THE TERRITORY OF COLORADO 67 



the report of the discovery of placer gold in the western streams and to 

 have announced the birth of a new center of population. Four months 

 after the first election a new poHtical whim struck Denver camp, and a 

 set of local ofl&cers was chosen March 28, 1859, for Arapahoe County, 

 Kansas, in spite of the fact that Kansas had on February 7, 1859, fore- 

 seen the coming emigration, reshaped Arapahoe, and cut out of it five 

 new counties of Montana, Oro, El Paso, Fremont, and Broderick.^ 

 The only significance of this March election, for its officers seem never 

 to have held power, hes in the fact that nearly eight hundred votes were 

 then cast. Already 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 today; but it is certain that 

 after half or more of them had gone home in disgust there remained in 

 Jefiferson nearly thirty thousand settlers to reiterate the demand that 

 Congress provide a government for them and to maintain their pro- 

 visional 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 territorial act. 

 His arrival in Washington in January, 1859, was followed by the appear- 

 ance of his territorial scheme in the House, when A. J. Stephens intro- 

 duced a bill for the erection of Jefferson Territory.^ Grow of Penn- 

 sylvania 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. ^ The fate that had post- 

 poned the erection of new territories 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. 



» Smiley, 246, 531; Hall, I. 183; Bancroft, 402; Baskin and Co., History of the City of Denver 

 Arapahoe County, and Colorado (Chicago, 1880), 187. 



' His petition was presented in the Senate on January 27. Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 621. 

 Stephens reported bUls in the House for Dakota, Arizona, and Jefferson territories on January 28, 1859. 

 Ibid., 657. 



3 Ibid., 1065. 



