Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/197

Rh the district courts composed the supreme court of the territory. They were Thomas Nelson, Chief Justice, O. C. Pratt, and William Strong. Of these Nelson and Strong had been appointed by Presidents Fillmore and Taylor, respectively, while Pratt was holding over under an appointment of President Polk. The former were Whigs politically, while the latter was a Democrat. Judges Nelson and Strong convened at Oregon City, and opened the supreme court there. Judge Pratt went to Salem under the act which changed the seat of government, but without a quorum could not hold a session of the court. Judges Nelson and Strong then decided that the act of the legislative assembly providing for the selection of places for the location and erection of the public buildings, passed February 1, 1851, was void, because it contravened the organic law of August 14, 1848, as before stated. The opinions of the judges were never published in the Oregon Reports, for what reason I do not know. Possibly they were not filed with the supreme court. Judge Pratt claimed that this decision amounted to nothing because it was not made at the seat of government, as established by act of the legislative assembly, and in this opinion that body then assembled at Salem, readily concurred. This heated controversy about the location of the capital was, however, settled by a joint resolution of Congress, adopted May 4, 1852 (10 U. S. Statutes, 146). The first section legalized the act of the territorial legislature which located the public buildings, and the second section declared that the late session of the legislative assembly was held in conformity with the provisions of law. This, of course, ended all dispute about the location of the capital, but unhappily another controversy grew out of the construction placed by Judges Nelson and Strong upon the sixth section of the organic law of August 14, 1848. For the same reasons which