ated that he could work for the territory; he has always devoted the most of his time to watching and defending his seat."
   Judge Alfred Conkling, father of Roscoe Conkling, prepared Daily's protest to the board of canvassers. He came to Omaha to practice law, but finding the methods of the profession at that time not to his liking, soon returned to New York. Roscoe Conkling was a member of the House of Representatives at this time.
   The News proclaims that Otoe is still the banner county, having polled fifty-three more votes than Douglas -- the next in rank -- at the late election.
   It had taken six years of time and the work of five legislative assemblies to get the territorial organization into fair working order, and a serious obstacle to its progress had been bitter local sectionalism. The remaining years of the territorial existence were to be more or less seriously distracted by sectionalism on a national scale. At first the republicans are chiefly bent on party formation and supremacy in the territory, and then, for the rest of the territorial period, will follow the passions and distractions of the war. At first the democratic leaders are on the defensive, and then they bitterly attack the policy of their victors. The democrats are divided, the majority following Douglas and jealous of the minority, led by the federal office-holders, who must needs stand more or less openly on the side of the breach between Buchanan and the hero of popular sovereignty occupied by their chief. This division doubtless accounts for the democratic aid given to republicans to pass a bill prohibiting slavery and its veto by the governor.
   But on the whole the sixth territorial assembly, which convened December 5, 1859, was the tamest of all the legislative assemblies up to this time. Thomas J. Boykin of Sarpy, Thomas J. Collier of Dakota, and William A. Little of Douglas county took the seats left vacant in the council by the resignation of Leavitt L. Bowen, H. C. Crawford, and William E. Moore, and Dr. Edmund A. Donelan of Cass county was elected president. Elmer S. Dundy of Richardson county and William H. Taylor of Otoe county were the only republicans in the council.
   The seat of Richard C. Barnard of the district of Monroe and Hall was unsuccessfully contested by Leander Gerrard. R. S. Parks applied for a seat "as member elect from the gold regions." The committee on privileges and elections reported that it was impossible to seat Mr. Parks because the maximum number of members under the organic law had already been apportioned; but they stated that the petitioner represented a very important portion of the territory and a community greatly in need of legislation, and eminently deserving the consideration, attention, and favor of the house. The committee recommended that the petitioner be admitted within the bar of the house at pleasure.
   Of the thirty-nine members of the house twenty-five were classed as democrats; the rest were republicans, full-born or in embryo. There was a struggle over the organization between the administration democrats, led by the governor and secretary of the territory, and the opposing faction, led by Rankin, in which the latter won. Strickland of Sarpy county, the democratic candidate, was elected speaker over Marquett of Cass, the republican candidate, by a vote of 24 to 12. Names on the list of members familiar to present-day Nebraskans are George B. Lake and Andrew' J. Hanscom of Douglas; Turner M. Marquett, Samuel Maxwell, and Dr. William S. Latta of Cass; Stephen F. Nuckolls of Otoe; John Taffe of Dakota, and Eliphus H. Rogers of Dodge.
   Governor Black's message was devoted mainly to refuting common slanders as to the bad climate and unproductivity of the soil of the territory, and to an argument justifying its admission as a state, in the course of which he estimates the population at 50,000 to 60,000. A historical paragraph of the message is worth quoting:

   This territory was organized at the same time with Kansas, on the 30th day of May, 1854, and the first legislature met at Omaha, on the 16th day of January, 1855. In that body eight counties were represented. Now, at the expiration of less than five years, twenty-five counties have their representatives

in the legislature, and thirty-five counties have been fully organized, or their boundaries defined by law. With the exception of those which lie immediately upon the Missouri river, nearly all the counties have been so laid off as to cover a surface of exactly 24 miles square. The lands in Nebraska actually surveyed amount to 8,851,758.59 acres. The surveys have been extended from the dividing line between Kansas and Nebraska, on the 40th parallel, to the latitude of 42 degrees and 51 minutes, while the average depth from the Missouri river is about 140 miles.

   Bad conditions and not much better economic ideas are illustrated in this paragraph:

    It is a matter of bitter experience that the people of this territory have been made to pass through the delusive days of high times and paper prices, and the consequent dark and gloomy night of low times and no prices. We have had our full share of the financial spasms which for two years have afflicted the great body of the American people. They are gradually passing away, but they will never altogether disappear until the producing causes are removed. One chief and, manifest cause so far as new states and territories are concerned (not the only one), is the enormous and overwhelming rate of interest which is exacted for the loan of money, for a common credit in many cases, even for the necessaries of life, or for a brief extension and forbearance of an existing debt. It is idle to look for relief, except in stringent and effective legislation. I am not sure that the evil can be entirely banished by law, but it is worth the trial. I therefore recommend the passage of a usury law, contrived in the best possible way to overturn the present system and practice of extravagant and ruinous rates of interest.

   Financial conditions are set forth as follows:

    According to the auditor's report, the present liabilities of the territory are $31,068.23. On the 20th of September, 1858, they amounted in warrants to $15,774.95. Between the 20th of September, 1858, and November 1st, 1859, in accordance with various laws, warrants were issued for $16,459.95, making the current expenses for that time appear to be the whole of that sum. But fully one-half the amount of those warrants was for liabilities incurred during the year 1857-58, making the actual current expenses for this year to be, in fact only about $8,000. The revenue from taxes, due January 1st, 1859, as reported by the different counties (Pawnee county excepted), amounts to $19,387.57, so that the whole debt of the territory may be set down at $11,680.66 more than the estimated resources of the year ending December 1st, 1859.

   In his recommendation as to taxation the governor hits on the idea of "the unearned increment," and wins the everlasting esteem of the present day single tax advocates:

    It is true that the man who labors and improves his own land, may be recompensed for all that he does, but still he serves, in some degree, both the government and the community, in the very work that he does for himself. Further, he adds to the value of every acre of vacant land in or near his neighborhood. If that land is held for mere speculation, is it not clear that the owner looks to the labor of others for the gains which are to follow the enhanced value of his estate? In regard to this subject I wish to be explicit and plain. It is a fact very well known that hundreds of thousands of acres of the best land in Nebraska are held, by individuals who have never broken a single foot of sod with spade or plough. These lands, being unimproved, pay only at present a comparatively small tax. The man who lives on and improves his property, in town or country, has generally a reasonable amount of personal property. For the purpose of making the burdens as light as possible, where they should be light, I recommend that real estate shall be made the chief basis of revenue. I think it would be well if there was a special exception, to a limited extent, from all taxation made in favor of the different kinds and varieties of stock and cattle. As, for instance, a certain number of sheep, swine, oxen, horses, cows, etc.; the object being mainly to encourage the tax-payers of the territory to rear and keep stock, especially such stock as is valuable and of the most improved description or breed.
   Though the criminal law of the territory had been restored, the governor complains that it is rendered ineffectual for lack of a penitentiary or other public prison, and he states that a large and enterprising population in the Western part of the territory, mostly in the mining region, are without the benefit of county organization, and consequently in a great measure without the protection of law.
   The message is a well-worded and occasionally eloquent address, and sustains Governor Black's reputation as a brilliant stump speaker. The last paragraph is a fine sample of this kind of oratory. No other public man

of Nebraska has written so "finely" -- with such rhetorical taste or oratorical effect as Governor Black wrote. Two veto messages of this session are notable, one at great length in objection to the anti-slavery bill, the other a deserved but ineffective rebuke of the now settled and vicious custom of granting special charter privileges to individuals, for the first time the auditor feels justified in stating in his report that, the revenue law is fairly effective, and his optimism is based upon the fact that the counties now comply with the law so far as to levy the taxes; but a year later the treasurer is compelled to complain that they are not paid. The territory is still living almost wholly on credit in the form of fast increasing warrants.
   The principal enactments of the legislature were as follows: An act providing for an election to be held the first Monday in March, 1860, to decide whether or not the people desired state government, and to elect delegates to a convention which should prepare a state constitution; concerning the jurisdiction of justices of the peace and procedure before them; providing that a delegate to Congress should be elected in 1860 and every two years thereafter, and that his term of office should begin on the 4th of March next after his election; a homestead and personal property exemption law. A bill prohibiting slavery in the territory was passed by both houses, but was vetoed by the governor. The legislature authorized the organization of the counties of Dawson, Kearney, Morton, Nuckolls, Shorter, West, and Wilson, and legalized the previous organization of Gage county. Dawson and Kearney counties continue as small parts of their originals; Holt takes the place of West; Morton and Wilson lay partially adjacent in the region where the Sweetwater flows into the North Platte river, now in south central Wyoming. Shorter county, whose name was changed to Lincoln in 1861, adjoined Kearney on the west; both held elections in 1860, but for some reason the board of territorial canvassers counted out the vote of Shorter. These two counties were assigned legislative apportionment in 1861. Neither Morton, West, nor Wilson appears to have performed any organized function. About the usual number of special acts for incorporations and ferries and bridges were passed. Joint memorials to Congress were adopted asking for school lands in lieu of those covered by the Indian reservations in Nemaha and Richardson counties; for indemnity for the cost of the Pawnee Indian campaign; for appropriations to build a penitentiary; to construct a military road from Nebraska City to Fort Kearney; and for $30,000 to complete the capitol. The memorial for the capitol appropriation recites that "under a degree of mismanagement, wholly unpardonable, upon the part of the executive, Mark W. Izard," the whole appropriation of $50,000 was expended, "and the building only just begun." The first act protecting game animals in Nebraska was passed at this session.
   The statehood measure was generally favored and party lines were not drawn in considering it. Party animosity was concentrated on the anti-slavery bill, and it was as bitter between the democratic factions as between the two parties themselves. A speech on the usury bill, delivered in the house by S. F. Nuckolls, illustrates the pinched financial conditions of those times as well as the insight into economics of a man untrained in its principles. Mr. Nuckolls conducted a large across-the-plains freighting business besides other important enterprises. Our county of Nuckolls was created by the sixth assembly, of which he was a member, and received his name.
   The death of Judge Fenner Ferguson occurred at his homestead farm at Bellevue, October 11, 1859. Judge Ferguson was the first chief justice of the territorial supreme court and was a resident of Michigan at the time of his appointment. He possessed fair ability, commanded general respect, and had the good will of the citizens of the territory to an unusual degree, especially for a public officer of those days. He served one term as a delegate to Congress, from December, 1857.