CHAPTER XL.

TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE.

The Territorial Legislature assembled at Lecompton on the 12th of January. The Senate organized under the following officers: Thomas Johnson, President; Richard R. Rees, President pro tem., Thos. C. Hughes, Chief Clerk; C. H. Grover, Assistant Clerk, and D. Scott Boyle, Engrossing Clerk. The House organized by electing Wm. G. Mathias Speaker, W. II. Tebbs, Speaker pro tem., and Robert C. Bishop, Chief Clerk. A joint committee was appointed to wait on the Governor and receive any communication he had to give. His message was accordingly sent to both houses, read, referred to committees, and six thousand five hundred copies ordered to be printed. This document was not very palatable to rabid pro-slavery men, as it classed the action of the Territorial militia with that of Lane's men and those at Hickory Point. It urged them to abolish certain obnoxious laws, to be quiet on slavery, to correct the mis-print of the Organic Act in the copy of the statutes,' and declared the Governor determined to act impartially.

At the first of the session, a secret caucus was held by the members of the Legislature, in which it was agreed to pass all the bills that the Governor might reject over his veto by a two-thirds vote. Pursuant to this resolution they passed several very objectionable acts. They authorized the District Court, or any Judge in vacation, to admit to bail any prisoner on charge, or under indictment for any

"crime or offense whatever, whether such crime or offense shall have been heretofore bailable or not." This was designed to endorse Judge Lecompte and condemn Governor Geary in the murder case of Hays. The Governor sent in his objections to it, whereupon both Houses, without considering them, passed the bill with but one dissenting vote. The day after this bill became a law, "Geo. W. Clark, the murderer of Barber, Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, Captain William Martin and other pro-slavery men, against whom unserved warrants had been in the hands of the marshal for months, appeared voluntarily before Judge Cato, offered bail and were discharged." Another act vetoed by the Governor provided for the taking of the census, preparatory to an election of delegates to a convention to frame a constitution, which will be examined more fully when the occasion for which it was framed shall be described.

From the commencement of the session, the members of the Legislature were disposed to provoke a quarrel with the Governor. As we have seen, they resurrected the difficulty between him and Judge Lecompte; they next proceeded to involve him in trouble with the most excitable and irritable character in the Territory. The county commissioners had appointed Wm. T. Sherrard Sheriff of Douglas County, in the place of Samuel J. Jones, who had resigned. He was a Virginian, of respectable parents, but a drunken, quarrelsome scamp, who had openly declared, that if he could get to be sheriff, he would involve the Territory in war before a week expired. Soon after Sherrard obtained his appointment, he called upon the Governor, and somewhat insolently demanded his commission. The blanks being in the possession of the Secretary of the Territory, who was absent at the time, and as his signature and seal were necessary to legalize the document, the Governor so stated to Mr. Sherrard, and requested him to wait a few days, until the Secretary's return. "Soon after, Sherrard called again at the Executive office, and on this occasion

his conduct was so exceedingly offensive and insulting, as to elicit from the Governor the inquiry why he (Sherrard) should be so inimical to him. Such were his defiances and threats, that even had the Secretary been present, the commission would not have been issued. Next day Sherrard wrote a note to the Governor, informing him that if the commission was not received within a certain time, a mandamus would be obtained to compel him to render it."

In the meantime, the members of the county board, who had made the appointment, had severally visited the Governor, requesting him to withhold the commission until they could hold a regular meeting for the purpose of revoking the appointment, which had hastily been made at the instance of Sheriff Jones, and without a proper knowledge of the character of the applicant, who, they were now convinced, was utterly unfit for the office, in consequence of the violence of his disposition, his being almost daily engaged in street and tavern broils, and his threats to disturb the general peace as soon as the commission was obtained. Numerous petitions to the same effect were also obtained from respectable citizens of the county.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution on the 19th of January, requesting the Governor to furnish their body a statement of his reasons for not commissioning Wm. T. Sherrard as Sheriff of Douglas County. The Governor replied, giving as his reasons the petitions he had received, the general character and daily conduct of the applicant, which they themselves knew to be that of a seditious, drunken and unscrupulous loafer.

The reply of the Governor greatly enraged the Legislators. The very reasons assigned for not commissioning Sherrard were to them strong arguments that he ought to be commissioned. They had lauded and eulogized Sheriff Jones, and now desired a man to fill his place, which no honorable and worthy man could do. They wanted one to stir up trouble, pursue free state men, insult ladies and at

tack defenseless villages, and consequently, Sherrard possessed strong recommendations in their estimation. Some of the Legislators fumed and vaporized, declaring that Geary was a d-d despot, assuming arbitrary power from which an autocrat of Europe would have shrunk dismayed; another thought he ought to be censured; while a third declared he was a "usurper, a monster, and a tyrant," more atrocious and cruel in his conduct than Nero or Caligula, in not commissioning Sherrard. And thus the speakers from little to greater vied with each other in their denunciation and abuse of the Governor. When they had freely vented themselves in words they unanimously passed a resolution legalizing the acts of Sherrard and commissioning him Sheriff of Douglas County. But the Council failed to concur in this resolution, and consequently their labor was in vain. It was not out of any respect to the Governor that the Council thus decided, for they declared that "they can not sustain the reasons of the Governor for his action in the premises," that he had no right to pass judgment upon the qualifications of an appointee, and that "he had no discretion left to him" than to commission Sherrard.

Sherrard thus sustained by the Legislature became extremely insolent and venomous towards the Governor, his appointees, and free state men. At one time he assailed John A. W. Jones, a member of the Governor's household, a man of weak and slight physical frame and wholly unarmed, by striking him without a shadow of provocation. Again, he, after failing to provoke a quarrel with the Governor's private Secretary, struck him on the cheek, and seizing the handle of his pistol dared him to resent the insult.

Sherrard next assaulted the Governor himself. On the 9th of February, as the latter was retiring from the chamber in which the members of the House held their session, he was confronted by Sherrard, who accosted him, " You have treated me, sir, like a d-d scoundrel." The Governor,

affecting not to notice him, passed on, and the person of Mr. McAllster interposed between him and his assailant. Sherrard followed, spitting after the Governor, at the same time uttering oaths and threats of defiance, his right hand firmly grasping one of the pistols in his belt. Failing to provoke the Governor to a difficulty in which he might have some pretense and nerve for shooting him, Sherrard finally abandoned the undertaking, and retired to boast of the insults he had heaped upon Mr. Geary's head.

A resolution, in the afternoon of the same day, was introduced in the House, highly condemning the conduct of Sherrard, instructing the Sergeant-at-Arms to bring him. before the bar of the House to answer for the offense, and excluding him from the privileges of that body.

This created a perfect furore among the members. Joseph C. Anderson, from Missouri, declared "the Governor had no business in the halls of the Legislature, and that he should confine himself to his Executive office." Mr. Johnson said he knew the assault was to be made, but did not think it proper to interfere, it being none of his business. Such was the apparent opposition to the resolution, that the mover withdrew it. A milk-and-water resolution was finally passed, for mere effect, "to express the disapproval and maintain the dignity of the House," by a vote of 17 ayes to 11 nays. The Council took similar action.

Judge Cato, having come by request to the Governor's office for consultation in regard to Sherrard's conduct, appeared indifferent about the matter, and thought "such outrages beyond the pale of the law, there being no statute by which they could be punished." A warrant, however, was obtained for the arrest of Sherrard, and after remaining unobserved for two days a messenger was dispatched to Judge Cato, urging him to have it executed at once. This official was found in company with Sherrard and Jones, and when his attention was called to the matter, remarked that the Marshal was absent, and that it could not then be served.