It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy, but statehood officially came to the Nebraska Territory on March 1, 1867 — 155 years ago.

While so many great Americans have had a deep impact on the state of Nebraska throughout its storied history, Abraham Lincoln had an important role, although he never lived to see the results of his actions come to fruition.

Visiting Council Bluffs, Iowa, to look at some property that a friend had recommended to him, Lincoln was a well-known politician nationally in August 1859, although he would not move into the White House for another year and a half.

He was already famous for the Lincoln-Douglas debates he had participated in versus Stephen Douglas of Illinois, contesting Douglas’ Senate seat. Although he lost that election in 1858, Lincoln gained notoriety for his views against slavery.

During that Iowa visit, Lincoln never set foot into the Nebraska Territory, but he did step out onto a high hill and viewed for the first time the Missouri River and the Nebraska Territory just to the west.

That territory had been established through the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which led to bloody conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in “Bleeding Kansas.” But Lincoln was already thinking ahead, about which route would best serve the nation for the transcontinental railroad.

During his stay in Council Bluffs, he discussed that route with engineer Grenville Dodge. This meeting perhaps solidified Lincoln’s penchant toward a route following the Platte River Valley, with an eastern terminus located in what was then a little settlement known as Omaha.

After being elected president and taking office in 1861, although the nation was embroiled in a horrific Civil War, Lincoln kept his eye on the West and the Nebraska Territory, signing into law the Pacific Railroad Act in June 1862 and setting the stage for the transcontinental railroad, which wouldn’t be completed until 1869 after Lincoln’s death.

The Homestead Act of 1862 was another piece of legislation that shaped Nebraska forever, with Daniel Freeman as the first official homesteader in the nation, claiming his quarter section of land near present-day Beatrice at 10 minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, 1863, at the Land Office in Brownville.

Lincoln called for the establishment of the U.S Department of Agriculture, and he signed the Morrill Land-Grant College Act into law on July 2, 1862, providing each state with 30,000 acres of federally owned land per senator and representative for the establishment of colleges to teach agriculture and mechanic arts.

Statehood question

Before this, on March 5, 1860, a majority of the Nebraska Territory cast votes against statehood, fearing higher taxes would be the result. Just as the Civil War was concluding, Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865, and he died in the early-morning hours of the next day.

Among the items found on his desk after the assassination was a certificate proclaiming Alvin Saunders as the territorial governor of Nebraska, so this was one of his last official acts as president.

Vice President Andrew Johnson took the oath of office as president. Nebraska’s constitution that was originally submitted to Congress, like many other Northern states, limited the right to vote to white males, excluding African Americans and women.

Controlled by those supporting voting rights for African Americans, Congress amended the statehood legislation to require Nebraska to remove restrictions on African American suffrage before being admitted into the Union as a state. Johnson, a southerner, opposed this restriction by Congress, so he vetoed the statehood bill.

Congress promptly passed the bill over Johnson’s veto. Back in Nebraska, Saunders called the legislature into a special session to consider the conditions imposed. In a quick one-day session, the legislature approved the conditions from Congress, and Nebraska was proclaimed as a state.

Nebraska state symbols quiz

To help celebrate the state’s birthday, take the Nebraska quiz to see what your state symbols IQ is. Click through our gallery for the answers, or check at the bottom of this quiz.

1. What is the Nebraska state nickname officially?

2. What is the state bird?

3. What is the state tree?

4. What is the state soil?

5. What is the state fish?

6. What is the state flower?

7. What is the state mammal?

8. What is the state insect?

9. What is the state grass?

10. What is the state motto?

Answers: 1. c; 2. d; 3. c; 4. a; 5. d; 6. b; 7. a; 8. b; 9. a; 10. b.

Learn more at the website of the Nebraska Secretary of State, sos.nebraska.gov/state-symbols, or visit history.nebraska.gov.