F 
 ISO 
 
 ."Pi 3 
 
 
THE TERRITORY OF 
 COLORADO 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC L. PAXSON 
 
 . PAX' 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE 
 
 VOL. XII., NO. i OCTOBER, 1906 
 
[Reprinted from THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, Vol. XII., No. i, Oct., 1906.] 
 
 THE TERRITORY OF COLORADO 
 
 IT is commonly taken for granted that the Kansas-Nebraska legis- 
 lation of 1854 settled the territorial question in the United States, 
 and that the territorial question itself was only a single phase of 
 the larger question of slavery. The tyranny of the slavery problem 
 over the historical mind has completely subordinated the problem 
 of the expansion of the agricultural West, the settlement of new 
 areas, and the providing of adequate institutions of government for 
 the citizens of the frontier. The erection of the territory of Colo- 
 rado in 1861 is itself proof that slavery was not in its own day de- 
 structive of interest in all other topics, however it may have im- 
 peded their consideration, and is an illuminative precedent in show- 
 ing the manner in which territorial problems have been forced upon 
 Congress and ultimately adjusted. 
 
 The acquisition of the southwest at the treaty of Guadalupe- 
 Hidalgo in 1848 extended the legal frontier of the United States far 
 beyond the frontier of actual settlement and compelled Congress to 
 give serious thought to the subdivision of large and relatively un- 
 inhabited areas of public lands. The act of May 30, 1854, which has 
 commonly been misunderstood as saying the last important word 
 upon the territorial question, merely marked the end of the earliest 
 period of preliminary adjustment. The residuum of the Louisiana 
 purchase and the lands acquired through the Mexican War were at 
 last distributed among two states, California and Texas, and four 
 territories. The two territorial organizations of New Mexico and 
 Utah covered the whole area between California and the Rocky 
 Mountains, while the fortieth parallel divided most of the unorgan-*- 
 ized area east of the mountains into Kansas and Nebraska territories. 
 
 The distribution in effect at the end of the session of 1854 was 
 only preliminary, and within three years Congress had begun to con- 
 sider the division of three of these territories, Nebraska, Utah, and 
 New Mexico, whose gigantic size precluded the rigorous execution 
 of law by single territorial establishments. In the first session of 
 the thirty-fifth Congress, 1857-1858, it was finally proposed to di- 
 vide two of these territories, creating Arizona in the western end of 
 New Mexico and Nevada in the western end of Utah ; x while the 
 next session brought a bill to erect Dakota in the northern end of 
 
 1 Congressional Globe, 35 Cong., i Sess., pp. 62, 2090. 
 
 (53) 
 
54 F. L. Pax son 
 
 Nebraska. 1 The division was required by various facts of popula- 
 tion and migration. The location of the great Pacific trails, the dis- 
 covery of silver-mines, the willingness to restrict the territory of the 
 Mormons, all appear as inspiring a further subdivision of the scantily 
 populated West. 
 
 The Congress of 1857-1858 passed no laws for the erection of 
 new territories in the areas marked out in the debates. There is 
 some internal evidence throughout these and later debates that the 
 young sponsors of the new Republican party were interested in 
 territorial development as a means of continuing the antislavery 
 argument which all parties had agreed in 1854 to forget. But what- 
 ever may have been the motives underlying the agitation, the argu- 
 ments make entirely clear the facts that the boundaries of 1854 
 were only temporary and that the great, shapeless territories must 
 some day be divided. The session of 1857-1858 contented itself 
 with the suggestion of two new territories of Nevada and Arizona ; 
 when the same Congress met for its second session in 1858-1859, 
 two more new territorial projects, those of Dakota and Jefferson, had 
 been added to its list. 
 
 In the migrations to the far West, beginning to be heavy in the 
 forties, the two principal routes had branched from the Missouri 
 River near its northern bend on the western boundary of the state 
 of Missouri. From this point the northern or Oregon route had run 
 w'estwardly along the Platte, the southern or Santa Fe route along 
 the Arkansas. And at the one hundred and second meridian the two 
 trails were already two hundred and fifty miles apart, and were devi- 
 ating still further to the northwest and southwest respectively. 2 
 The angle between the trails covered the heart of the "great Ameri- 
 can desert ", which Major Long had described in 1820 as utterly 
 uninhabitable for man, and which men had since 1820 been willing 
 to take at the word of the explorer. It was this uninviting, unin- 
 habited area which in the fall of 1858 appeared before Congress. It 
 demanded not a slicing up of existing great territories, but a new 
 grouping of lands taken out of the crest of the Rockies and in part 
 
 1 Globe, December 21, 1858, p. 159. 
 
 2 An act of Congress of May 19, 1846, provided for the erection of forts along 
 the Oregon route. .Fort Kearney was established on the Platte 310 miles west of 
 Fort Leavenworth, and Fort Laramie 337 miles beyond Fort Kearney, in 1848. 
 Ex. Doc. 5, 31 Cong., i Sess., Serial 569, pp. 94, 225. Fort Kearney became the 
 most important post on the northern route and was not abandoned until 1871. 
 House Ex. Doc. 12, 43 Cong., 2 Sess., Serial 1164. Lieutenant-colonel William 
 Gilpin was on July 20, 1847, detailed to a station near the crossing of the 
 Arkansas to keep the peace along the Sante Fe trail. Ex. Doc. i, 30 Cong., i 
 Sess., pp. 136, 139. 
 
The Territory of Colorado 5 5 
 
 from every one of the territories of the central and south west. 
 To this area those who advocated the new project gave the name 
 of the Territory of Jefferson. 
 
 Since the discovery of gold in California and the rush of the 
 forty-niners along the overland trails there had always been bodies of 
 prospectors scattered over the mountain region. Rumors of gold 
 discoveries in the desert triangle had been heard early in the fifties, 
 while the panic of 1857 sent fresh bands of men to try their luck in 
 the great game. In the year 1858 numerous parties were exploring 
 the lands between the Arkansas and the Platte, and the arrival at 
 Omaha on January 5, i859/ of several quills filled with gold-dust 
 proved to the Missouri settlers that success had rewarded the pro- 
 longed search, and started a new westward movement of large pro- 
 portions to the Pike's Peak country. 
 
 The city of Denver, named for the governor of Kansas territory, 
 became the settlement around which the Pike's Peak country grouped 
 itself in the winter of 1858-1859. Boulder and Golden, Colorado 
 City and Pueblo became secondary centres, each situated as Denver 
 was, at a point from which trade and travel branched from the 
 great trails and entered the valleys leading to the mining-camps. 2 
 
 As early as June, 1858, the forks of the South Platte and Cherry 
 Creek were being examined by prospectors. As the summer and 
 fall advanced more adventurers appeared ; the names of Montana, 
 Highland, Auraria, and St. Charles came to designate settlements in 
 the vicinity of the forks; and by November the inclusive name of 
 Denver was heard. 3 
 
 In a governmental way the new camp of Denver was situated 
 in Arapahoe County, Kansas. But Arapahoe County had never been 
 organized, and remained only a name until after the legislature of 
 Kansas abolished it in February, 1859.* The settlers themselves 
 saw from the start that the five hundred miles of trail between the 
 diggings and the territorial capital forbade protection from as well 
 
 1 Transactions and Reports of the Nebraska State Historical Society, II. 315. 
 One of the men mentioned as bringing the gold, Albert B. Steinberger, was elected 
 a delegate to Congress by the Auraria meeting of November 6, 1858. He de- 
 serted his mission and never reached Washington. His later romantic career in 
 a Pacific kingdom is described in House Ex. Doc. 161, 44 Cong., i Sess., Serial 
 1691, 125 pp. 
 
 2 An old military trail connecting Fort Union and Fort Laramie ran through 
 some and within easy distance of all these towns. Jerome C. Smiley, History of 
 Denver (Denver, 1901), 229. 
 
 3 The best detailed account of these earliest settlements is found ibid., 200 
 et seqq. 
 
 * Helen G. Gill, " The Establishment of Counties in Kansas ", Kansas His- 
 torical Collections, VIII. 452. 
 
56 F. L. Paxson 
 
 as interference by that government, and that their political salvation 
 lay nearer home. They saw that four territorial governments were 
 involved in the Pike's Peak country, and that the country was in 
 itself an economic unit. It was this understanding which pressed 
 upon Congress early in 1859 with a new territorial scheme, and which 
 even earlier than this had produced a spontaneous political activity in 
 the mountain camps. 
 
 The beginnings of Colorado politics are to be found in the move- 
 ment originating in Denver in November, 1858, and culminating in 
 the territorial organization of Jefferson in November, 1859. The 
 origin seems to have been in a typical early snowfall that drove the 
 miners into their cabins in November, 1858, and by enforcing idle- 
 ness upon them gave an opportunity for' talking politics. 1 Perhaps 
 two hundred miners were in Denver when the snowfall came, of 
 whom some thirty-five attended a meeting on November 6, and 
 determined to erect a new government for the Pike's Peak country. 
 " Just to think ", wrote one of them, " that within two weeks of the 
 arrival of a few dozen Americans in a wilderness, they set to work 
 to elect a Delegate to the United States Congress, and ask to be set 
 apart as a new Territory! But we are of a fast race and in a fast 
 age and must prod along." 2 To secure an attention to their demand 
 they chose one Hiram J. Graham to appear in their behalf at Wash- 
 ington, and one A. J. Smith to represent them in the legislature of 
 Kansas. 3 The arrival of these men in Omaha seems at once to have 
 confirmed the report of the discovery of placer gold in the western 
 streams and to have announced the birth of a new centre of popu- 
 lation. Four months after this first election a new political whim 
 struck Denver camp, and a set of local officers was chosen March 28, 
 1859, f r Arapahoe County, Kansas, in spite of the fact that Kansas 
 had on February 7, 1859, foreseen the coming emigration, reshaped 
 Arapahoe, and cut out of it five new counties of Montana, Oro, 
 El Paso, Fremont, and Broderick. 4 The only significance of this 
 March election, for its officers seem never to have held power, lies 
 in the fact that nearly eight hundred votes were then cast. Already 
 
 1 Ovando J. Hollister, in his Mines of Colorado (Springfield, Mass., 1867), 17, 
 is responsible for the statement that ten inches of snow fell on October 31, 1858. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1 8. 
 
 3 Ibid., 90 ; Smiley, 305, 530 ; Frank Fossett, Colorado : a Historical, Descrip- 
 tive and Statistical Work on the Rocky Mountain Gold and Silver Mining Region 
 (Denver, 1876), 17; Frank Hall, History of the State of Colorado (Chicago, 1889- 
 1895, 4 vols.), I. 208; H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, vol. XX., 
 Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming (San Francisco, 1890), 402. 
 
 * Smiley, 246, 531; Hall, I. 183; Bancroft, 402; Baskin and Co., History of 
 the City of Denver, Arapahoe County, and Colorado (Chicago, 1880), 187. 
 
The Territory of Colorado 5 7 
 
 the heavy migration of 1859 had begun to throw its thousands along 
 the trails to Denver. Whether these thousands were sixty or one 
 hundred, no one can tell to-day; but it is certain that after half or 
 more of them had gone home in disgust there remained in Jefferson 
 nearly thirty thousand settlers to reiterate the demand that Congress 
 provide a government for them and to maintain their provisional 
 territory for the interim. 
 
 The mission of Hiram J. Graham to the second session of the 
 thirty-fifth Congress failed to produce either an enabling or a terri- 
 torial act. His arrival in Washington in January, 1859, was fol- 
 lowed by the appearance of his territorial scheme in the House when 
 A. J. Stephens introduced a bill for the erection of Jefferson Terri- 
 tory. 1 Grow of Pennsylvania moved to amend the name to Osage, 
 and when it was reported back from the Committee on Territories 
 on February 16, it was tabled without any serious discussion or 
 opposition. 2 The fate that had postponed the erection of new terri- 
 tories in 1858 continued to postpone in 1859 when Jefferson had been 
 added to the list. Slavery debate forbade territorial legislation, and 
 the single scheme which had a real population behind it was left 
 without local or legal government, and was forced to find its way 
 through 1859 until the next session of Congress might perhaps attend 
 to business and provide for it a legal frame. 
 
 The migration of 1859 multiplied the population of Denver many 
 times and increased the need for orderly government as well by 
 the character as by the number of its inhabitants. A knowledge that 
 no aid from Congress could be had for at least a year revived the 
 local movement until it induced a group of pioneers to hold a 
 caucus, with William Larimer in the chair, on April n, to consider 
 the local situation. 3 As a result of this caucus a call issued 'for a 
 convention of representatives of the neighboring mining-camps to 
 meet in the same place four days later. And on April 15, 1859, 
 the camps of Fountain City, El Dorado and El Paso, Arapahoe, 
 Auraria, and Denver met through their delegates, " being fully im- 
 pressed with the belief, from early and recent precedents, of the 
 power and benefits and duty of self-government ", and feeling an im- 
 perative necessity " for an immediate and adequate government for 
 the large population now here and soon to be among us ... and 
 
 1 His petition was presented in the Senate on January 27. Cong. Globe, 35 
 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 621. Stephens reported bills in the House for Dakota, Arizona, 
 and Jefferson territories on January 28, 1859. Ibid., 657. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1065. 
 
 3 Hall, I. 184; Smiley, 306; Bancroft, 403. 
 
58 F. L. Pax son 
 
 also believing that a territorial government is not such as our large 
 and peculiarly situated population demands 'V 
 
 The deliberations thus informally started ended in a formal call 
 for a constitutional convention to meet in Denver on the first Mon- 
 day in June for the purpose, as an address to the people stated, of 
 framing a constitution for a new " State of Jefferson ". " Shall it 
 be ", the address demanded, " the government of the knife and the 
 revolver, or shall we unite in forming here in our golden country, 
 among the ravines and gulches of the Rocky Mountains, and the 
 fertile valleys of the Arkansas and the Platte, a new and independent 
 State?" 2 With a generosity characteristic of the frontier the con- 
 vention determined the boundaries of the prospective state as the 
 one hundred and second and one hundred and tenth meridians of 
 longitude, and the thirty-seventh and forty-third parallels of lati- 
 tude an area including, in addition to the present state of Colorado, 
 large portions of Utah and Nebraska and nearly half of Wyoming. 
 The arrival in Denver, a week after this convention, of William N. 
 Byers was important in that it brought an active advocate of state- 
 hood into the field, and produced on April 23 the first number of the 
 Rocky Mountain News. 3 
 
 When the statehood convention, called on April 15, met in Den- 
 ver in June 6, the time was inopportune for concluding the move- 
 ment, for large numbers of the pioneers who had rushed out over 
 the plains for " Pike's Peak or Bust " were already on their dis- 
 consolate way back, "busted ". The first reputation of the diggings 
 was based upon light and exaggerated discoveries of placer gold ; 
 when productive lodes came into view they called for more capital 
 and experience than most of the early prospectors possessed. 4 The 
 
 1 The first issue of the Rocky Mountain News, April 23, 1859, contains ai 
 account of these meetings and texts of the resolutions and addresses. The news- 
 paper at once becomes an invaluable source. Smiley, 306-309. 
 
 2 The address was drawn by a committee of five, and was printed in the 
 Rocky Mountain News, May 7, 1859. Smiley, 309. 
 
 3 The State Historical and Natural History Society of Colorado has in its 
 collection a file of the Rocky Mountain Neivs which is substantially complete, and 
 which has been used in the preparation of this paper. Byers reached Denver 
 April 21 with his printing outfit. He had prepared for prompt issue by printing 
 in Omaha two pages of his first four-page sheet. But even thus the honor of 
 the first issue in Colorado is contested by John L. Merrick's Cherry Creek 
 Pioneer. Both papers appeared first on April 23, 1859, Merrick's first being also 
 his last, for Byers at once bought him out and gained control of the field for 
 himself. Smiley, 247-248; Hall, I. 184; Bancroft, 527, has a useful note upon 
 Colorado journalism. 
 
 * Horace Greeley visited Denver, arriving June 6, 1859. Horace Greeley, An 
 Overland Journey, from New York to San Francisco, in the Summer of 1859 
 (New York, 1860), 137. 
 
The Territory of Colorado 59 
 
 height of the gold boom was over by June, and the return migra- 
 tion made it somewhat doubtful whether any permanent population 
 would be left in the country to need a state. So the convention 
 met on June 6, appointed some eight drafting committees, and ad- 
 journed, to await developments, until August I. 1 But by the first 
 of August a line had been drawn between the confident and the 
 discouraged elements in the population, and for six days the con- 
 vention worked upon the question of statehood. As to permanency, 
 there was by this time no doubt ; but the body divided into two nearly 
 equal groups, one advocating immediate statehood, the other shrink- 
 ing from the heavy taxation incident to a state establishment and 
 so preferring a territorial government with a federal treasury to meet 
 the bills. The body, too badly split to reach a conclusion itself, 
 compromised by preparing the way for either development and 
 leaving the choice to public vote. A state constitution was drawn 
 up on one hand ; 2 while on the other was prepared a memorial to 
 Congress praying for a territorial government ; 3 and both docu- 
 ments were submitted to a vote on September 5, 1859, when the 
 memorial was chosen instead of the constitution. 4 Upon October 
 3 another election was held, pursuant to the memorial, and a dele- 
 gate to Congress was chosen in the person of Beverly D. Williams, 
 who was local agent of a new Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express 
 Company which had run its first coach into Denver in May, 5 and 
 whose zeal for mail contracts may have inspired some of his earnest- 
 ness for Congressional countenance. C^QCTOlt MidfliiJI 
 The adoption of the territorial memorial failed to meet the 
 need for immediate government or to prevent the advocates of 
 such government from working out a provisional arrangement 
 pending the action of Congress. These advocates held a mass- 
 meeting in Denver on September 24, 6 while on the day that Wil- 
 liams was elected to Congress, October 3, they also elected dele- 
 gates for a preliminary territorial constitutional convention, and upon 
 
 1 Smiley, 277 ; Hall, I. 208 ; Bancroft, 404, gives lists of officers ; Rocky Moun- 
 tain News, June n, 1859. 
 
 2 Byers, in an editorial, ibid., July 23, had supported the statehood argument 
 by reference to the admission clause in the Louisiana treaty of 1803. 
 
 3 The Rocky Mountain News printed on August 6 the journal of the conven- 
 tion; on August 13 the constitution; and on August 20 the memorial. 
 
 4 Smiley, 311 ; Rocky Mountain News, September 17, reports the vote. 
 
 6 Smiley, 251 ; Alice Polk Hill, Tales of the Colorado Pioneers (Denver, 
 1884), 41 ; Alexander Majors, Seventy Years on the Frontier (Chicago and New 
 York, 1893), 165, 228; Majors was a member of the great freighting firm of 
 Russell, Majors, and Waddell, which was ultimately wrecked when the " Pony 
 Express" which had been started in April, 1860, collapsed. 
 
 6 Rocky Mountain News, September 29; Smiley, 312. 
 
60 F. L. Pax son 
 
 October 10 this convention met. " Here we go," commented Byers, 
 " a regular triple-headed government machine ; south of 40 deg., we 
 hang on to the skirts of Kansas; north of 40 deg., to those of Ne- 
 braska; straddling the line, we have just elected a Delegate to the 
 United States Congress from the ' Territory of Jefferson ', and ere 
 long, we will have in full blast a provisional government of Rocky 
 mountain growth and manufacture." 1 In this convention of Oc- 
 tober 10, 1859, the name of Jefferson was retained for the new terri- 
 tory, the boundaries of April 15 were retained, and a government 
 similar to the highest type of territorial establishment was provided 
 for. 2 If the convention had met pursuant to an enabling act, its 
 career could not have been more dignified. It adopted a constitution 
 with little trouble, and then dissolved after calling an election for 
 territorial officers for October 24, 1859. The election of this day' 
 seems to have been orderly and generally participated in, for the 
 need of government was obvious. It resulted in the choice of a leg- 
 islature and an executive staff headed by Governor Robert W. Steele 
 of Ohio. 3 Two weeks later Steele met his assembly and delivered 
 his first inaugural address. 
 
 The territory of Jefferson, which thus came into existence on 
 November 7, 1859, is one of the most illuminating incidents in the 
 history of the American frontier. From the days of the State of 
 Franklin 4 the frontiersman has always resented his isolation, and upon 
 receiving evidence of governmental neglect has always been ready 
 to erect his own government and care for himself in a political way. 
 There are many incidents in the history of statehood movements in 
 which settlement has rushed forward more rapidly than legal in- 
 stitutions, with results in the erection of illegitimate provisional gov- 
 ernments. But none of these illegitimate governments has been 
 erected more deliberately or conducted with more propriety than 
 this territory of Jefferson. The fundamental principle of American 
 government which Byers expresses is applicable at all times in 
 similar situations : 
 
 We claim [he wrote in his Rocky Mountain News] that any body, 
 or community of American citizens, which from any cause or under any 
 circumstance, is cut off from, or from isolation is so situated, as not 
 
 1 Rocky Mountain News, October 6. 
 
 2 Hollister, 92; Smiley, 314; Bancroft, 406; text in Rocky Mountain News, 
 October 20. 
 
 3 Binckley and Hartwell, Southern Colorado (Canon City, 1879), 5 ; Smiley, 
 3i5. 
 
 4 George Henry Alden, " The State of Franklin ", in AMERICAN HISTORICAL 
 REVIEW, VIII. 271-289; see also the Clarksville (Indiana) Resolves, ibid., II. 
 691-693. 
 
The Territory of Colorado 6 1 
 
 to be under any active and protecting branch of the central government, 
 have a right, if on American soil, to frame a government, and enact 
 such laws and regulations as may be necessary for their own safety, 
 protection, and happiness, always with the condition precedent, that they 
 shall, at the earliest moment when the central government shall extend 
 an effective organization, and laws over them, give it their unqualified 
 support and obedience. 1 
 
 And the life of the spontaneous commonwealth thus called into 
 existence is a creditable witness to the American instinct for orderly 
 government. 2 
 
 When Congress met in December, 1859, the provisional territory 
 of Jefferson was in operation, while its delegates were in Wash- 
 ington pressing the need for governmental action. One of the 
 agents, B. D. Williams, was elected on October 3, 1859 ; 3 the other, 
 George M. Willing, 4 claimed to be the regular choice at this elec- 
 tion, and though apparently not recognized at Washington, reiterated 
 the arguments of Williams and the territorial memorials. Both 
 houses of Congress gave some heed to the facts thus presented. They 
 received from President Buchanan on February 20, 1860, a message 
 transmitting the petition from the Pike's Peak country, 5 and bills 
 to meet the demand were at least introduced into each house. The 
 Senate upon April 3 received a report from the Committee on Terri- 
 tories introducing Senate Bill No. 366, for the erection of Colorado 
 territory; 6 while Grow of Pennsylvania reported to the House on 
 May 10 a bill to erect in the same region a territory of Idaho. 7 
 The name of Jefferson disappeared from the project in the spring 
 of 1860, its place being taken by sundry other names for the same 
 mountain area. Several weeks in the spring were given in part to 
 debates over this Colorado-Idaho scheme as well as to the older 
 
 1 Rocky Mountain News, January 4, 1860. 
 
 2 F. L. Paxson, " The Territory of Jefferson : a Spontaneous Commonwealth ", 
 in University of Colorado Studies, III. 15-18. 
 
 8 A memorial of January 4, 1860, describes this election. House Misc. Doc. 
 10, 36 Cong., i Sess., Serial 1063, p. 7. The text of his certificate of election is in 
 Rocky Mountain News, August 29, 1860. 
 
 4 Two letters written by Willing to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, are in 
 the Department of State, Bureau of Rolls and Library, in a volume of territorial 
 papers marked, Minn., Neb., Ore., Wyom., Col., D. C., Kan., Mich., Miscellaneous, 
 and are brought to the writer's attention through the courtesy of W. G. Leland, 
 Esq., of the Carnegie Institution, Department of Historical Research. 
 
 5 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V. 580; Sen. Ex. Doc. 
 15, 36 Cong., i Sess., Serial 1027; Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., i Sess., p. 841, February 
 20, 1860; p. 871, February 23. 
 
 Ibid., 1502. 
 
 1 1bid., 2047, 2066, 2077. The memorials of Williams had been presented in 
 the House by Green Adams of Kentucky, on February 15. See under that date 
 ibid., 789; House Journal, Serial 1041, 283. 
 
62 F. L. Pax son 
 
 Dakota, Nevada, and Arizona territories. As in the past sessions 
 of Congress, the debate was less upon the need for the erection of 
 several territorial governments than upon the attitude which any 
 bills should take upon the slavery issue. In the demands of the 
 Republican leaders in the territorial debates from 1858 to 1867 can 
 be measured the advance of antislavery attitude, from exclusion of 
 slaves through guaranties to free negroes, and up to the abolition of 
 the " white " clause in the franchise qualification. This obsession 
 of Congress by the slavery debate precluded territorial legislation 
 in the years 1859 arj d 1860, but the session ended with the reason- 
 ableness of one of the demands well presented. In a secondary 
 way the governmental argument was strengthened by petitions for 
 the service of the mails, for post-roads from Fort Laramie to 
 Golden City and from Atchison to Denver. And though on May 
 12 all of the territorial bills were tabled for the session, 1 the need 
 for them was clearer than it had been at any time since the passage 
 of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854. 
 
 The territory of Jefferson, as organized in November, 1859, had 
 been from the first recognized as merely a temporary expedient. 
 The movement for it had gained weight in the summer of that year 
 from the probability that it need not be maintained for many months. 
 When Congress, however, failed in the ensuing session of 1859- 
 1860 to grant the relief for which the pioneers prayed, the wisdom 
 of continuing for another year the life of a government admitted to 
 be illegal came into question. The first session of its legislature 
 had lasted from November 7, i859, 2 to January 25, 1860. It had 
 passed comprehensive laws 3 for the regulation of titles in lands, 
 water, and mines, and had adopted civil and criminal codes. Its 
 courts had been established and had operated with some show of 
 authority. But the services and obedience to the government had 
 been voluntary, no funds being on hand for the payment of salaries 
 and expenses. One of the pioneers from Vermont wrote home, 
 " There is no hopes [sic] of perfect quiet in our governmental 
 matters until we are securely under the wing of our National Eagle." 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., i Sess., 2079-2085. 
 
 2 The Rocky Mountain News had the text of Steele's message in its issue of 
 November 10, 1859. It is also found in House Misc. Doc. 10, 36 Cong., i Sess., 
 Serial 1063, pp. 11-15. 
 
 3 Provisional Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed at the First and Called 
 Sessions of the General Assembly of Jefferson Territory, Held at Denver City, 
 J. T., November and December, 1859, and January, 1860. Published by Authority 
 (Omaha, N. T., Robinson and Clark, 1860, pp. 298). The writer knows of the 
 existence of only two copies of this pamphlet. 
 
 4 Early Day Letters from Auraria (now Denver) Written by Libeus Barney to 
 the Bennington Banner, Bennington, Vermont, 1859-1860 (Denver?, n. d., pp. 
 88), 54. 
 
The Territory of Colorado 63 
 
 In his proclamation calling the second election Governor Steele 
 announced that " all persons who expect to be elected to any of the 
 above offices should bear in mind that there will be no salaries or 
 per diem allowed from this territory, but that the General Govern- 
 ment will be memorialized to aid us in our adversity ".* Upon this 
 question of revenue it was that the territory of Jefferson was 
 wrecked. Taxes could not be collected, since citizens had onlv to 
 plead grave doubts as to legality to evade payment. " We have tried 
 a Provisional Government, and how has it worked?" asked William 
 Larimer in announcing his candidacy for the office of territorial 
 delegate. " It did well enough until an attempt was made to tax 
 the people to support it." 2 More than this, the real need for the 
 government became less apparent as 1860 advanced, for the scat- 
 tered communities learned how to obtain a reasonable peace with- 
 out it. American mining-camps are peculiarly free from the need 
 for superimposed government. The new camp at once organizes 
 itself on a democratic basis, and in mass-meeting registers claims, 
 hears and decides suits, and administers summary justice. Since 
 the Pike's Peak country was only a group of mining-camps, there 
 proved to be little immediate need for central government, for in 
 the local mining-district organizations all of the immediate needs 
 of the communities could be satisfied. So loyalty to the territory of 
 Jefferson, in the districts outside Denver, waned during 1860, and 
 by the summer of that year its moral influence had virtually dis- 
 appeared. Its administration held together, however. Governor 
 Steele made efforts to rehabilitate its authority, holding an election on 
 October 22, 1860, to choose a second legislature. 3 On November 
 12 he met his second assembly, he himself having been re-elected 
 by a trifling vote, to continue the tradition of the territory. From 
 November 12 to November 27 it sat at Denver ; then until December 
 7 it continued its sessions at Golden. And upon this last day it 
 dissolved itself forever. 4 
 
 When the thirty-sixth Congress met for its second session in 
 December, 1860, the Jefferson organization was in the second year 
 of its life, yet in Congress there was no more immediate prospect of 
 territorial action than there had been since 1857. Indeed, the elec- 
 tion of Lincoln brought out the eloquence of the slavery question 
 with a renewed vigor that monopolized the time and strength of 
 
 1 Proclamation of September 18, in Rocky Mountain News, September 19, 
 1860. 
 
 2 Letter of August 21, ibid., August 22, 1860. 
 
 3 Bancroft, 410; Smiley, 321 ; Hall, I. 249. 
 
 4 Hollister, 123. 
 
64 F. L. Paxson 
 
 Congress until the end of January. And had not the departure of 
 the southern members to their states cleared the way for action, 
 it is highly improbable that even this session would have produced 
 results of importance. 
 
 Grow had announced in the House on December 12, 1860, a 
 general territorial platform similar to that which had been under 
 debate for three years. 1 Until the close of January the southern 
 valedictories held the floor, but at last the admission of Kansas on 
 January 29, 1861, revealed the fact that pro-slavery opposition had 
 departed and that the long-deferred territorial scheme could have 
 a fair chance. 2 On the very day after Kansas was admitted, with 
 its western boundary at the twenty-fifth meridian from Washington, 
 the Senate revived its Bill No. 366 of the last session and took up 
 its deliberation upon a territory for Pike's Peak. 3 Only by chance 
 did the name Colorado remain attached to the bill. Idaho was at 
 one time substituted for Colorado, but was amended out in favor 
 of the original name on February 4 as the bill passed the Senate. 4 
 The boundaries were materially cut down from those which the terri- 
 tory had provided for itself. Two degrees were at once taken from 
 the north of the territory, and after some hesitation over the 
 Green River the western boundary was placed at the thirty-second 
 meridian from Washington. 5 In this shape, between the thirty- 
 seventh and forty-first parallels, and the twenty-fifth and thirty- 
 second meridians, the bill passed the Senate on February 4, the 
 House on February 18, and received the signature of President 
 Buchanan on February 28. 6 The absence of serious debate in the 
 passage of this Colorado act is excellent evidence of the merit of 
 the scheme and the reasons for its being so long deferred. 
 
 On February 28, 1861, the territory of Colorado became a 
 legal fact; Buchanan left it to his successor to erect the territorial 
 establishment. President Lincoln, after some delay caused by pres- 
 sure of business at Washington, commissioned General William 
 Gilpin as first governor of the territory. Gilpin had long known 
 the mountain frontier; he had commanded a detachment on the 
 Santa Fe trail in the forties, and had written prophetic books upon 
 the future of the country to which he was now sent. His loyalty 
 was unquestioned, and his readiness to assume responsibility went so 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 81. 
 
 2 Leverett W. Spring, Kansas (Boston, 1885), 266. 
 8 Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 639. 
 
 * Ibid., 729. 
 
 5 F. L. Paxson, " The Boundaries of Colorado ", in University of Colorado 
 Studies, II. 87-94. 
 
 6 Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 729, 777, 1003, 1206, 1274. 
 
The Territory of Colorado 65 
 
 far as perhaps to cease to be a virtue. He arrived in Denver 
 at his new post on May 29, I86I, 1 and within a few days was ready 
 to take charge of the territory and to receive from the hands of 
 Governor Steele 2 such authority as remained in the provisional terri- 
 tory of Jefferson. 
 
 FREDERIC L. PAXSON. 
 
 1 Hall, I. 266; Fossett, 106. 
 
 a Steele issued a proclamation recommending the citizens to remain " loyal 
 and true " to the federal government on May 23, Rocky Mountain News, May 29, 
 1861. He handed over the government to Gilpin on June 6. Smiley, 321, 322. 
 
 AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XII. 5.