Supreme Court shall consist of a Chief Justice and two Associate Justices, any two of whom shall constitute a quorum, and who shall hold a term at the seat of government of said Territory annually; and they shall hold their offices during the period of four years, and until their successors shall be appointed and qualified. The said Territory shall be divided into three judicial districts, and a Dis trict Court shall be held in each of said districts by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, at such
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times and places as may be prescribed by law; and the said judges shall, after their appointments, respectively reside in the districts which shall be assigned to them. The jurisdiction of the several courts herein provided for, both appellate and original, and that of the probate courts and of justices of the peace shall be as limited by law; provided that justices of the peace shall not have jurisdiction of any matter in controversy when the title or boundaries of land may be in dispute, or where the debt or sum claimed shall exceed one hundred dollars; and the said Supreme and Dis trict Courts, respectively, shall possess chancery as THOMAS well as common law ju risdiction. . . . Writs of error, and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, in the same manner and under the regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States, where the value of the property, or the amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath or affir mation of either party, or other competent witness, shall exceed one thousand dollars; except only, that in all cases involving title to slaves, the said writs of error, or appeals, shall be allowed and de cided by said Supreme Court without regard to the value of the matter, property, or title in con troversy; and except, also, that a writ of error or
appeal shall also be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States from the decisions of the said Supreme Court created by this act, or any judges thereof, upon any writ of habeas corpus, involving the question of personal freedom : provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to apply to, or affect the provisions of the act ' Re specting fugitives from justice, and persons escap ing from the service of their masters,' approved February 12, 1793, and the act 'To amend and supplementary to the aforesaid act,' approved September 18, 1850." The first legislative assembly convened at Pawnee, on the 22A day of July, 1855. Af ter organizing, it ad journed to the Shawnee Manual Labor School, where it proceeded to enact a body of laws for the government of the Territory. Shawnee Mission of the Methodist Church South stood close to the quaint old town of Westport in Missouri, but within the boun dary of Kansas. At the newly selected capital the Legislature was very nearly at F.WING home. The members were taken in a hack at every daily adjournment to Westport, in which they returned next morning. Bottles and jugs in number were part of the freight in the hack. The code of laws they framed, comprising over a thousand pages, would cause the ordinary man to shrink from read ing it; it would have taken the greater por tion of the whole session to have read it through once. All their enactments were of a local character, in fact, transcripts of the Missouri code. The legislature were in the habit of passing separate acts in which they denned the meaning of words. Thus,
