l6 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



The first miners had reached the South Platte in the afltumn of 



1858, They rcahzed their political opportunity, so that when a snow- 

 storm drove them to cabins for a day or two, they emerged with a deter- 

 mination to demand a new state for the Pike's Peak region and to send 

 delegates to Washington and Kansas. The spring of 1859 saw more 

 statehood gossip, more delegates, and the arrival at once of a new 

 population, a printing-press and a political platform. "We claim," 

 wrote the pioneer editor of the Rocky Mountain News, "that any body 

 of American citizens, which from any cause or under any circumstance, 

 is cut off from, or from isolation is so situated, as not to be under any 

 active and protective 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." I have found no other statement so definite as this, that 

 an American community has a right to an effective government. 



An election of delegates to represent the Pike's Peak country in the 

 legislature of Kansas and the halls of Congress was held early in Novem- 

 ber, 1858; and four months later the district organized itself as Arapa- 

 hoe County, Kansas, although no such county possessed a legal 

 existence. But the movement for an independent statehood was gain- 

 ing force day by day, as the immigration of 1859 brought its thousands 

 of gold-seekers into Denver. It culminated at last on the nth of April, 



1859, in a caucus, and on the 15th in a convention of delegates from 

 five of the mining camps that issued a call for a constitutional conven- 

 tion to meet in Denver on the first Monday in June to frame a constitu- 

 tion for the State of Jefferson, between the io2d and iicth meridians 

 and the 37th and 43rd parallels of north latitude. The miners pro- 

 posed to rob the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, of New Mexico 

 and Utah, to endow their own state. 



Pursuant to the call, a convention met in Blake and Williams' hall 

 in Denver on June 6, organized for business, created eight framing 

 committees, and adjourned for two months that the idea of statehood 



