In a technical sense the establishment of slavery in Kansas was complete. There were by the census of the previous February already some two hundred slaves in the Territory. Under the sanction of these laws, and before they could by any possibility be repealed, some thousands might be expected, especially by such an organized and united effort as the South could make to maintain the vantage ground already gained. Once there, the aggressiveness of the institution might be relied on to protect itself, since all experience had shown that under similar conditions it was almost ineradicable. [Sidenote: Colfax, Speech in H.R., June 21, 1856.] After so much patriotic endeavor on the part of these Border Ruffian legislators "that the Union and law may not be trampled in the dust," it cannot perhaps be wondered at that they began to look around for their personal rewards. These they easily found in the rich harvest of local monopolies and franchises which lay scattered in profusion on this virgin field of legislation, ready to be seized and appropriated without dispute by the first occupants. There were charters for railroads, insurance companies, toll-bridges, ferries, coal-mines, plank roads, and numberless privileges and honors of present or prospective value out of which, together with the county, district, and military offices, the ambitious members might give and take with generous liberality. One-sixth of the printed laws of the first session attest their modest attention to this incidental squatters' dowry. One of the many favorable opportunities in this category was the establishment of the permanent territorial capital, authorized by the organic act, where the liberal Federal appropriation for public buildings should be expended. For this purpose, competition from the older towns yielding gracefully after the first ballot, an entirely new site on the open prairie overlooking the Kansas River some twelve miles west of Lawrence was agreed upon. The proceedings do not show any unseemly scramble over the selection, and no tangible record remains of the whispered distribution of corner lots and contracts. It is only the name which rises into historical notice. [Sidenote: "House Journal Kansas Territory," 1855. Appendix, p. 3.]