Jefferson Territory
The Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson was an extralegal and unrecognized United States territory that existed from October 24, 1859 until the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. The Jefferson Territory included land officially part of the Kansas Territory, the Nebraska Territory, the New Mexico Territory, the Utah Territory, and the Washington Territory, but remote from the governments of those five territories. The government of the Jefferson Territory, while democratically elected, was never legally recognized by the United States Government, although it managed the territory with relatively free rein for 16 months. Many of the laws enacted by the Jefferson Territorial Legislature were reenacted and given official sanction by the new Colorado General Assembly in 1861.
Read more about Jefferson Territory: Origins, Establishment, Counties, Capitals, Dissolution
Famous quotes containing the words jefferson and/or territory:
“The tide which, after our former relaxed government, took a violent course towards the opposite extreme, and seemed ready to hang every thing round with the tassils and baubles of monarchy, is now getting back as we hope to a just mean, a government of laws addressed to the reason of the people, and not to their weaknesses.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)