sissippi is shown between the mouth of the Wisconsin and the Missouri river. His map of 1674 (the "earliest") does show a western stream occupying a relative position corresponding roughly with that of the Des Moines river. Along this stream appear tepees representing five villages and bearing the legends: Illinois Peouarea 300 Cabanes 180 canots de bois de 50 pieds de long, Atontanka, Pana, Maha and Paoutet. The name Moingouena does not appear, and is only remotely suggested by Minongio, the westernmost of five villages ranged along the Missouri river. Franquelin's Carte de Louisiana (1684) places Moingoana upon a western tributary which we may assume to be the Des Moines while Peouereo is at the mouth of a stream further north. This latter stream, however, corresponds more nearly with the Wapsipinicon than with the Iowa; since, between its mouth and that of the Des Moines (?), the Kickapoo, now known as Rock river, enters the Mississippi from the east. It must be borne in mind, in any case, that Iowa was not the permanent abode of either the Peouarea or the Moingouena Indians, and it is by no means certain that either tribe, in its frequent sojourns to the country across the Mississippi, always resorted to the same western tributary. It does not follow, therefore, that the location by Marquette of the Peouareas and the Moingouenas upon the same stream in 1673, even if he so intended, gives any indication that the stream in question is the one which today bears the name of the latter tribe. There is no evidence whatever, then, to show that the stream at whose mouth Marquette places Peouarea is other than that indicated by a careful study of his chart, viz., the Iowa river. This being the case Louisa County, not Lee County, must henceforth be regarded as including within its limits the scene of the opening incident in the history of our Commonwealth. THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF Iowa IOWA CITY LAENAS GIFFORD WELD THE POLITICAL VALUE OF STATE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY The organic laws of the states comprising the American Union illustrate the principles of political evolution. Their elements are the elements which lie at the foundation of civil society or the social organism, as that organism is understood in all countries in which men are citizens of a state-not subjects in an empire. It is always difficult to fix political values: it is even more difficult to agree upon them after the choice of elements has been made. The political value of state constitutional history will be measured according to the importance attached to the elements which comprise that history. An enumeration of a few of the principal elements will clear the way for a just estimate of the value of a knowledge of the courses and character of the civil evolution of the commonwealths. The form of the state, as that term is understood in America, has remained apparently unchanged from the beginning of our state history. Now as then the functions of the state are classified as legislative, executive, and judicial. Now as then the three sets of functions are approximately separate and severally independent. Now as then the public business is conducted according to general provisions plainly set forth in written constitutions. But the idea, the concept of the state has changed. The first state con stitutions, made amidst the turmoil of the Revolution, differ notably from the last, made amidst the stress of racial and industrial agitation. Yet, throughout the history of the states, a few civil elements have been the factors in debate, in reform, and in social evolution. They are principally these: (1) Representation. (2) The suffrage. (3) Corporations. (4) The relation and definition, severally, of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. (5) The direct participation of the electors in the government of the state, that is, in the direction and control of the public business. (6) The gradual definition of inter-state and federal relations. The constitutional history of the American people is largely the history of these elements. Congress, the President, and the Federal Judiciary are not the only elements in our political evolution. It requires little reflection to satisfy the claim that the state governments are closer to the people than is the federal government. Hamilton pointed this out in the Federalist, and it is confirmed by the experience of more than a century. Representation in the federal government is by states, though it is not regulated by them. The President is chosen not by the popular vote alone, but by the electoral vote of the states. A senator of the United States, or a representative in Congress, is an elector in the state which he represents. The people in a congressional district would not elect a representative who was not a resident of the district; a state legislature would not choose as a senator of the United States a non-resident of the state. The dominant idea of local representation runs through American political institutions—a contrast at this point to the British constitution. An English constituency may elect a non-resident as its representative in the House of Commons. The practice in America would not tolerate this. At no time has constitutional reform in this country hinted at the adoption of the English practice. On the contrary, every change in the form and basis of representation in America has intensified and strengthened the spirit of local representation. In the first state constitutions (those in force during the 18th century—and they were twenty-seven in number) the chief object sought in the provisions on representation was a full and complete representation of the people in local communities-towns or townships, in the northern states; counties and cities, in the southern; and the basis was, not the number of voters, but the number of communities. The locality or settlement was in the mind of the framers of these early organic laws when they provided for choosing the legislative body. Equality in representation was supposed to consist in allowing each town or township, or county one member because of its communal character. The number of representatives greater than one apportioned to a community was regulated by population. This early arrangement has been modified but never radically changed. The struggle for proportional representation, (illustrated in the constitution of Ohio of 1851, of Illinois, 1870, of Pennsylvania, 1873,) the record of which is preserved in the convention debates, gives no intimation of a desire to change the principle of local representation. But these debates, and others in other states at divers times, plainly show the strong entrench |