THE T1.RRIT0RY OF COLORADO 75 



years.' Until the close of January the southern valedictories held the 

 floor, but at last the admission of Kansas on January 29, 1861, revealed 

 the fact that pro-slavery opposition had departed and that the long- 

 deferred territorial scheme could have a fair chance.^ On the very day 

 after Kansas was admitted, with its western boundary at the twenty-fifth 

 meridian from Washington, the Senate revived its Bill No. 366 of the 

 last session and took up its deliberation upon a territory for Pike's Peak.^ 

 Only by chance did the name Colorado remain attached to the bill. 

 Idaho was at one time substituted for Colorado, but was amended out in 

 favor of the original name on February 4 as the bill passed the Senate.^* 

 The boundaries were materially cut down from those which the territory 

 had provided for itself. Two degrees were at once taken from the north 

 of the territory, and after some hesitation over the Green River the west- 

 em boundary was placed at the thirty-second meridian from Washington. 

 In this shape, between the thirty-seventh and forty-first parallels, and 

 the twenty-fifth and thirty-second meridians, the bill passed the Senate 

 on February 4, the House on February 18, and received the signature of 

 President Buchanan on February 28.^ The absence of serious debate 

 in the passage of this Colorado act is excellent evidence of the merit of 

 the scheme and the reasons for its being so long deferred. 



On February 28, 1861, the territory of Colorado became a legal fact; 

 Buchanan left it to his successor to erect the territorial establishment. 

 President Lincoln, after some delay caused by pressure of business at 

 Washington, commissioned General William Gilpin as first governor 

 of the territory. Gilpin had long known the mountain frontier; he had 

 commanded a detachment on the Santa Fe trail in the forties, and had 

 written prophetic books upon the future of the country to which he was 

 now sent. His loyalty was unquestioned, and his readiness to assume 

 responsibility went so far as perhaps to cease to be a virtue. He arrived 

 in Denver at his new post on May 29, i86i,7 and within a few days was 



' Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 81. 



' Leverett W. Spring, Kansas (Boston, 1885), 266. 



3 Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 639. 



*Ibid., 72g. 



s F. L. Paxson, "The Boundaries of Colorado," in University of Colorado Studies, II. 87-94. 



^ Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 729, 777, 1003, 1206, 1274. 



' Hall, I. 266; Fossett, 106. 



