The acts of the legislative assembly for the territory/state of Montana, passed in the year ____: 1864-, Helena, etc., var. state printers, 1864-.
(Then known only vaguely as “Indian Country,” most of the area that is now Montana passed under U.S. sovereignty by way of the Louisiana Purchase in
1803. The first modest growth in white population came during the fur trade era between 1807 and 1846. In the latter year the U.S. claim to N.W. Montana
was legalized by the terms of the Oregon Treaty with the British. A gold rush starting in 1852 brought about the founding of the towns of Bannack,
1862, and Virginia City, 1864. Previously the area that became Montana had been successively, if nominally, governed as part of the Oregon, Washington,
Nebraska, Dakota and Idaho territories. It attained the status of a separate territory on May 26, 1864. The first Montana territorial legislative
assembly, representing an electorate of 6,500 male voters, met at Bannack {now a ghost town} in Dec., 1864 and enacted a code called “The Bannack
Statutes.” This code was heavily based on the “Field Code,” then being proposed as the Civil Code of New York. The code prescribed rules for court procedure
and supplied many provisions of substantive law. After the first legislative session held at Bannack, the next seven sessions, 1866-1874, were held in
Virginia City. From 1876 on the legislature has met in Helena, the current capital. After several unsuccessful attempts, a constitutional convention
held in July of 1889 finally crafted a state constitution acceptable to the U.S. Congress. Montana was admitted as the 41st state of the Union on 8
November 1889, and the first session of the legislature of the State of Montana was also held in that month. The current bicameral Montana legislature
has a senate comprised of 50 members, elected to staggered terms of four years, and a house of representatives, with 100 members, all elected every two
years.) (Documents which are part of the Early State Records collection were digitized from a microfilm copy of titles originally held by the
Library of Congress, the Montana State Library, and the Harvard University Law Library).
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