Thus the problem of negro citizenship was not one of abstract right, but must be settled on grounds of expediency. "Would the admission of the negro as a citizen tend in the least to lessen, endanger or impair the enjoyment of our governmental institutions?" The answer of the Committee reads as follows: "However your committee may commiserate with the degraded condition of the negro, and feel for his fate, yet they can never consent to open the doors of our beautiful State and invite him to settle our lands. The policy of other States would drive the whole black population of the Union upon us. The ballot box would fall into their hands and a train of evils would follow that in the opinion of your committee would be incalculable. The rights of persons would be less secure, and private property materially impaired. The injustice to the white population would be beyond computation. There are strong reasons to induce the belief that the two races could not exist in the same government upon an equality without discord and violence, that might eventuate in insurrection, bloodshed and final extermination of one of the two races. No one can doubt that a degraded prostitution of moral feeling would ensue, a tendency to amalgamate the two races would be superinduced, a degraded and reckless population would follow; idleness, crime and misery would come in their train, and government itself fall into anarchy or despotism. Having these views of the subject your committee think it inexpedient to grant the prayer of the petition." Nor was it thought expedient by the Committee to introduce an article into the Constitution which would exclude altogether persons of color from the State, notwithstanding the fact that "the people of Iowa did not want negroes swarming among them." Even Mr. Langworthy, who had been instructed by his constituents "to get something put into the Constitution by which negroes might be excluded from the State," felt that the matter could safely be left with the General Assembly. Mr. Grant thought that an exclusion clause in the Constitution would "endanger our admission into the Union." Although the report was laid on the table, it nevertheless represented the dominant opinion then prevalent in Iowa. Our pioneer forefathers believed that the negroes were men entitled to freedom and civil liberty. But more than a score of years had yet to elapse before there was in their minds no longer "a doubt that all men [including the negroes] are created free and equal."