles of Iowa's government.
But the delegates' debates reveal something more.
They were also concerned about how political and economic power could become concentrated in the hands of relatively few people.
Political Power Was not Supposed to Depend on Wealth
During the 1857 Constitutional Convention, delegates debated whether people should be required to own property or pay a minimum amount of taxes before voting on certain public financial questions involving improvements and government-backed investments.
One proposal would have required ownership of real estate assessed at $200 or payment of $5 in taxes to participate in the particular vote.
John A. Parvin, a former state legislator and mayor of Muscatine, opposed the proposed qualification.
"I rejoice that I can vote as well as my neighbor, who has ten times as much property as I have. It is a right that is inestimably dear to every citizen."
Parvin also argued:
"I had supposed that the principle of requiring a property qualification for voting had long since passed away, not to be introduced again either in this body or any other, at least in the State of Iowa." [12]
The controversy concerned a specific category of public financial decisions, rather than a proposal to exclude all citizens without property from ordinary elections.
Nevertheless, it illustrates a fundamental disagreement about political equality.
Should possessing more wealth entitle one citizen to greater influence over governmental decisions than another?
Parvin argued against returning to that principle.
His position also illustrates how some early Iowans understood political rights as belonging to citizens regardless of their relative wealth—even while other groups remained excluded from the electorate.
The Founders Wanted the People to Directly Elect Their Supreme Court Justices
Another consequential decision appears in the judiciary provisions of the original 1857 Constitution.
Article V, Section 3, declared:
"The Judges of the Supreme Court shall be elected by the qualified electors of the State" [13]
The Constitution established six-year terms for Supreme Court justices and provided for the election of district judges as well.
In other words, Iowa's original constitutional framework placed the selection of its highest judges directly in the hands of eligible voters.
This was not the system Iowa uses today.
In 1962, more than a century after the Constitution was adopted, Iowa voters approved an amendment replacing contested judicial elections with a system of nomination, gubernatorial appointment, and judicial retention elections.[14]
The reform was intended to emphasize professional qualifications and reduce partisan influence over judicial selection. Supporters viewed it as a safeguard for judicial independence.
But it also changed how citizens exercise their authority over the judiciary: rather than choosing among competing judicial candidates, voters subsequently decide whether appointed judges should remain in office.
Why Iowa originally chose judicial elections, why the system was changed, and how those changes affected judicial accountability are questions examined later in this investigation.
Iowa's Founders Were Concerned About Corporate Privileges and Legislative Corruption
The 1857 convention also debated how to prevent the legislature from granting special privileges to corporations and other private interests.
Delegates considered whether lawmakers should retain the power to revise or repeal corporate charters, particularly when private entities received advantages through legislation.
During the February 2 proceedings, a delegate acknowledged that elected representatives, acting together in the legislature, could be more susceptible to corrupting influences than the people collectively:
"But, when they get here in a body they are more available, it is true, for purposes of corruption than are the whole masses of the people." [15]
The underlying concern was not that representative government was inherently illegitimate. It was that elected officials could become vulnerable to pressures and influences that the broader population might be better positioned to resist.
The Constitution ultimately included provisions restricting special legislation and corporate privileges, while preserving legislative authority to alter or repeal corporate laws within constitutional limits.
These safeguards did not prevent every possible form of favoritism. Nor did the delegates agree about how much authority government should exercise over private enterprise.
But the debates demonstrate that the possibility of private interests exerting improper influence over public institutions was recognized at Iowa's founding.
And the founders attempted to establish constitutional boundaries around that power.
One System of Common Schools:
Education and the Preservation of Free Government
The founders also recognized that education was essential to maintaining a free society.
During the 1857 convention, delegates debated whether the Constitution should specifically require common schools or give educational authorities broader discretion to establish a system of schools.
In a January 29 minority report, delegate George Ells proposed language declaring that widespread knowledge and learning were essential to preserving free government, and calling for a general and uniform system of common schools with tuition without charge and opportunities equally available to all. [16]
On March 3, James F. Wilson, a convention delegate from Jefferson County, objected to language that would have required merely a "system of schools."
Wilson sought to restore the word common, expressing concern about how public educational resources might otherwise be used.
The debate exposed disagreements over who should control education, which institutions could receive support, and how the state's school funds should be protected.
The final 1857 Constitution, Article IX, Section 12, expressly provided:
"The Board of Education shall provide for the education of all the youths of the State, through a system of Common Schools" [17]
The original Constitution also established protections for school funds and created a Board of Education to oversee the state's educational interests.
This constitutional commitment would soon become the subject of a landmark civil-rights decision.
In 1868, twelve-year-old Susan B. Clark, represented by her father Alexander Clark of Muscatine, challenged her exclusion from a neighborhood public school because she was Black.
In Clark v. Board of School Directors, 24 Iowa 266 (1868), the Iowa Supreme Court upheld her right to attend the school.
Writing for the majority, Justice Chester C. Cole explained that school officials possessed discretion over ordinary administrative matters, but that their discretion could not override the equal educational rights established by Iowa law.
Cole illustrated the principle with examples extending far beyond race. School officials could not separate children of Irish and German parents, or Catholic and Protestant parents, merely because of their backgrounds.
Nor could they force poor children into separate schools because their clothing offended public sentiment.
Justice Cole explained that the school board's administrative discretion was limited by the equal educational rights guaranteed to children under Iowa's Constitution and school laws:
"No discretion which disturbs that equality can be exercised."
He condemned the idea that school officials could accommodate prejudice by separating poorly dressed children from their better-dressed classmates, warning that officials could not "pander to such false public sentiment." [17]
The significance of the decision extended beyond Susan Clark's admission to a single school. It established that public officials could not invoke administrative discretion to deny children the equal educational rights that Iowa's Constitution and laws protected.
The decision came decades before the modern Iowa Civil Rights Act, demonstrating that important principles of equality and limitations on governmental discretion were already being articulated in Iowa's nineteenth-century courts.
The original constitutional education provisions have since been amended, and the schools of today operate under a considerably different legal and administrative framework.
But Iowa's founding debates raise questions that remain relevant: Who should control public education? Who should benefit from public educational funds? And what obligations does government have to make education available to every child?
Iowa's Founders Warned Against Government Becoming Its Own Master
The framers were not content merely to declare that political power belonged to the people. During the 1857 Constitutional Convention, some of Iowa's early lawmakers and legal professionals debated how to prevent elected representatives from placing the Constitution itself beyond the people's reach.
On February 19, 1857, John T. Clark, an abolitionist lawyer, Iowa Supreme Court reporter, and member of the convention's committee on constitutional amendments, argued:
"I am unwilling to place the constitution of the State out of the direct control of the people, out of their reach, in the hands of a representative body." [18]
James C. Traer, an early physician in Vinton who would later become a lawyer and mayor, raised an equally fundamental objection to allowing the people's representatives to decide when the people themselves could act:
"When we have agents to act for us, I hold it is a contradiction in terms that we should give them the right to say when we may or may not act." [19]
David Bunker, a former territorial and state lawmaker who had advocated repeal of Iowa's discriminatory Black Laws, explained why the people should retain independent authority over their Constitution:
"All rights should be retained inherent in the people, and they should have the power to act upon their fundamental law, without the intervention of anybody whatever." [20]
These were not simply philosophical observations.
The framers were debating actual constitutional procedures that would allow future generations to reconsider their government without depending entirely upon the legislature's willingness to permit reform.
They recognized a potential conflict between the interests of government institutions and the authority of the people those institutions were established to serve.
The question they confronted was whether the government should control the people's ability to change it.
And that question remains relevant to Iowans today.
The Constitution Was Designed to Be Improved and Reformed
Iowa's founding was not without serious contradictions.
Although the founders declared that all political power belonged to the people, the state's early constitutions restricted voting rights by race and sex. In 1857, Iowa voters even rejected a separate proposal to extend voting rights to Black men. [21]
Yet the story did not end there.
In 1868, following years of advocacy by Black Iowans and civil-rights leaders such as Alexander Clark of Muscatine, Iowa voters approved a constitutional amendment removing the word white from the state's voting qualifications, extending suffrage to Black men. [22]
Women continued their struggle for political equality for decades. Iowa ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1919, and its adoption nationwide in 1920 prohibited denying the vote on account of sex. In 1971, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment prohibited denying the vote to citizens eighteen years of age and older on account of age. [23]
The original 1857 constitutional framework did not guarantee equal political participation to everyone. Subsequent generations had to challenge those exclusions.
The founding principle that political power belongs to the people remained. But the understanding of who was entitled to exercise that power—and the laws protecting them—changed substantially.
These changes were not inevitable. They resulted from generations of people challenging established laws, organizing for reform, and demanding that government more fully honor the principles of liberty and political equality.
And there is another revealing detail from Iowa's early history.
In 1877, just twenty years after adoption of the present Constitution, Iowa educators arranged for the publication of a small booklet containing the state Constitution and an explanation of its government.
The publishers explained that the Constitution was largely inaccessible to ordinary teachers and citizens. [24]
Iowa's educators recognized that citizens needed to understand the structure of their government and the rights it guaranteed.
That lesson remains important.
The Constitution Belongs to the People — Not the Institutions Created Under It
The founders did not establish a government free from contradictions, nor did they agree on every question of rights, representation, or public responsibility.
They built institutions that reflected the politics and limitations of their time.
Yet they also placed a remarkable declaration at the beginning of their Bill of Rights: all political power belongs to the people, government exists for their benefit, and they retain the right to alter or reform it whenever the public good requires.
Their Constitution was amended repeatedly, sometimes to extend rights that its original language had denied.
Other changes—including those affecting judicial selection, government accountability, education, and access to political power—reshaped the institutions they established.
The original Constitution remains recognizable. But the government operating under it has changed enormously.
That raises a question worth asking:
If Iowa's Constitution was written to establish a government for the protection, security, and benefit of the people, how well do the laws and institutions operating under it fulfill that purpose today?
The answer requires examining not only what the founders wrote, but also what subsequent legislatures and courts did with the powers they inherited.
That is where the next part of this investigation begins.
Continued in Part Two — How Iowa's Judiciary Developed Restrictions on Citizens' Rights and Remedies.
Endnotes
[1] Indigenous Iowa and the Louisiana Purchase. State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa History Course, Unit 1 (Indigenous Iowa) and Unit 2 (Iowa Territory); see also the National Park Service's historical materials concerning the Louisiana Purchase. The Louisiana Purchase transferred France's territorial claims to the United States; it did not itself extinguish Indigenous land rights.
[2] The Black Hawk War and Black Hawk Purchase (1832). Iowa PBS, Iowa Pathways, "Black Hawk Treaty," including the September 21, 1832 treaty concluded at present-day Davenport. See also The Annals of Iowa, "The Acquisition of Iowa Lands from the Indians," discussing the land cessions following the Black Hawk War.
[3] Establishment of Iowa Territory (1838). State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa History Course, Unit 2, "Iowa Territory." The federal government established Iowa Territory effective July 4, 1838, after the region had been administered as part of Michigan and Wisconsin territories.
[4] The Constitutional Convention of 1844. Journal of the Convention for the Formation of a Constitution for the State of Iowa (Iowa City: Jesse Williams, 1845), beginning with proceedings of October 7, 1844. See also Iowa Legislature, Iowa Constitution — Conventions, 1844, recording the rejection of the proposed constitution on April 7, 1845, and the boundary controversy; and Benjamin F. Shambaugh's historical introduction to The Constitution of 1846, describing the second rejection in 1845.
[5] Adoption of the 1846 Constitution. Iowa Legislature, Iowa Constitution — Conventions, 1846. Voters ratified the proposed constitution on August 3, 1846, by 9,492 votes to 9,036. Iowa entered the Union on December 28, 1846. See also The Constitution of 1846, historical introduction, pp. 185–186.
[6] Revision and replacement of the 1846 Constitution. The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, vol. I (Davenport: Luse, Lane & Co., 1857), Preface, pp. i–ii. The preface identifies dissatisfaction with restrictions on banking and proposals concerning the election of Supreme Court judges. See also Iowa Legislature, Iowa Constitution — Conventions, 1857. The new constitution was ratified August 3, 1857, by 40,311 votes to 38,681.
[7] James Grant and the 1844 Bill of Rights. Journal of the Convention for the Formation of a Constitution for the State of Iowa (1845), proceedings of October 1844, pp. 18–19, report of the Committee on the Bill of Rights presented by its chairman, James Grant. The quoted language appears in the committee's proposed second section. It was a collective committee proposal, not a separately documented personal speech by Grant.
[8] Political power and the right to reform government. Iowa Constitution of 1846, Article II, §2; Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article I, §2. See also The Debates of the Constitutional Convention, vol. I, discussion of the Bill of Rights, and the original 1857 Constitution preserved by the Iowa Secretary of State.
[9] Right to trial by jury. Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article I, §9. The section guarantees that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate and prohibits deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The provision's historical application to legal and equitable proceedings is a separate question examined in Part Two.
[10] Equal privileges and immunities. Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article I, §6. The provision requires uniform operation of laws of a general nature and restricts special privileges or immunities granted to citizens or classes of citizens. It should not be confused with, or automatically applied to, the separate doctrines of governmental or judicial immunity.
[11] Freedom of speech and responsibility for abuse. Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article I, §7. The provision protects speaking, writing, and publishing while retaining responsibility for abuse of those rights. Whether particular common-law privileges are compatible with this provision requires separate historical and judicial analysis.
[12] Property Qualifications and Voting Rights. The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, Vol. I (Davenport: Luse, Lane & Co., 1857), remarks of John A. Parvin in the debate over property qualifications for voting on local financial measures. See also Iowa Legislature, biography of John Abbott Parvin.
[13] Original Election of Iowa Supreme Court Justices. Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article V, §§3 and 5, providing for election of Supreme Court and district judges by qualified electors. See the Iowa Legislature's constitutional archive.
[14] The 1962 Judicial Selection Amendment. Iowa Constitution, Amendment of 1962, repealing original Article V, §§3, 5, 9, and 11 and establishing judicial nominating commissions, gubernatorial appointments, and retention elections. Ratified November 6, 1962, by 158,279 votes to 118,215. See Amendment of 1962 and 50 Constitutions — Iowa Amendment Timeline.
[15] Legislative Corruption and Corporate Privileges. The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, Vol. I, proceedings of February 2, 1857, discussion of the Bill of Rights and corporations, printed p. 168. See also Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article III, §30, and Article VIII, §12.
[16] Education and Free Government. The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, Vol. I, proceedings of January 29, 1857, printed p. 79, minority report of George Ells of Scott County, proposing a uniform system of common schools with tuition without charge.
[17] Constitutional Protection of Common Schools and Equal Educational Rights. Iowa Constitution of 1857, original Article IX, §12; The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, Vol. II, proceedings of March 3, 1857, pp. 953–965, including James F. Wilson's proposed amendments. See also Clark v. Board of School Directors, 24 Iowa 266, 274–276 (1868), majority opinion by Justice Chester C. Cole, holding that school officials could not use administrative discretion to exclude children from public schools on the basis of race, and discussing analogous discrimination based on nationality, religion, and economic circumstances.
[18] The Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Iowa, vol. I (Davenport: Luse, Lane & Co., 1857), p. 609, remarks of John T. Clark, February 19, 1857, concerning amendments and constitutional conventions.
[19] Ibid., pp. 622–623, remarks of James C. Traer, February 19, 1857.
[20] Ibid., p. 606, remarks of David Bunker, February 19, 1857, concerning the periodic submission of the constitutional convention question to voters.
[21] Racial and sex-based restrictions in Iowa's original electoral system. Iowa Constitution of 1857, Article II, §1, originally restricting voting to male citizens meeting a racial qualification. See also Iowa Legislature, Iowa Constitution — Conventions, 1857, and Amendments to the Iowa Constitution, 50 Constitutions, discussing the separate 1857 referendum concerning Black suffrage. The measure was rejected; the racial qualification was removed in 1868.
[22] The 1868 Iowa Constitutional Amendment and Black Suffrage. Iowa Constitution, Article II, §1, amendment of 1868, striking the word white from voting qualifications. See State Historical Society of Iowa, Read Iowa History: The Right to Vote; University of Iowa Libraries, The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, biography of Alexander Clark, discussing his advocacy and the 1868 suffrage referendum. Approximately 56.5% of participating voters approved the amendment.
[23] Expansion of Women's Suffrage and Voting Rights. National Park Service, Iowa and the 19th Amendment, documenting Iowa's July 2, 1919 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and the amendment's adoption in August 1920. See also U.S. Constitution, Amendments XIX and XXVI (ratified 1920 and 1971, respectively), and Iowa Constitution, Article II, §1, amendment of 1970.
[24] Public Education About Iowa's Constitution. Constitution of the State of Iowa, with an Analysis of the State Government, for the Use of Normal Institutes (Des Moines: Redhead & Wellslager, 1877), Preface, p. 2. The publishers describe efforts by county superintendents to supply teachers with copies of the Constitution because it was not readily accessible to teachers and the general public.