all passed with a rush and without division, and apparently without comment by the press.
   The continued impoverished condition of the territorial finances is illustrated by the act authorizing the treasurer to borrow four thousand dollars on the bonds of the territory, at a rate not exceeding fifteen per cent annual interest, for the purposes of paying officers and employees of the first and second legislatures and for the taking of the census of 1855. A large number of territorial roads were specifically established, and a general law gave county commissioners power to open and keep in repair all county roads. Room was found for four more ferry franchises on the Missouri river. The most important legislation of the session was the granting of charters to five so-called wildcat banks: The Bank of Florence, the Nemaha Valley bank at Brownville, the Platte Valley bank at Nebraska City, the Fontenelle bank at Bellevue, and the Bank of Nebraska at Omaha.
   Joint resolutions were adopted asking Congress to grant ten sections of land and five thousand dollars for the benefit of Nebraska University at Fontenelle; for the removal of the Omaha Indians, according to their wish, from their new reservation in the Blackbird hills to some place in the interior, and for indemnity to settlers who were driven from their homes by the removal of the Omahas to Blackbird county; for a change in the organic act of the territory so as to base apportionment of representation upon the entire population instead of voters only; for an appropriation to pay the expense of defense against Indian depredations during the past year, and the donation of one hundred and sixty acres of land to each man regularly mustered into the service for such defense. Mr. Gibson, for the committee on federal relations, made a report in the form of a memorial to Congress praying for a free grant of one hundred and sixty acres of the public domain to actual settlers of Nebraska, which illustrated the spirit and anticipated the arguments that a few years later stimulated the passage of a general homestead law.
   On the 11th of January, Mr. Decker introduced a bill to relocate the capital at Chester, in what is now Lancaster county, and on the 16th, William A. Finney, J. Sterling Morton, and James H. Decker, of the committee to whom it had been referred, recommended its passage. Dr. George L. Miller made a minority report as follows:

    A brief review of the organization of the territory brings to our consideration the fact that, in accordance with the requirements of the organic law, the seat of government of Nebraska was, by the acting governor of the territory, located at Omaha City. The wisdom of that selection was confirmed by a subsequent legislature against the most strenuous efforts made to frustrate and defeat that organization, and an unprejudiced view of the existing condition of our affairs would seem to impose upon all who desire the permanent progress of our territory the duty of upholding that policy under which we are enjoying the benefits of a just and impartial administration of the territorial government. It cannot be denied that the capital is now located as near the geographical center of the territory as may be, and that its present situation is the best that can be named for the accommodation of its resident population. A comprehensive view of the interests to be consulted upon this subject would show that its removal to a sparsely populated district could possibly be of no practical advantage to the territory at large. Large amounts of money have already been expended toward the erection of a suitable state house at the seat of government as now established, and under the liberal patronage of the parent government and the energetic direction of his excellency, the governor, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon the prospect of its speedy completion. To reverse the policy under which we are so prosperously advancing in our career would be, in the opinion of the undersigned, eminently disastrous and suicidal. For these, among other reasons, I beg to report adversely to the bill under consideration, and to recommend the indefinite postponement of the same.

   Mr. Thomas Gibson also made a minority report which is of interest as a reflection of the opinion at that time as to the probable coming center of population. Mr. Gibson admitted that the proposed location on Salt Creek might benefit a large majority of "our present population," but his objection was based on the following considerations:

   . . . From information which may be had it is supposed that 80 to 100 miles will be the

extent of our settlements westward, and about 100 miles northward. It is seen, then, that the relocation must be north of the Platte river, and about 40 miles west from the Missouri to be centrally situated; and in selecting a site for so important a purpose it is requisite that reference should be had to eligibility for the purpose of a town site, where water, timber, and position of land are found supplied, and where a location for health will be a desideratum. Such a position can be found on the Elkhorn river, and not one more desirable than the city of Fontenelle.

   With his report Mr. Gibson offered a bill to locate the capital at Fontenelle. The removal bill was killed by postponement on the 22d of January by a vote of 13 to 11. Of the South Plate members, Hagood and Buck of Cass and Hoover of Richardson and Nemaha voted against removal, while all those voting for removal were of the South Platte.
   Two members -- J. Sterling Morton and Dr. George L. Miller -- whose flight, in state politics, was to be long and high and to extend into the national empyrean, tried their fledgling wings in this second legislature, and in spite of their adolescence they at once became conspicuous. J. Sterling Morton, not yet twenty-four years old, was chairman of the committee on public buildings and grounds, and second on the committees on common schools and printing. We readily infer that the chairmanship of the public buildings committee was not unsought by Morton nor grudgingly bestowed by Speaker Sullivan. Hostility to the Omaha element and, in particular, to Secretary Cuming as its rough-shod general, had already naturally focused in Morton's intense temperament. It was the intention of the anti-Omaha, or roughly rounded up, the South Platte representatives to undo the capital location business of the first session and to uncover the methods of its doing. Speaker Sullivan of Washington county, which had lost the capital prize, was the natural ally of the South Platte. Morton at once began an inquisition for a showing by Secretary Cuming to the house as to his expenditures for public printing, and by the governor and secretary of all documents in regard to public buildings, including estimates and contracts; and later in the session his resolution "requiring" the secretary "to lay before the house of representatives a copy of his instructions which he alleges to have received from the comptroller of the United States treasury in regard to the pay of clerks, firemen, and chaplains for this territory." Since the expenditures under the first two subjects of inquiry were from federal appropriations and for which the secretary and executive were accountable to the federal treasury department, technically, perhaps, they could not be required to account also to the local legislature. The secretary promptly responded to the first request, but it does not appear that the governor or secretary complied with the request for a showing as to public buildings.
    The more diplomatic Gibson, of Dodge county, moved to cure the innuendo of the intentionally undiplomatic Morton by substituting the word "has" for the words "alleges to have," but Miller, who was the alert defender on the floor of Omaha men and measures, moved to table the resolution. The motion was lost by a vote of 11 to 13, and, after the more judicious word "request" had been substituted for Morton's intentionally peremptory "required," on motion of a more peaceable, if less virile South Platte member, the resolution passed without division. All who have watched with clear vision Morton's long and impressive career till its late lamented end, will read in this boyhood resolution the forecast and the epitome of the man; the same undisguised and relentless attack on opponents, the abandon in giving battle which burns the bridges of retreat, and the uncompromising and implacable spirit which, while they were perhaps the chief source of his strength, yet almost uniformly defeated his political aspirations. The following resolutions, also characteristic of their mover were offered by Mr. Morton:

    WHEREAS, At the last session of the legislative assembly of the territory of Nebraska, James C. Mitchell was appointed, by joint resolution of the Council and House of Representatives, sole commissioner to select the place whereon the capital buildings should be located or erected; and
   WHEREAS, The said James C. Mitchell, as a condition precedent to his appointment as said commissioner, pledged himself to select

the site for the capital buildings on the line between Clancy and Jeffrey claims; and
   WHEREAS, There has been a different location of the capital buildings, and an evident departure from the pledge of said James C. Mitchell, as made by him in open Council; Therefore,
   RESOLVED, That James C. Mitchell, be and hereby is respectfully requested to present to both Houses of the legislative assembly a report stating fully and explicitly all that he has done relative to the performance of the duties enjoined in said commission, stating fully and explicitly the reasons that induced him, the said Mitchell, to depart from his pledged honor to locate the said buildings on the line between the said Clancy and Jeffrey claims, and whether there was any reward or promise offered him to influence the location or selection of the site for said buildings.
   RESOLVED, That in the event of any person or persons having offered any inducements, pecuniarily or otherwise, or having used any arguments to influence his action as said commissioner, that the name or names of said person or persons be given, with all the inducements offered.

   After a hot controversy the resolutions passed by a vote of 14 to 10, and here again Miller and Morton led the fight on opposite sides.
   J. Sterling Morton's father was a close friend of Lewis Cass, and the bright and susceptible boy had no doubt been much impressed by that statesman's character and career. Cass's distinguished political life had budded in his military and political experience in the Northwest, which had extended even as far as Minnesota. It is a fair inference that young Morton was inspired by the knowledge of the older man's western beginnings, and not unlikely by his direct suggestion, to attempt a like career by following a like course. It might have been expected that Morton, with his political aspirations, after defeat as a partisan of Bellevue, would take counsel of expediency and follow victory to Omaha, now the politician's Mecca. But his aggressive and implacable spirit preferred to fight Cuming and his capital as well, rather than to follow them; and in Nebraska City, the most considerable town, and in the leading county of the territory, he chose the best vantage ground. At a time when nothing was regarded as finally settled and with as good a chance as her rival for railroad favors, there was firm ground for hope that Nebraska City might keep the lead and deprive Omaha of the capital, too. The last hope, only, came true.
   S. F. Nuckolls, of strong, resolute character, a successful man of business, and a principal factor of the considerable prestige and prospect of Nebraska City, discerned Morton's promising qualities, and no doubt influenced him in his choice. In the work of developing the aspiring metropolis of the South Platte section, in which Nuckolls had the chief interest, and in the fight already on against Omaha and the North Platte for political and commercial supremacy, these men of differing temperament and tendency would be mutually supplemental. "We were proud of his acquisition," says Hiram P. Bennet, himself one of the promising young men, and afterward a prominent political figure in the South Platte struggles, of whom Nuckolls had already become in some degree an adviser and patron. For this bitter and protracted warfare the base was wisely chosen, in proof whereof results eventually reinforced reason. For, as we shall see, the prestige and hostility of Otoe county, reflected and largely kept alive by the strong personality of Morton, turned the scale against Omaha in the last weighing of aspirants for the capital. Morton carried on his fight against Omaha and the North Platte section along two lines; he would take away the entire South Platte from Nebraska and annex it to Kansas; or, short of that, be would take away the capital from Omaha and the North Platte and place it in the South Platte section. Failure of his more sweeping scheme of secession was apparent as early as 1860, but he, or the force of his early impetus, followed the other line to final success in 1867.
   They who have known the riper Morton need not be told that he did not spend his political novitiate in this session in laboriously compiling and introducing long lists of bills to be counted off to his credit by an astonished and admiring constitutency or a wondering posterity. In fact he presented only three bills and as many resolutions, while similar achievements of colleagues, otherwise un-

known to fame, must be counted by the score. His activities came from original or unusual sources, and he struck in unexpected quarters. While his colleagues, with the weak yielding and impulse of "the crowd," were rushing through wildcat bank charters he interposed a minority report against the principle involved as well as against the acts themselves. While ordinary men were crying Peace! Peace! as to the North and South Platte divisions, where there could be no peace until the then only dimly foreseen railway system should establish practicable communication between the sections, he cut to the quick of the question by advocating secession of the South Platte and presenting a memorial to Congress for the annexation of that part of the territory to Kansas, giving cogent reasons therefor. The originality of Morton's methods is illustrated in his intervening motion, when it was proposed that the house forthwith choose an additional enrolling and engrossing clerk, that a committee be appointed to examine candidates. The committee reported as follows:

   The special committee on the matter of engrossing and enrolling clerks respectfully submit that they have received applications for the post from the following gentlemen: Messrs. Alden, Gorton, Dendy, Warner, and others, and beg leave to commend the ability of the gentlemen named above as they believe them equally qualified to fill the responsible position which they seek. Your committee therefore submit the matter to your consideration.
J. STERLING MORTON.
LEVI HARSH.
GEO. L. MILLER

   The house selected the candidate at the head of the list after six ballots. Where is there a record of a formal civil service proceeding in this country that precedes this one conceived by our tyro statesman of twenty-three years? Morton opposed the civil service reform movement in his later career until he came face to face with the conditions which had stimulated it when he was at Washington as secretary of agriculture. From that time it received his approval and advocacy.
   Dr. Geo. L. Miller, who afterward became very prominent as a political journalist and leader, did not introduce a single bill at this session, but he was very active on the floor of the house. He led the opposition to the measure to remove the capital when it was finally defeated for this session, as also in the attempt to divide Douglas county, and he stood unswervingly against the incorporation of the illegitimate financial schemes which were a blight on this legislature. Dr. Miller was a member of three standing committees, and he and Mr. Morton represented the house on the committee to prepare joint rules for the two houses.
   The prominent members of the first council held their positions relatively in the second, but the three new members, A. A. Bradford, Evans, and Kirkpatrick, took an active and important part in the proceedings.
   Among the rather motley membership of the second legislature not one was more grotesque and peculiar than Judge Allen A. Bradford, a lawyer by profession, who lived at Nebraska City. He was a native of Maine, whence he came to Missouri and settled in Atchison county; but remaining there only a short time he moved across the state line and became a citizen of Fremont county, Iowa. Very soon he became judge of the court of the district in which that county was situated. There are many amusing anecdotes of Judge Bradford's eccentricities and peculiarities as a jurist. In 1854 he left Iowa and settled in Pierce (now Otoe) county, and there he was elected a member of the second council. He had a general knowledge of law, a great contempt for most of mankind, and no regard for the feelings of anyone who dared differ with him upon any important question. He was sometimes politic and always keen and grasping. Therefore when, during the second session of the council in 1856, the question of chartering wildcat banks came up, Bradford was found fiercely advocating them, for the purpose of making money cheaper to the plain people and to increase the per capita circulation among the poor. He was bitter and vindictive in denunciation of all who opposed any of the bank charters, and particularly severe upon those who antagonized the creation of the Platte Valley bank at Nebraska City. Among the latter was A. D. Jones, then and until his