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I am requested by the Oregon Bar Association to write a paper on "The Preparation and Adoption of the First Code."

Before writing about the actual preparation of the first code, I desire to say something about the confused and uncertain condition of statutory law in Oregon Territory, prior to 1853, and the reasons which induced the territorial legislature of 1852-53 to elect three commissioners to prepare a code of laws for Oregon Territory.

On June 27, 1844, the Provisional Government of Oregon, declared that "All the statute laws of Iowa Territory, passed at the first session of the legislative assembly of said territory, and not of a local character, and not incompatible with the conditions and circumstances of this country, shall be the law of this government, unless otherwise modified": Laws, 1843-49, p. 100.

The fourteenth section of the act of Congress of August 14, 1848, organizing the Territory of Oregon, continued these laws of the Provisional Government in force until they should be altered or repealed.