Accordingly the governor by proclamation convened the assembly thus elected to meet at a place called Pawnee City; the two houses met and were duly organized in the ordinary parliamentary form; each sent to and received from the governor the official communications usual on such occasions; an elaborate message opening the session was communicated by the governor, and the general business of legislation was entered upon by the legislative assembly.

But after a few days the assembly resolved to adjourn to another place in the Territory.  A law was accordingly passed, against the consent of the governor, but in due form otherwise, to remove the seat of government temporarily to the “Shawnee Manual Labor School” (or mission), and thither the assembly proceeded.  After this, receiving a bill for the establishment of a ferry at the town of Kickapoo, the governor refused to sign it, and by special message assigned for reason of refusal not anything objectionable in the bill itself nor any pretense of the illegality or incompetency of the assembly as such, but only the fact that the assembly had by its act transferred the seat of government temporarily from Pawnee City to the Shawnee Mission.  For the same reason he continued to refuse to sign other bills until in the course of a few days he by official message communicated to the assembly the fact that he had received notification of the termination of his functions as governor, and that the duties of the office were legally devolved on the secretary of the Territory; thus to the last recognizing the body as a duly elected and constituted legislative assembly.

It will be perceived that if any constitutional defect attached to the legislative acts of the assembly it is not pretended to consist in irregularity of election or want of qualification of the members, but only in the change of its place of session.  However trivial this objection may seem to be, it requires to be considered, because upon it is founded all that superstructure of acts, plainly against law, which now threaten the peace, not only of the Territory of Kansas, but of the Union.

Such an objection to the proceedings of the legislative assembly was of exceptionable origin, for the reason that by the express terms of the organic law the seat of government of the Territory was “located temporarily at Fort Leavenworth;” and yet the governor himself remained there less than two months, and of his own discretion transferred the seat of government to the Shawnee Mission, where it in fact was at the time the assembly were called to meet at Pawnee City.  If the governor had any such right to change temporarily the seat of government, still more had the legislative assembly.  The objections are of exceptionable origin for the further reason that the place indicated by the governor, without having any exclusive claim of preference in itself, was a proposed town site only, which he and others were attempting to locate unlawfully upon land within