The deliberations thus informally started ended in a formal call for a constitutional convention to meet in Denver on the first Monday in June, for the purpose, as an address to the people stated, of framing a constitution for a new "state of Jefferson." "Shall it be," the address demanded, "the government of the knife and the revolver, or shall we unite in forming here in our golden country, among the ravines and gulches of the Rocky Mountains, and the fertile valleys of the Arkansas and the Platte, a new and independent State?" The boundaries of the prospective state were named in the call as the one hundred and second and one hundred and tenth meridians of longitude, and the thirty-seventh and forty-third parallels of north latitude--including with true frontier amplitude large portions of Utah and Nebraska and nearly half of Wyoming, in addition to the present state of Colorado. When the statehood convention met in Denver on June 6, the time was inopportune for concluding the movement, since the reaction had set in. The height of the gold boom was over, and the return migration left it somewhat doubtful whether any permanent population would remain in the country to need a state. So the convention met on the 6th, appointed some eight drafting committees, and adjourned, to await developments, until August 1. By this later date, the line had been drawn between the confident and the discouraged elements in the population, and for six days the convention worked upon the question of statehood. As to permanency there was now no doubt; but the body divided into two nearly equal groups, one advocating immediate statehood, the other shrinking from the heavy taxation incident to a state establishment and so preferring a territorial government with a federal treasury behind it. The body, too badly split to reach a conclusion itself, compromised by preparing the way for either development and leaving the choice to a public vote. A state constitution was drawn up on one hand; on the other, was prepared a memorial to Congress praying for a territorial government, and both documents were submitted to a vote on September 5. Pursuant to the memorial, which was adopted, another election was held on October 3, at which the local agent of the new Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express Company, Beverly D. Williams, was chosen as delegate to Congress.