Dakota’s territorial lawmakers convened in Bismarck in January of 1885. It was the first legislative session after the territory’s capitol was yanked from Yankton. By a capitol commission’s five to four vote in 1883, Yankton lost the “seat of government,” and that led to backlash including court battles and the removal of Governor Nehemiah Ordway.
Still, Bismarck kept the capitol,and Dakota’s sixteenth legislative session got underway with swearings-inand electing legislative officers, like sergeant-at-arms, chaplain and speaker of the house.The territorial legislature included twenty-four council membersand forty-eight house representatives.
Bismarck Mayor John P. Dunn “extended a hearty welcome” to Governor Gilbert A. Pierce and invited lawmakers to a reception at the new capitol building.Legislative business covered a variety of topics, from establishing three counties in what would become North Dakota, to a house bill granting women’s suffrage.
Governor Pierce vetoed the bill. In a letter to the speaker of the house, the governor said that full women’s suffrage “will delay our claims to statehood.”Later in 1885, Dakota’s legislature and Indiana Senator Benjamin Harrison would make efforts for Congress to split the territory, give statehood to South Dakota and reorganize northern Dakota Territory.
Pierce also wrote that Dakota women should have a voice in determining suffrage,and that territorial suffrage would conflict with city charters in southern Dakota that allowed only male voters.
“If women are to be enfranchised let it be done not as a thirty days wonder but as a merited reform resulting from mature reflection approved by the public conscience and sanctioned by the enlightened judgment of the people,”Pierce wroteon this date in 1885,the same day the legislature adjourned sine die. Full women’s suffrage in North Dakota would have to wait until the national amendment was passed.
Dakota Datebook by Jack Dura
Sources
Dakota Territory. (1885). House journal of the sixteenth session of the legislative assembly of the territory of Dakota. Tribune, Printers and Binders: Bismarck
https://www.ndstudies.gov/content/bismarck-becomes-territorial-capital
https://www.nd.gov/content.htm?parentCatID=83&id=County%20History
https://www.ndstudies.gov/content/battle-territorial-capital
https://sdsos.gov/general-information/assets/bluebookpdfs/1903bluebook/LBB1903_Sec05.pdf
