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1 F. Lauriston Bullard, Abraham Lincoln and the Statehood of Nevada [1] (1940)

handle is hein.presidents/ablinsnv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: (Reprinted from AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATIOA JOURAAL, Jlarch and April, 1940) ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE STATEHOOD OF NEVADA On Close Division of Public Opinion in 1864 a New Free State was Important-Decision to Admit Nevada-Great Hopes for Future Expansion-New Constitution Telegraphed to Wash- ington in Time to Proclaim State and Have its Vote Cast in Presidential Election. lBy F. LAURISTON BULLARD Editorial Writer, Boston Herald the wall of the Assembly Chamber in the capi- tol of the State of Nevada there hangs a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Its acquisition was au- thorized by the Legislature in connection with the cele- bration of the semi-centennial of Nevada's statehood. The unveiling took place on March 14, 1915. The painting was placed above the Speaker's chair in the room occupied by the popular branch of the Legislature in commemoration of the events that brought about the admission of Nevada to the Union, and, as the Governor said, to inspire legislators to give to the people the best that is in them. The anniversary of Nevada's accession (October 31, 1864) is observed an- nually as a holiday with more or less formality, and last year was celebrated with the pageantry of a Diamond Jubilee. Nevada or a Million Men That the admission of the Silver State was consid- ered a necessity for the consummation of the policies of the Civil War President is well known, but several important aspects of the situation at the time are hardly known at all. Easier to admit Nevada than to raise another million men, is the familiar explanation of Lincoln's policy, this on the authority of the account given to the public in 1898 by Charles A. Dana. The purpose of this article is to bring forward certain neg- lected phases of the story and to indicate that the Dana account may not in all respects be accurate, During about half of the decade of the 1850's Carson County, in the western part of the Territory of Utah, was occupied only by several groups of Mormons, and emigrants bound for California hurried through what seemed to them a Valley of Death littered as was the trail by skeletons of cattle and men. When a clash between the United States and the Mormon authorities became imminent in 1857, about a thousand Zionists at the call of Brigham Young abandoned promptly the properties in the Valley which their labor had made valuable and hastened back to Salt Lake. The discovery of the Comstock Lode precipitated a wild rush for a new El Dorado. On the second day before he quit the Presidency, James Buchanan signed the Act which transformed Carson County into the Territory of Ne- vada. In fewer than four years the Territory was ad- vanced to Statehood. The census of 1860 gave Nevada a population of only 6,857. During the debate in Con- gress of the Enabling Act for Nevada's admission the population was estimated all the way from 30,000 to 45,000. Statehood must mean the addition of two Senators and one Representative to the National Legis- lature. The Apportionment Act in force at that time established a population ratio of 127,381 for each mem- her of Congress. In all the succeeding 75 years Nevada never has attained that population. But in the middle 60's everybody assumed that Ne- vada was destined to become a populous and wealthy State. The frenzied speculation of the wildcat era was subsiding, but sane observers in conservative publica- tions declared that a mighty commonwealth had been founded on the plateau between the Rockies and the Sierras and predicted that the stream of bullion which would issue from its mines would pay the nation's war debt. Senator Latham of California insisted that even by the time the Territory had qualified for admission the population would exceed 100,000, whereas the Golden State had come in with a population no larger. The eastern newspapers were commenting on the great progress the Territory had made in four years. The New York Times stressed the vast multitudes of emi- grants who were pouring into the region. The New York Herald foresaw a future for the new State that would be as prosperous as its beginning. Greeley's Tribune described in glowing terms the prospects of the coming State, and indicated that its mines might pay not only the interest on the national debt but the entire debt . . . within the present generation. The Secretary of the Interior in his report for 1864 con- ceived that the production of the silver regions must soon reach a magnitude unprecedented in the history of mining operations. Bishop Matthew Simpson in- dulged in gaudy rhetoric to describe the value of the Nevada mines-the more the mines are worked the richer they yield. Observers believed also that once the Pacific Railroad should have spanned the Conti- nent silver would not be the only valuable export of the new State. Agriculture must always be limited, but several minerals would supplement silver when the mines became more readily accessible and freight rates receded to a reasonable level. Nevada Desired Statehood The people of Nevada wanted to enter the Union. Three months before Congress passed an Enabling Act they voted four to one for Statehood. During the ter- ritorial years a little body of troops organized in that distant region kept open the sole means of communica- tion between the East and the Pacific coast. For that val- uable war service the Territory borrowed money at the rate of 1Y per cent. per month and incurred a debt for which the State was not reimbursed until 1929. The gov- ernment at Washington under all normal conditions would have delayed action. Nobody foresaw, however, that Nevada would provide the nation with a unique case of arrested development. Nevertheless, even though the future had been clearly disclosed to the Administra- tion, Statehood would have been authorized without delay. The Administration was looking for additional loyal States. Congress passed Enabling Acts for Colo- rado and Nebraska, territories which also fell far short

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