74 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



delegate. "It did well enough until an attempt was made to tax the 

 people to support it."^ More than this, the real need for the government 

 became less apparent as i860 advanced, for the scattered communities 

 learned how to obtain a reasonable peace without 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 

 i860, and by the summer of that year its moral influence had virtually 

 disappeared. Its administration held together, however. Governor 

 Steele made efforts to rehabilitate its authority, holding an election on 

 October 22, i860, to choose a second legislature.^ 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 Novem- 

 ber 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.3 



When the Thirty-sixth Congress met for its second session in December 

 i860, 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 election of Lincoln brought 

 out the eloquence of the slavery question with a renewed vigor that 

 monopolized the time and strength of 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, i860, a general 

 territorial platform similar to that which had been under debate for three 



' Letter of August 21, ibid., August 22, i860. 

 •Bancroft, 410; Smiley, 321; Hall, I. 240. 



3 HOLLISTER, 123. 



