Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/198

188 they held the act for the location of the public buildings void, they also held the act of the legislative assembly, which adopted the revised statutes of Iowa, to be also invalid. In other words, these judges held that by adopting several distinct statutes of Iowa in one act, it necessarily embraced more than one object. Judge Pratt took a different view and held that the act of the legislative assembly embraced but one object, to wit, the adoption of a code of laws of the territory.

The result of these conflicting views of the judges was that in Judge Nelson's judicial district, composed of Clackamas, Marion, and Linn counties, and in Judge Strong's district, composed of Clatsop County and the counties north of the Columbia River, the Iowa Code of 1838, adopted by the Provisional Government, was held to be in force. Judge Pratt's district, composed of all the territory west of the Willamette River, included the counties of Washington, Yamhill, Polk, and Benton, and in this district the "Chapman Code" of the Revised Code of Iowa Statutes of 1843, was recognized as the law in force. In the district of Nelson and Strong, the lawyers would cite the law from the "Little Blue Book," as the volume of Statutes of Iowa of 1838 was called. In Judge Pratt's district the same lawyers would quote from the "Big Blue Book," as the Iowa Code of 1843 was called. There were but three or four copies of the little blue book in the territory, one of which was owned by Hon. A. E. Wait. The last time I saw it it was in the possession of Hon. Benton Killin. There were only two copies of the big blue book in Oregon and the statutes adopted by the Chapman Code were not published until the latter part of 1853, when they were printed by the territorial printer and bound in paper covers. A number of these printed copies were distributed among the several counties in the