Chapter 13: Creation of Wyoming Territory: Impeachment and Women’s Suffrage
by Phil Roberts – 2019
Impeachment played an important, but subtle role in the creation and organization of Wyoming Territory in 1868-69 and the passage of the first women’s suffrage act. Supporters of that act were new territorial officers who would not have been nominated, were it not for President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment.
The first construction crews were building the transcontinental railroad across what was the southwestern third of Dakota Territory in 1867. Dakota Territorial Gov. A. J. Faulk recommended to his legislature in fall of 1867 that the southwestern district of Dakota “be clothed with all the blessings, and protection of a separate organization.” Although the petition, on its face, seems to be thinking of the good that would come from such a separation from the point of view of the residents of the new territory, Faulk’s administration likely feared residents of the new boom towns like Cheyenne would begin asking for government services. The Dakota Territory could ill afford to spend in the boom area when there were needs in their agriculture-based “east river” territory. (In other words, “please, Congress, rid us of that troublesome section.”) The Dakota Territorial Legislature memorialized Congress to cleave off their western half and make it an independent territory in December 1867. (See the text of the memorial in the column below)
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Several bills had been introduced into Congress in the middle 1860s to create the new territory (in a couple of bills, referred to as “Lincoln Territory”). In light of the Dakota Territorial petition, Congress considered a bill, S. 357, sponsored by Sen. Richard Yates (Illinois), introduced on February 13, 1868. (On Feb. 24, 1868, the House of Representatives passed the resolutions to impeach President Andrew Johnson–Yates was a strong supporter of impeachment. The House voted impeachment, but the trial in the Senate ended without conviction on May 26).
Meanwhile, the bill to create Wyoming Territory became the Organic Act. It passed July 25, 1868. The terms of the act required that the President appoint and the Senate confirm the territorial officers before the government was activated. Johnson appointed two sets of territorial officers in the following months, but the Senate refused to confirm the appointments. Not until Johnson’s term ended and the newly-elected President, U. S. Grant, took office, were appointments made and approved by the Senate.
The appointments of John A. Campbell as territorial governor and Edward M. Lee as territorial secretary particularly became significant. Both men, Civil War veterans and trained as lawyers, ably set up the territorial government. Further, on Dec. 10, 1869, at the end of the first legislative session, Campbell signed the Suffrage Act that he and Lee had supported, granting equal political rights to women, making Wyoming Territory the first to do so anywhere. Were it not for President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment, Campbell and Lee likely would not have held territorial office and, quite likely, women suffrage would not have originated with Wyoming Territory
“A Memorial to the 40th Congress by the Dakota Legislative Assembly 1867-68 Asking for the Organization of a New Territory Out of the Southern Portion of Dakota” (Laws of Dakota 1867-68, p. 286).
“To the Honorable the Senate and House of the United States in Congress Assembled:
“Your memorialists, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Dakota, most respectfully represent, that all that portion of Dakota Territory described as follows, to-wit:
“Beginning at a point west of the main ridge of the Rocky Mountains in the Green River Valley, at the intersection of the 33rd meridian of longitude west from Washington, with the 41st parallel of north latitude; thence east along said 41st parallel to the 27th meridian of longitude; thence north along said meridian near the western base of the Black Hills to the southeast corner of Montana Territory, on the 45th parallel of latitude; thence west along the south boundary of said Territory to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, thence southwardly along the eastern boundary of Idaho Territory to the aforementioned 43rd meridian of longitude, and thence south along said meridian to the place of beginning, would be greatly benefited by being detached from the remaining and eastern portion of said territory of Dakota, and erected by Congress into a new Territory a separate organization.
“Your memorialists would further represent, in evidence of the necessity of this our petition, that while the said new Territory is remote from the man line of travel in Eastern Dakota, and is separated therefrom by a broad extent of wild Indian country, yet the Union Pacific railroad traverses the entire length of said proposed new Territory giving it direct and easy communication with Nebraska and the States, by means of which several thousand people have already settled along the line of said road, and have established their towns and cities, at a distance of 600 miles by the nearest traveled route from the capital and courts of the Territory of Dakota [Yankton].
“Your memorialists would further represent, that said portion of Dakota comprises an areas of Territory equal to 62,526,528 square acres, or nearly one half of the present Territory of Dakota, and no direct lines of travel or communication will, for many years, be opened across the plains connecting these two remote sections of Dakota, so long as the said Pacific railroad gives to the said proposed new Territory such advantages of travel and travel with the east and the Lower Missouri, as is now possessed by that of the west.
“Your memorialists would further represent, that the present ill-proportioned and extensive area of Dakota demonstrates that a division of this territory by Congress is inevitable, and only a question of time, and sound policy would seem to dictate that all the guards of law and courts afforded by a separate territorial government should be extended to the already populous settlements of the proposed new Territory.
“Your memorialists would therefore most earnestly petition your honorable bodies to grant to this important and growing section of Dakota, a separate territorial organization at the present session of Congress. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray.”
The first women’s suffrage law, passed by the first Wyoming Territorial Legislature, was signed by Territorial Gov. John A. Campbell on Dec. 10, 1869. (The day was designated “Wyoming Day” by the 1935 Wyoming legislature).
Campbell, the first territorial govenor, actually was the third man to be appointed to that office. The two earlier men were nominated by President Andrew Johnson in the middle of his impeachment by Congress. Neither of his nominees gained Senate confirmation. Thus, Wyoming was “created” but not “organized” until Johnson’s successor, President U. S. Grant, appointed a slate of territorial officers who gained Senate confirmation in 1869, shortly after Grant’s inauguration. Campbell signed the Suffrage Act into law on Dec. 10, 1869. The territorial secretary, Edward M. Lee, also supported the suffrage act. Neither would have held their office were it not for Johnson’s impeachment and Grant’s election.