2d Session.

No. 34.

CAPITOL IN DAKOTA.

MEMORIAL

OF THE

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF THE TERRITORY OF DAKOTA,

ASKING AN

Appropriation to erect a capitol building at the seat of government in Dakota Territory.

JANUARY 25, 1867.-Referred to the Committee on Appropriations and ordered to be printed.

To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:

Your memorialists, the legislative assembly of the Territory of Dakota, would respectfully represent that, while Congress has uniformly made appropriations for the erection of capitol buildings in the several Territories of the United States, the Territory of Dakota has received no aid from the general government for such a purpose; and deeming the matter of sufficient importance to demand your attention, the general government as well as the Territory of Dakota being interested therein, we respectfully ask that this subject be considered by your honorable bodies. Your memorialists would represent that the building at present occupied by the several federal officers, and in which the sessions of the legislative assembly are annually held, are illy suited for such purposes, being uncomfortable during the season in which, by law, the legislature holds its sessions, and the several officers are compelled to be constantly at their places of business; and we would further represent that the rents annually paid for the present buildings used and occupied, for which the general government is responsible, would, in a few years, pay the expense of erecting a suitable building for the accommodation of the various federal officers and the legislative assembly. Your memorialists would further represent that, as at present situated, the valuable papers, records, documents, &c., are without a secure place wherein they can be safe from destruction by fire or from theft, and we regard their preservation of vital consequence to our Territory.

Your memorialists regard this matter of paramount importance to Dakota, and would therefore pray that you will appropriate forty thousand dollars for the erection of a capitol building at the seat of government in Dakota Territory. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Be it resolved by the legislative assembly of the Territory of Dakota, That a copy of this memorial be forwarded to the Speaker of the House of Represent

atives and President of the Senate of the United States Congress, and one copy to our delegate in Congress; and, further, that his excellency the governor be requested to sign this memorial, and to unite with us in urging and securing a favorable response to this memorial.

F. WIXSON, Chief Clerk.

B. M. SMITH,
Secretary of Council.

J. B. S. TODD, Speaker.

M. K. ARMSTRONG,
President of Council.

YANKTON, D. T., January 10, 1867.

Approved:

A. J. FAULK, Governor.

2d Session.

CITIZENS OF WESTERN TEXAS.

MEMORIAL

ON BEHALF OF

THE CITIZENS OF WESTERN TEXAS,

SETTING FORTH

The grievances of the loyal Union men of that State; the oppressions by the government established by President Johnson, and by the disloyal majority under his government, encouragement, and protection, and praying that the loyal Union men of western Texas may be protected by law, and allowed to erect a State government west of the Brazos river.

| JANUARY 28, 1867.—Referred to the Committee on Reconstruction and ordered to be printed.

To the honorable the Senate and the House of Representatives in Congress assembled:

The undersigned, loyal citizens of western Texas, most respectfully call the attention of your honorable bodies to their present political condition.

During the existence of the rebellion the Union element of western Texas was perhaps greater than that of any portion of the original seven seceding States. This brought upon them persecutions and hardships unknown in the annals of warfare, for no other reason than because of their Union sentiments and love for a government from which they had never derived anything but kindness.

They were forced into a service which they believed criminal, and detested, er to abandon the country of their birth or adoption, to find safety among strangers, or to be summarily executed at a rope's-end. These persecutions many Union men in western Texas endured for four years, sustained by the hope that in the end the Union armies would triumph over the enemies of the untry, and that safety and liberty would again be secured to every one. Was a matter of pride to those who had fought in the cause of the Union to think they should enjoy the rewards of their faithful conduct towards their gov

ernment.

It

Finally the arms of the Union triumphed, and the rebellion was crushed. The last organized force surrendered in Texas in May, 1865. The rebels at the e were not only conquered, but subdued. They were ready and willing to bmit to any terms offered by the United States government. No one then dreamed of the enjoyment of political "rights" on the part of the people The State of Texas had lost its political organization, as well by

f Texas.

the expiration of the terms of all its officers as by act of rebellion on the part of its inhabitants. The belligerent organization called the State of Texas (of the Confederate States) was totally destroyed when overcome by the Union armies. There existed after the surrender not an officer in the whole limits of Texas except the officers of the United States government. The people of Texas were wholly without civil government. In appointing Governor Holden, of North Carolina, the President says the same thing of that State. Then it is true the people of the State of Texas were not out of the Union, nor was the territory composing said State. Both were in the limits and protection of the Union; but the inhabitants were without any civil organization or government, nor were they capable of organizing a government without the consent of those to whom they had surrendered. The constitution and laws formerly in force existed only on parchment and paper, as they did after they were enacted and before organization under them.

The President, as commander-in-chief, assumed to institute a civil government for this people so situated. But not contented to appoint loyal governors and officers for the protection of the people in their rights and property, where the same could not conveniently be protected by the military authorities, he called the rebels together to choose their own form of government, and committed the civil powers of government into their own hands. Thenceforth all Union citizens, black as well as white, were committed to the protection of the rebels, who numbered about five to one in the State. This inevitably would have resulted in their being driven out of the State or into bondage had it not been for the troops stationed at different points in the State. These men, mad with their success in regaining power, boldly proclaimed the Congress of the United States a usurping power or body of men, whom the President would drive from the halls of legislation. Vengeance was threatened against every man who dared to oppose such a scheme. Instead of treason being made odious, devotion to the Union has ever since been stigmatized as odious. Prior to the result of the late elections at the North no Union man considered himself safe in the State Servitude, under a yoke far more galling than that of slavery, was the only prospect of the poor black, and expulsion from the State the only safety of the obstinate and determined Union man. Without the intervention of Congress, as herein prayed, the same fate awaits both classes in the future.

The rebel convention convened by the President, the people, and the first legis lature of this new State, have given unmistakable proofs of their hatred to a re publican form of government, and disloyalty to the United States. In their or ganic law they require a residence of five years to become eligible for a senator o representative, and seven years to become eligible as governor, a thing unprece dented in the history of the States. They annulled the secession ordinance, bu recognized its full force and effect till the day of annulment; they forever ex cluded a large portion of citizens from a participation in the common schoo fund, and only granted them partial privileges in courts of justice, for no othe reason than because of their caste or color.

In the popular elections, under the constitution, four out of five of the judge of the supreme court, and sixteen out of twenty of the district court, wer chosen because of their political opinions, which held that secession was the rightful exercise of a constitutional power on the part of a State, and that ever act under the ordinance of secession must be upheld and supported; and at subsequent election, four members of Congress were chosen, neither of who can take the test-oath.

The acts of the legislature have been still more hostile to the Congress an government of the United States, and injurious to the citizens of Texas. The violated their duty in electing to the Senate of the United States men who, the knew could not take the test-oath; they passed a bill to regulate contracts f labor, which was designed to enslave the blacks, and to exclude from the count