CHAPTER XXII
AT the April election in 1851, Thomas H. Benton, Democrat, was chosen Superintendent of Public Instruction over Wm. G. Woodward, Whig, by a vote of 10,353 to 9,002.
The Fourth General Assembly convened at Iowa City on the 6th day of December, 1852, and was organized by the election of William E. Leffingwell, President of the Senate, and James Grant, Speaker of the House. Governor Hempstead’s message, which was read in each House on the 7th, states the financial condition as follows: amount paid into the treasury for the two years ending October 31,1852, $139,681.69, disbursements for the same period, $131,631.49, leaving a balance of $8,051.59. The funded debt of the State was $81,795.75.
Among the recommendations he urges the establishment of the office of Attorney-General and also a State Land Office, the erection of a monument to the memory of Major Mills, who fell in the Mexican War, the prohibition of the circulation of bank notes of less denomination than ten dollars, a general license law for the sale of intoxicating liquors, that the Legislature urge Congress to make a grant of public lands to aid in the construction of railroads in Iowa.
General Van Antwerp, Commissioner of the Des Moines River Improvement, in his report to the Governor, made November 30, 1852, stated that $300,000 had been expended in the work, and that by a recent decision of the Interior Department it was held that the grant of lands extended to the source of the river; a million of acres was now available for the completion of the work. He says:
