ARTICLE 12.-SCHEDULE.

SECTION 1. This Constitution shall be the supreme law of the State, and any law inconsistent therewith shall be void. The General Assembly shall pass all laws necessary to carry this Constitution into effect.

SEC. 2. All laws now in force, and not inconsistent with this Constitution, shall remain in force until they shall expire or be repealed.

SEC. 3. All indictments, prosecutions, suits, pleas, plaints, process, and other proceedings pending in any of the courts, shall be prosecuted to final judgment and execution; and all appeals, writs of errors, certiorari, and injunctions, shall be carried on in the several courts, in the same manner as now provided by law; and all offenses, misdemeanors and crimes that may have been committed before the taking effect of this Constitution, shall be subject to indictment, trial and punishment, in the same manner as they would have been had not this constitution been made.

SEC. 4. All fines, penalties, or forfeitures due, or to become due, or accruing to the State, or to any county therein, or to the school fund, shall inure so the State, county, or school fund, in the manner prescribed by law. SEC. 5. All bonds executed to the State, or to any officer in his official capacity, shall remain in force and inure to the use of those concerned.

SEC. 6. The first election under this constitution shall be held on the second Tuesday in October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, at which time the electors of the State shall elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. There shall also be elected at such election, the successors of such State Senators as were elected at the August election, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, and members of the House of Representatives, who shall be elected in accordance with the act of apportionment, enacted at the session of the General Assembly which commenced on the first Monday of December, one thouasnd eight hundred and fifty-six.

SEC. 7. The first election for Secretary, Auditor, and Treasurer of State, Attorney-General, District Judges, Members of the Board of Education, District Attorneys, members of Congress, and such State officers as shall be elected at the April election, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven (except the Superintendent of Public Instruction), and such county officers as were elected at the August election, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, except Prosecuting Attorney, shall be held on the second Tuesday of October, one thousand eight hundred and fiftyeight; Provided, that the time for which any District Judge, or any other State or county officer, elected at the April election in one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, shall not extend beyond the time fixed for filling like offices at the October election in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.

SEC. 8. The first election for Judges of the Supreme Court, and such county officers as shall be elected at the August election, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, shall be held on the second Tuesday of October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.

SEC. 9. The first regular session of the General Assembly shall be held in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, commencing on the second Monday of January of said year.

SEC. 10. Senators elected at the August election, in the year one thou

sand eight hundred and fifty-six, shall continue in office until the second Tuesday of October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, at which time their successors shall be elected as may be prescribed by law. SEC. 11. Every person elected by popular vote, by a vote of the General Assembly, or who may hold office by Executive appointment, which office is continued by this constitution, and every person who shall be so elected or appointed, to any such office, before the taking effect of this constitution, (except as in this constitution otherwise provided) shall continue in office until the term for which such person has been or may be elected or appointed shall expire; but no such person shall continue in office after the taking effect of this constitution, for a longer period than the term of such office, in this constitution prescribed.

SEC. 12. The General Assembly, at the first session under this constitution, shall district the State into eleven judicial districts, for District Court purposes; and shall also provide for the apportionment of the General Assembly, in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.

SEC. 13. The foregoing constitution shall be submitted to the electors of the State at the August election, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the several election districts in this State. The ballots at such election shall be written or printed as follows: Those in favor of the constitution-"New Constitution-Yes." Those against the constitution, "New Constitution-No." The election shall be conducted in the same manner as the general elections of the State, and the poll-books shall be returned and canvassed as provided in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Code; and abstracts shall be forwarded to the Secretary of State, which abstracts shall be canvassed in the manner provided for the canvass of State officers. And if it shall appear that a majority of all the votes cast at such election for and against this constitution are in favor of the same, the Governor shall immediately issue his proclamation stating that fact, and such constitution shall be the constitution of the State of Iowa, and shall take effect from and after the publication of said proclamation.

SEC. 14. At the same election that this constitution is submitted to the people for its adoption or rejection, a proposition to amend the same by striking out the word "white," from the article on the "Right of Suffrage," shall be separately submitted to the electors of this State for adoption or rejection, in manner following, viz

A separate ballot may be given by every person having a right to vote at said election, to be deposited in a separate box; and those given for the adoption of such proposition shall have the words, "Shall the word 'white' be stricken out of the article on the Right of Suffrage?'-Yes." And those given against the proposition shall have the words, "Shall the word 'white' be stricken out of the article on the Right of Suffrage?-No.” And if at said election the number of ballots cast in favor of said proposition, shall be equal to a majority of those cast for and against this constitution, then said word "white" shall be stricken from said article and be no part thereof.

SEC. 15. Until otherwise directed by law, the county of Mills shall be in and a part of the Sixth Judicial District of this State.

Done in convention at Iowa City, this fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, and of the independence of the United States of America, the eighty-first.

In testimony whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names:

THE PIONEER.

In the heart of the grand old forest,
A thousand miles to the West,
Where a stream gushed out from the hill side,
They halted at last for rest.
And the silence of ages listened

To the axe-stroke loud and clear,
Divining a kingly presence

In the tread of the pioneer.

He formed of the prostrate beeches
A home that was strong and good;
The roof was of reeds from the streamlet,
The chimney he built of wood.
And there by the winter fireside,

While the flame up the chimney roared,

He spoke of the good time coming,

When plenty should crown their board

When the forest should fade like a vision,
And over the hill-side and plain
The orchard would spring in its beauty,
And the fields of golden grain.
And to-night he sits by the fireside
In a mansion quaint and old,

With his children's children around him,
Having reaped a thousand-fold.

HISTORY OF POLK COUNTY.

CHAPTER I.

PREFATORY.

The County, its location and name-Plan and scope of this work-The war with Mexico, its battles commemorated and warriors honored in the organization of Iowa counties-President Polk the central figure of that contest.

OVER a score and a half of years have passed away since the first white settlement was made within the bounds of that territory now known as Polk county, Iowa.

It is less than half of a century since the uncivilized aborigines roamed the prairies wild and free, unfettered by the restraint of common or statutory law, and uncircumscribed by township boundaries and county lines. The transformation which has taken place in the physiognomy of the country alone is beyond the comprehension of the finite mind: luxuriant groves where there was the wide stretching prairie; cultivated fields where was the primeval forest; orchards, vineyards and gardens where waved the tall prairie grass. So marked has been the change in the physiognomy of the country that there has been a decided change in the climatology. The elements themselves seem to have taken notice of the great change and have governed themselves accordingly. While the annual rainfall and the mean annual temperature remain the same in quantity, they are now entirely different in quality, and although imperceptible and independent of man's will, they have nevertheless come under the same civilizing power which has changed the wilderness into a fruitful land.

The great change which has taken place in the development of the material resources of the country is more noticeable, as man can more readily discern the changes which take place by detail in his own circumscribed field of activity than he can those grand revolutions in the uncircumscribed domain of nature. The changes which have occurred in social, intellectual and moral conditions are still more marked, mind being more swift to act on mind than on matter.

These changes can best be estimated by the institution of a brief contrast:

Then, the material resources of the country consisted simply in the streams of water which quenched the thirst of the aborigine, wherein was