That this Territory, under a separate organization, would attract a large population and become immediately developed: and, that its isolation--its large Indian population--its proximity to a semi-civilized Mexican province, and its peculiar and wonderful resources, demand protection from the Government more emphatically than any other territory yet recognised. That our soil has been stained with the blood of American citizens, shed by Mexican hands, in an armed invasion of our Territory near Sonoita, and that there is no civil magistrate or officer here to even protest against such an outrage. That throughout their whole Territory, from the Rio Grande to the Rio Colorado, six hundred miles, there is no Court of Record, and no redress except that inefficiently administered in a Justice's Court, for civil injuries or crimes. That the population of the Territory is much greater than was that of Kansas or Nebraska or Washington Territory, at the time of their organization, and that it is steadily increasing, and will, under the influence of the Road and Mail Bills of the last Congress, be greatly augmented. That there are no post routes or mail facilities throughout the Territory, and that finally, we are cut off from all the comforts of civilization--and that we claim, as a right, that protection which the United States should everywhere extend to her humblest citizen. Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that the Gadsden Purchase may be separated from New Mexico and erected into a separate Territory under the name of Arizona, with such boundaries as may seem proper to your honorable bodies, and that such other legislation may be made as shall be best calculated to place us on the same footing as our more fortunate brethren of Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, that we may be enabled to build up a prosperous and thriving State, and to nourish on this extreme frontier a healthy national sentiment. And we, as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Signed by more than five hundred resident voters.]