on the plea of pressing business, but a large part of it
went too; and, after a vain call of the house Saturday
morning, there was an adjournment until Monday.
The burden of the governor's message was
an argument that the territory had a right to immediate
admission as a state. In 1864, when the enabling act was
passed, the population was 30,000; now it was 70,000. In a
few weeks the track of the Union Pacific railway would be
laid 200 miles west of Kearney. Territorial bonds were now
worth ninety-seven cents on the dollar. The governor
recommended the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the
constitution of the United States, and Maxwell introduced
the measure in the house; but no action was taken upon
it.
The second legislature, at its first and
special session, February 20 and 21, 1867, performed no
other function than to organize and formally accept the
condition imposed by the federal Congress for the admission
of the territory as a state. Governor Saunders (territorial
governor) stated the object of the session in a message in
which he said that it would have been more satisfactory to
himself, and he thought to the members, if Congress had
referred the question to the people instead of to the
legislature.
On the first day of the session Mr. Doom
of Cass county introduced a bill declaring the assent of the
legislature to the condition prescribed by Congress, which
was referred to a special committee composed of Doom,
Hascall, and Reeves. At the afternoon session, Doom and
Hascall reported in favor of the bill, and it was at once
passed, before Reeves could prepare his minority report, by
a vote of 7 to 3, Freeman, Reeves, and Wardelf voting nay.
On the next day Reeves offered his report, which the senate
declined to receive. Doom moved to strike out certain
passages of this report which he declared were offensive,
and the motion was carried; whereupon Reeves withdrew the
report entirely, and Freeman, Reeves, and Wardell left the
chamber in a fit of disgust, but they were afterward
permitted, at the request of Mr. Reeves, to record their
votes against the bill. J. N. H. Patrick, who had not been
sworn in when the bill was passed, was eluded from this
arrangement.
The senate bill was promptly passed in the
house, under suspension of the rules, by a vote of 20 to 8,
Anderson, Bates, Crawford Dunham, Graves, Harvey, Rolfe, and
Trumble voting nay. All the democratic members of the
legislature but Hascall adhered to the party policy of
opposing the measure. If admission to statehood had been the
one question at issue, their course would have been unwise;
but since the proposition involved also the question of
consenting that Congress and the legislature had the power
to annul by resolution a provision of the state
constitution, the democrats followed their plain duty, and
Hascall's recreancy deserved the reproaches it won, though
it seemed to surprise no one.
The third session of the general assembly,
being the second session of the second legislature, was
convened by the call of the now full-fledged governor, dated
April 4, 1867, on the 16th of May of that year, for the
purpose of passing such laws as the governor throught
necessary for the new state. The most important work of this
session was the removal of the capital from Omaha to
Lincoln, accomplished by the passage of an act, approved
June 14, 1867, which constituted the governor, secretary of
state, and auditor a commission to select a new location
before July 15, 1867, within certain specified limits, as
follows; the county of Seward, the south half of Butler and
Saunders counties and that part of Lancaster county north of
the south line of township nine, the new capital city to be
called Lincoln. A bill (S. No. 44) entitled "An act, to
provide for the location of the seat of government of the
state of Nebraska and for the erection of public buildings
thereat," was introduced in the senate, June 4th, by Mr.
Presson, and its counterpart was introduced in the house (H.
R. No. 50) by Mr. Crowe. The senate bill passed that body on
the 10th of June; it passed the house on the 13th, and was
approved by the governor on the 14th.
The bill (S. No. 44) which was passed
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