The removal of the state capital from St. Paul, which would have been accomplished in 1857 but for the high-handed exploit of Councilor Rolette, though frequently broached informally, was not seriously taken up by any legislature till 1869. A bill for removal to Kandiyohi County, on to land belonging to the state, was passed through both houses so easily and rapidly as to invite the surmise that the necessary votes had been secured in advance. Superfluous debate was shut out by the operation of the previous question. The vote in the house was 39 to 7, that in the senate 12 to 10; but the house could not muster enough votes to pass the bill over Governor Marshall’s veto. The veto message was moderate in tone; suggesting that it would be wise to hear from the people on the question, that there should be no haste about a final location of the capital, and that it was no time to expend a great sum of money on buildings. Two years later a final proposal to remove the capital from St. Paul to the imagined city of Stanton met with a prompt indefinite postponement. CHAPTER XVI STORM AND STRESS Horace Austin was inaugurated governor January 9, 1870. A native of Connecticut, who had lived and married in Maine, he had come to Minnesota in 1855 at the age of twenty-five and settled at St. Peter. He had studied law and taught school, but had taken no college course. In the campaign of 1863 against the Sioux he commanded a company of Minnesota Mounted Rangers and gave a good account of himself on the march and battlefield. His neighbors had elected him a district judge and were more than content with his wise and fearless conduct on the bench. It was a piece of good fortune for the state that the warring Ramsey and Donnelly factions of the Republican party in the convention of 1869 compromised upon a candidate unobjectionable to both, but no especial favorite with either. His majority was less than two thousand over the popular candidate of the Democrats, George L. Otis. Ingenious, hopeful, independent, Mr. Austin in successive messages showered upon the legislatures projects of reform and development. In many of them he was doomed to disappointment because he relied entirely on the merit of propositions, and was not politician enough to understand that it is only by timely and happy combination of interests that measures can be carried in legislative bodies. Among these abortive recommendations may be mentioned the one in his second message, urging a revision of the state constitution, which he declared to be a motley of inconsistencies. His desire was that a revised constitution should contain such provisions as these: (1) Restriction of special legislation; (2) prohibition of exclusive franchises; (3) limitation of local taxation; (4) restriction of municipal debts; (5) ample power to regulate railroads; and (6) abolition of the grand jury. Neither the