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LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
CARSON, 11 A.M., January 12, 1864.
The Constitution pot boils. Gentlemen from the different sections of the Territory - visiting brethren of the Legislature agree in the opinion that the Constitution will carry by a very respectable vote on the l9th. This will have its effect upon Ormsby county, which, strangely enough, considering the advantages she would derive from having the Capital permanently located at Carson, a mint built here, and the number of resident officials increased, has heretofore been opposed to the establishment of a State Government.
And speaking of the mint, I have an item of news relating to that subject. Mr. Lockhart, the Indian Agent, has just received a letter from Commissioner Bennet, in which he says he has been informed by Secretary Chase that no further steps will be taken toward building a mint in this region until our State Representatives arrive in Washington! This is in consequence of efforts now being made by Mr. Conness to have the mint located at Virginia. The authorities want advice from representatives direct from the people. As I said before, the people of Ormsby will oppose the Constitution.
O, certainly they will! They will if they are sick - or sentimental - or consumptive - or don't know their own interests - or can't see when God Almighty smiles upon them, and don't care anyhow. Now if Ormsby votes against the Constitution, let us clothe our selves in sackcloth and put ashes on our heads; for in that hour religious liberty will be at an end here - her next step will be to vote against her eternal salvation. However the anti-Constitutional sentiment here is growing weak in the knees.
Most of the members have arrived, and the wheels of government will begin to churn at 12 M.
MARK TWAIN
[reprinted in
Mark Twain of the Enterprise, edited by Henry Nash Smith, (Univ. of California
Press, 1957), pp. 130-31.]
