FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK: Remembering The Reason For “Nevada Day”…And, For That Matter, Which Day It Is

By VERNON ROBISON

First of all, I want to clear up one point: nothing of any historic significance is reported to have happened in Nevada on October 25, 1864. Notwithstanding last Friday’s grand Nevada Day celebration, the fact is, it took place on the wrong day.

In recent years, “Nevada Day” observance seems to have followed a disturbing modern trend. All the focus is on arranging things to enjoy a convenient day off work with a long weekend. At that point, the real reason for the day gets lost. As a result, it is perhaps ironic that the “Nevada Day” holiday seems to have become nothing more than a prime opportunity for Nevadans to up and leave the state in order to visit attractions in southern California or other neighboring states. Thus, it has become easy for many to forget; or, worse, to never learn; what “Nevada Day” is all about and why we celebrate it.

When I was a child (and that really wasn’t so long ago) it was called Admissions Day; and, no matter which day of the week it fell, it was always celebrated on October 31. While every school kid in Nevada was happy to be out of school on the day of Halloween, he/she knew full well that this was not the real reason for the day off. Any one of us at that time could have explained that the real reason for the celebration was that Nevada had become a state on that day in 1864.

And so, at the risk of being considered nit-picky, I’d just point out that it is actually this week, not last, in which Nevada begins its sesquicentennial year as a state. And it is due to my own stubbornness, and my tendency toward mild civil disobedience, that I simply refused to print anything about it last week in the PROGRESS. Instead, I opted to wait and commemorate the date in its appropriate time. So on this opening week of Nevada’s year-long, 150th anniversary celebration, it seems that it certainly can’t hurt to provide our readers with a little refresher on a few of the interesting historical facts surrounding this important day.

Nevada was first proclaimed a state of the Union by President Abraham Lincoln on October 31, 1864. Actually, the road to statehood for Nevada was filled with political irregularities and Constitutional unorthodoxy. Indeed, that year the territory found itself on something of a fast track to statehood. Of course, this all occurred against a backdrop of a desperate Civil War which was being waged at that time. While the tide of the war had, by now, turned in favor of the Union, the end was still anything but certain. A long road of many months still lay ahead. But the fact is that the road to Nevada’s statehood had less to do with the Union’s need for Nevada’s natural resources in wartime and more to do with Presidential politics, pure and simple.

The Nevada Territory at the time was commonly, and correctly, perceived to be both pro-Unionist and strongly Republican in its majority politics. So, despite the fact that other territories had much higher population numbers, Nevada was pushed to the head of the line for statehood.

With the 1864 Presidential election approaching, Lincoln and the Republicans saw many advantages to admitting an additional Republican state. Firstly, another Republican congressional delegation would bring additional support for the passage of the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, a measure which had previously failed narrowly to obtain the required two thirds support of both houses of Congress. Perhaps more importantly though, earlier that year, in the Spring of 1864, there had been concerns that there might be three major candidates running for President that fall. This, it was feared, would create a situation where no one party would achieve a majority of electoral votes. If that were to happen, the Constitution dictated that the matter would go to the House of Representatives where each state would have only one vote. Thus, a Republican Nevada would then have voting rights equal to those of more populous states like New York or Pennsylvania. These concerns made an additional safe Republican state quite attractive to Lincoln’s supporters and the Republicans.

Paving the way to Nevada statehood, the U.S. Congress passed an enabling act just before it went into recess. Lincoln signed the act on March 23, 1864. This act cleared the path for Nevada, stating that the territory could achieve statehood if it wrote an acceptable constitution including a number of stipulated provisions. The state constitution would then be subject to review by the President. If approved by Lincoln, Nevada would be admitted as a state.

Obviously, the procedure outlined by the enabling act was somewhat unorthodox. It left Congress completely out of the loop. It was up to the territory and the President only to implement the required ideas. But, as previously mentioned, there were some feelings of urgency to insure that Nevada become a state before the next meeting of the Congress. So the act was passed and signed by the President.

Actually, a previous draft of a Nevada state constitution had been attempted just the year before. In fact, in September of 1863, the voters of the territory had approved of the concept of statehood by a broad margin of 6,660 votes to 1,502.

But there was widespread disagreement over the details in the state constitution draft which resulted from that original vote. The first draft had been submitted to voters on December 11 that year and was rejected by a decisive 8.851 to 2,157 vote. The main reason for the widespread disapproval dealt with disagreements over the taxation of mines.

Now, a year later during the summer of 1864, fueled by the Congressional enabling act, a second draft of the constitution was framed. The stipulations in the enabling act were incorporated at the beginning of this version. They included, of course, the outlawing of slavery. They also included an interesting stipulation that all undistributed public lands in the new state would be retained by the federal government and could never be taxed by the state.

Potential opposition from the mine owner lobby was prevented by a provision in the constitution that only the net proceeds of mines could be taxed.

The state constitution was approved overwhelmingly by Nevada voters on September 7, 1864. The election results were 10,375 votes in favor, 1,184 votes opposed.

After the election, the text of the state constitution in its entirety was telegraphed to Washington D.C. It was reported to be the longest and most expensive telegram sent up to that time with a cost of $3,416.77.

Lincoln approved the constitution and proclaimed Nevada a state on October 31. Eight days later, Nevada voted solidly Republican in the Presidential, congressional and legislative elections.

Briefly stated, these are some of the historical facts surrounding the reason that we celebrate “Nevada Day”. So whether you spent your day off last Friday enjoying the beauties and blessings of your home state, or standing in line at Disneyland, we hope you will take a few moments this week to remember the reason why you got the time off in the first place.

We at the PROGRESS hope that you enjoyed your Nevada Day. But more importantly, we hope that tomorrow in all your Halloween fun, you remember the signficance of Nevada’s true Admissions Day. And pass it on to your children.