"The organic law of a great commonwealth": the framing of the South Dakota constitution

South Dakota Law Review, Summer, 2008 by Jon Lauck

   [W]hen the news of Lincoln's assassination came through, the
   soldiers cried like babies. They all loved this man whose great,
   tender heart bore the sufferings of the soldiers. Father said no
   one except Jesus was ever loved by so many people and he hoped that
   his children and their children would love their country and revere
   Abraham Lincoln just as their Grandfather Bloodgood did. (99)

In the 1870s, there was even a proposal to split off the Black Hills from the territory and call it "Lincoln" and also a proposal to divide the territory in two, with the southern half becoming "Dakota" and the northern half becoming "Chippewa," "Lincoln," or "Lincoln Territory." (100) In 1889, the Union Veteran Club of Chicago reminded Dakotans that the "men of 1861-65 made statehood possible for Dakota" and requested that one of the Dakotas be named "Lincoln." (101)

The prominence of the Civil War in Dakota culture affected politics and policy. In 1887, the territorial assembly passed a law which paid for the burying of "Soldiers, Sailors or Marines, who Served in Union Army During the War of the Rebellion" when their relatives could not afford the burial. (102) The same territorial assembly passed a law giving a preference in public works projects to "honorably discharged Union soldiers and sailors of the late war." (103) Old soldiers and their families were also afforded generous advantages over other settlers under amendments to the national Homestead Act adopted in 1870 and 1872 and these privileges "unquestionably were responsible for a large influx of settlement into the West" and "were widely heralded by the railways," who promoted the migration and settlement of veterans in the West. (104) The influence of the Civil War veterans was directly felt through the Grand Army of the Republic lodges, which grew dramatically during the years of the boom and included many territorial leaders. In 1884 alone, the number of GAR posts in the territory increased from thirteen to sixty-two and grew to one hundred by the time of statehood. (105) The GAR reunion in Aberdeen in September 1885 typified the grandiosity and patriotic spirit of such occasions and featured reveille, a grand parade, music, prayers, speeches by the governor and other officials, the reading of a long paper entitled "The Life, Service and Character of General Grant," the singing of "Marching Through Georgia," and a grand campfire. (106) In 1889, the territorial legislature created a Dakota Soldiers' Home in keeping with the wishes of a recent encampment of the Dakota department of the GAR. (107) In keeping with their support of Civil War veterans, Dakota political leaders were also quick to denounce President Cleveland's veto of Union soldier relief passed by Congress. (108)

The political identity of many of the Midwesterners who would move to Dakota Territory was molded by the Civil War and served as another stimulant for republican ideology. The election of Lincoln in 1860 was viewed as a "regional triumph" and marked the "moment in which the Midwest emerged as the preeminent region of the nation." (109) By fighting a different region with different cultural practices and by coming to realize all that they shared in common, the "Civil War enabled large numbers of Midwesterners to imagine themselves as citizens of a regional community defined largely by the middleclass residents of small towns from Ohio to Iowa and beyond." (110) The Civil War helped focus the energies of Midwesterners on larger republican ideals and avoid petty squabbles. (111) The Civil War, David Noble concluded, "marked the triumph of midwestern democracy." (112) This triumphant Midwestern culture of republicanism migrated along with the settlers to their new Dakota homesteads.