louisiana government bill: as enacted, the law “erecting Louisiana into two territories, and providing for the temporary government thereof” divided Louisiana on the western side of the Mississippi River at the 33d parallel, with the northern part named the Louisiana District and placed under the jurisdiction of Indiana Territory. Indiana’s governor, with the advice of the president, was to parcel the district into militia divisions, and Indiana’s judges were to extend their jurisdiction over the area. Orleans Territory, the main focus of the act, was established south of the 33d parallel and included all of Louisiana on the eastern side of the Mississippi River. The president possessed the power of appointment over all the new territory’s major executive, legislative, and judicial offices. Other provisions extended a series of U.S. laws to the territory, granted habeas corpus and trial by jury to its citizens, banned the importation of slaves other than by slaveholders relocating from other parts of the union, voided Spanish grants of land made since the Treaty of San Ildefonso, and authorized the president to exchange Indians’ land east of the Mississippi River for western lands to be held under the protection of the United States. The law was to commence on 1 Oct. (U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States … 1789 to March 3, 1845, Boston, 1855-56, 8 vols. description ends , 2:283-9; Vol. 42:34-5n).

For Thomas U. P. charlton, see Vol. 33:479.

tough job: the House of Representatives had amended the bill so that after one year the 13 appointed members of the legislative council for Orleans Territory would yield to a council chosen by elective franchise. After the conference committee met, Joseph H. Nicholson, the lead manager for the House, recommended that the House recede from its amendment because of the strong objections of the Senate managers. The main objection, Nicholson explained, was the likelihood that the settlement pattern in Orleans would produce a body “composed of persons of different languages.” There existed also “other reasons, of a very powerful nature, which it was not necessary for him to state.” By a vote of 51 to 45, the House receded from its amendment but noted for the record that the bill was “limited in duration to one year from the first day of October next, (when it is to take effect) and thence to the end of the next session of Congress.” On 23 Mch., both the House and the Senate accepted the conference committee’s report (Annals description begins Annals of the Congress of the United States: The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States … Compiled from Authentic Materials, Washington, D.C., Gales & Seaton, 1834-56, 42 vols. All editions are undependable and pagination varies from one printing to another. The first two volumes of the set cited here have “Compiled … by Joseph Gales, Senior” on the title page and bear the caption “Gales & Seatons History” on verso and “of Debates in Congress” on recto pages. The remaining volumes bear the caption “History of Congress” on both recto and verso pages. Those using the first two volumes with the latter caption will need to employ the date of the debate or the indexes of debates and speakers. description ends , 13:296-7, 1229-30; Vol. 42:35n).