[NOTE -- R. H. Henry was an early merchant and banker of Columbus, Nebraska. Also county commissioner.]

the first Tuesday of November, 1855; and the election law of the same year also provided that elections should take place the first Tuesday in November, so that for that year there was no conflict. The census act of January 26, 1856, provided that the election of that year should be held on the first Tuesday in November. But the elections law provided that general elections should be held on the first Monday in August; that a delegateto Congress and members of the council should be chosen in 1856 and every second year thereafter; and that all territorial and county officers, including district attorneys, justices of the peace and constables, and one county commissioner for each county, should be chosen in 1857, and every second year thereafter. This conflict was settled by another act of the second session which provided that the election of 1856 should be held in November instead of August. This act

From a photograph made in 1859 by P. Golay, and now owned by Mrs. S. D. Beals of Omaha.

SECOND TERRITORIAL CAPITOL BUILDING OF NEBRASKA

   Erected in 1857-1858 at a cost of about $130,000, and located on Capitol Hill, Omaha, the present site of the Omaha high school building. This shows the building in its uncompleted condition with only a few of the columns in place, and these were later pronounced unsafe and removed.

also took from the governor the power to receive returns and issue certificates of election to candidates for members of the legislature and of "forming precincts" in the several counties, which was conferred by the census act of 1856 as well as that of 1855. The authority first named had also been conferred upon county clerks by the election law, and the second upon county commissioners by the law creating the commissioner system. This reconciliation act was introduced on the evening of the last day of the session by Dr. Henry Bradford and immediately passed by both houses. The incident illustrates again the carelessness and lack of oversight of the early legislatures. The act creating the county commissioner system provided that all three commissioners should be chosen the first year -- 1856 -- and one of the three every year after.
   Continued contradictions and crudities indi-

[NOTE -- Nathan P. Dodge was one of the early homesteaders near Fremont, Nebraska. Afterwards he was a prominent banker of Council Bluffs, Iowa.]

cated more than the ordinary degree of inefficiency common in leggislative bodies. Chapter 2 prescribed the duties of county assessors, while their election or appointment was not provided for, and the section of the old law imposing the duties of assessment on sheriffs remained unrepealed. The laws had been considered by the standing code committee for nearly a year, and again by the joint special committee during the session, and had been copied largely in blocks from the statutes of other states, so that a reasonable degree of accuracy might have been expected.
   A general incorporation law was passed, but it was not exclusive, the power of the legislature to pass special acts of incorporation being specifically recognized. A general act for the incorporation of towns was passed, and the term "city," so greatly overworked at the first session, had apparently dropped from notice through exhaustion. Under the laws of the first legislature the business of counties was distributed in a complicated mess among various county officers, the judge of probate falling heir to all that was not specifically parceled out to others.
   The second legislature established the county commissioner system, and placed the general business of the county in the hands of three commissioners elected from as many districts therein. This commissioner system reached Nebraska on its westward course from Pennsylvania through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, our legislature having copied it from the Iowa statute. It originated in Pennsylvania in 1725, but its germ in the Northwest Territory first appeared in 1792 in the first county organized there, and which comprised about half the present state of Ohio. It was adopted in a more developed form in 1795, and in 1804 three commissioners, possessing general fiscal and administrative authority, were elected in the several counties of the state of Ohio. The commissioner system then in its present scope, essentially, came to us from Ohio.
   By a special act the commissioners were empowered to divide the counties into "convenient precincts," each entitled to two justices of the peace and two constables. This decentralizing act took this power away from the governors, with whom it had been lodged up to that time.
   Under the new school law the territorial librarian continued to act as superintendent of schools with a salary of two hundred dollars a year, in addition to his salary of one hundred dollars as librarian. The confusing and demoralizing provision of the act of 1855, giving authority to both county superintendents and district boards of directors to examine teachers and to issue them certificates to teach, was retained in the act of 1856, except that the clause "or cause to be examined" of the act of 1855 was stricken out and the duty of making examinations thus peremptorily imposed upon the incompetent directors and virtually annulling the like authority of the county superintendents. These officers were allowed two dollars for each day of actual service and two dollars and fifty cents for each quarter section of school lands they might sell -- when they should come into market. The salary of the territorial auditor was fixed at two hundred dollars, and of the territorial treasurer at one hundred and fifty dollars. The salaries of all the officers named remained the same as they were the first year, and in comparison with the comfortable compensation of the governor, secretary, and judges, which was paid out of the federal treasury, furnishes a fair illustration of the poverty of the territory at that time. The laws for estrays and for the registry of marks and brands, both favoring the running at large of live stock, indicated the feeling of the time that even in the eastern part of the state the raising of cattle was of more importance than the cultivation of the soil. A provision was added to the law governing the common school system directing county superintendents of schools to appraise sections 16 and 36 -- the lands set apart for school purposes by the organic act -- at a value of not less than one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, and offer them at public sale, the proceeds to be invested in real estate mortgage bonds drawing ten per cent annual interest., and the interest alone to be used for maintaining schools. The legislature memorialized Congress in a joint resolution to

convey these school sections to the territory as they were surveyed, that they "might be enabled to apply a portion of the same in raising a fund for school purposes while we have no other resources by which to raise said fund." The legislature undertook to break up the official carpet-bag system by providing that a delegate to Congress must have resided in the territory at least one year before his election, and that members of the legislature must have resided in their districts six months before the time of their election. A requisite of residence for a married man was that his family should reside in the territory. This act was a sign of a growing belief in the permanency and stability of the settlement of the territory. In the same act those eligible to any office of trust or profit were confined to free white males -- the same class which by the organic act composed the electorate.
   The marriage act of the first session declared all marriages between whites and negroes or mulattoes void. The act of 1856 changed this so as to limit the prohibition to those possessed of one-fourth or more of negro blood. The act of the first session was reported by Mr. Richardson from the judiciary committee of the council, and was copied from the Iowa statute of marriages of January 6, 1840. The act of the second session was reported "with amendments" by Mr. Bradford, chairman of the joint committee for examining the work of the code commission, and was further amended in the committee of the whole in the council, and also by the house. The modified provision in relation to the intermarriage of whites and negroes remains in the statutes of the present day. The prohibition was dropped in Iowa in the revision of 1860. A bill repealing the section in question, introduced by Mr. Ricketts, a colored member of the house, was passed by the legislature of 1895, but was vetoed by Governor Holcomb. The veto message discloses the objections taken by the governor:

   After careful consideration I am led to the belief that this measure does not represent a demand of the people, and return it without my approval. The effect of the bill is to legalize marriages between the white and black races. It is a question of gravest importance, and should demand the careful deliberation of the legislative body before a change is made in the law. From the statements of various members of the legislature it is apparent that this measure was hurriedly passed during the closing hours of the legislative session without consideration, many members afterwards openly declaring that they did not know they had voted for the bill on its final passage. The alteration of existing laws, contemplating pronounced changes in moral and social questions, should emanate from the declared wishes of the people. There is in my opinion no pressing demand for the proposed amendment. If the people desire that this change be made the question can be agitated, and at the next session of the legislature the will of the people may be expressed after a careful consideration of the proposed amendment. Without entering into a discussion of the merits of the proposal to allow the inter-marriage of whites and blacks I am constrained to disapprove of this hastily enacted bill.

   An act of this session provided for the first military organization, and territorial and military terms are confused in the enactment with characteristic frontier freedom: "The territory of Nebraska shall constitute one division: said division shall consist of two brigades. All that portion of the territory lying north of the Platte river shall constitute the first brigade. And all that portion of the territory lying south of the Platte river shall constitute the second brigade." The official list was as formidable as the rank and file turned out to be insignificant. It is the present-day recollection of General Thayer that little more than nominal organization was accomplished under this act at that time. The governor was to be commander-in-chief of all the forces; and a major-general of the division, and a brigadier-general of each brigade were to be chosen by the two houses of the legislature, which held a joint session for that purpose, January 24, 1856. John M. Thayer was elected major-general, and L. L. Bowen, of Douglas county, brigadier-general of the northern district without opposition. John Boulware of Otoe county, and H. P. Downs, H. P. Thurber, and Thomas Patterson of Cass county were candidates for the office of brigadier-general for the southern district. On the first ballot Boulware re-

ceived 15 votes, Downs 9, Thurber 4, Patterson 7. On the second ballot Boulware and Downs had 18 votes each; on the third ballot Boulware had 14 votes and Downs 21, and so Mr. Downs became brigadier-general of the second brigade.
   There was a general grist of special acts of incorporation, but much fewer in number than at the first session. Simpson University of Omaha (reincorporated), Nemaha University at Archer, Washington College at Cuming City, the Plattsmouth Preparatory and Collegiate Institute, and Western University "to be located near, or in Cassville, Cass county," made up the modest list of incorporations for higher institutions of learning. The first was organized under the auspices of the Nebraska district and the Council Bluffs district of the Iowa annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. The other four were to be stock corporations with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars each. None was ever successfully organized.
   There was a strong movement in the house, stimulated of course by the still living capital feud, to create the county of Sarpy out of the southern half of Douglas. A compromise was effected in the shape of a substitute which formed a separate election district out of the territory now comprising Sarpy county, with the exception of a strip two miles wide on the present southern border of Douglas county. The second legislature formed the judicial districts as follows: First district, Burt, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, and Washington counties, "and the territory north and west"; second district, Cass, Clay, Lancaster, and Otoe counties, "and the territory west thereof"; third district, Johnson, Nemaha, Pawnee, and Richardson counties, "and the territory west of said counties." Chief Justice Ferguson was assigned to the first district, Associate Justice Harden to the second, and Associate Justice Bradley to the third.
   A general law was passed empowering the people of the several counties to select or change the location of the county seats. The "Salt Spring Company" was incorporated "for the purpose of erecting suitable buildings, furnaces, and reservoirs to carry on the business at the Salt Springs discovered by Thomas Thompson and others, lying west of Cass county." The six applications for divorce were referred to the judge of the first judicial district for action at his discretion. The first legislation for the Order of Odd Fellows in Nebraska was the incorporation of "the Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall Company" of Otoe county "for the purpose of erecting in Nebraska City, South Nebraska City, or Kearney City a suitable building or buildings to be used in part as a hall for Masonic and Odd Fellowship purposes"; and also the Odd Fellows' Hall Association of Omaha, No. 2, of Nebraska territory. A penitentiary for the territory was located at Tekamah, and the proprietors of the town were required to donate ten acres of land for a site. But though Congress was regularly importuned by the territorial legislatures, no appropriation for constructing the proposed penitentiary was obtained until just before the time of admission to statehood. The first act providing for the organization of religious societies was passed at this second session.
   The boundaries of Cass, Dakotah (sic), Nemaha, Ottoe (sic), and Richardson counties were changed, and in this act one "t" is dropped in the spelling of Otoe. The organization of eighteen new counties was also authorized. Seven of these, namely, Clay, Greene, Gage, Izard, Lancaster, Saline, and York, had been authorized by the previous legislature. Two of the new names in this act, Calhoun and Monroe, and two of the old, Greene and Izard, have disappeared from the map, no organization having taken place under them, and Clay and Jones were organized, but the first was afterward merged with Gage and Lancaster, and the second with Jefferson county. Monroe county voted at the general elections of 1859, and its returns became notorious in the contest between Estabrook and Daily, candidates for delegate to Congress; it was added to Platte county by the legislature of 1859-1860. The rising tide of Civil war passion in the legislature of 1861-1862 swept the names of Calhoun, Greene, and Izard off the map, and substituted for them respectively Saunders, Seward, and Stanton. The bills changing the names