onstituted 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 a military reservation, and for
participation in which illegal act the commandant of the post, a
superior officer in the Army, has been dismissed by sentence of
court-martial. Nor is it easy to see why the legislative assembly might
not with propriety pass the Territorial act transferring its sittings to
the Shawnee Mission. If it could not, that must be on account of some
prohibitory or incompatible provision of act of Congress; but no such
provision exists. The organic act, as already quoted, says "the seat
of government is hereby located temporarily at Fort Leavenworth;" and
it then provides that certain of the public buildings there "may be
occupied and used under the direction of the governor and legislative
assembly." These expressions might possibly be construed to imply that
when, in a previous section of the act, it was enacted that "the first
legislative assembly shall meet at such place and on such day as
the governor shall appoint," the word "place" means place at Fort
Leavenworth, not place anywhere in the Territory. If so, the govern