Senate: Twenty-fourth District—J. N. Castle. Thirty-eighth District—John Shaleen. House: Twenty-fourth District—Dwight M. Sabin, C. P. Gregory, A. Stegman. Thirty-eighth District—Levi H. McKusick.
TWENTY-FOURTH STATE LEGISLATURE, 1885.
Senate: Twenty-fourth District—J. N. Castle. Thirty-eighth District—John Shaleen. House: Twenty-fourth District—E. W. Durant, W. H. Pratt, Arthur Stephen. Thirty-eighth District—Levi H. McKusick.
TWENTY-FIFTH STATE LEGISLATURE, 1887.
Senate: Twenty-fourth District—E. W. Durant. Thirty-eighth District—Otto Wallmark. House: Twenty-fourth District—F. Dornfield, R. M. Anderson, C. P. Gregory. Thirty-eighth District—Henry Smith.
The first legislature continued in session one hundred and forty-eight days. Its most important measure was the passage of the $5,000,000 loan bill. At the twentieth session a law was passed changing the sessions of the legislature from annual to biennial.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1857.
As a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1857, and a member of what was styled the Republican wing, the writer considers it not amiss to insert a chapter concerning that somewhat famous and farcical affair.
The Congress of 1856-57 passed an enabling act for the formation of a state government in Minnesota, providing that a constitutional convention of delegates, chosen by the people, should assemble at midday, July 13, 1857, at the hall of the house of representatives at the state capitol, and adopt a constitution, subject to the ratification of the people.
The territorial governor, Samuel Medary, ordered an election to be held on the first Monday in June, 1857, for delegates, the number to consist of one hundred and eight. The State was nearly equally divided between the Republicans and Democrats; still the question of politics did not enter largely into the contest, except as a question of party supremacy. The people were a unit on the question of organizing a state government under the enabling act, and in many cases there was but a single ticket in the field. It was a matter, therefore, of some surprise that there should be a separation among the delegates into opposing factions, resulting practically in the formation of two conventions, each claiming to represent the people, and each proposing a constitution. The delegates, although but 108 were called, were numbered on the rolls of the two wings as 59 Republican and 53 Democratic, a discrepancy arising from some irregularity of enrollment, by which certain memberships were counted twice. The Republican members, claiming a bare majority, took possession of the hall of the house at midnight, twelve hours before the legal time for opening the convention, the object being to obtain control of the offices and committees of the convention, a manifest advantage in the matter of deciding upon contested seats.