The adoption of the territorial memorial failed to meet the need for immediate government or to prevent the advocates of such government from working out a provisional arrangement pending the action of Congress. On the day that Williams was elected, these advocates chose delegates for a preliminary territorial constitutional convention which met a week later. "Here we go," commented Byers, "a regular triple-headed government machine; south of 40 deg. we hang on to the skirts of Kansas; north of 40 deg. to those of Nebraska; straddling the line, we have just elected a Delegate to the United States Congress from the 'Territory of Jefferson,' and ere long we will have in full blast a provisional government of Rocky Mountain growth and manufacture." In this convention of October 10, 1859, the name of Jefferson was retained for the new territory; the boundaries of April 15 were retained, and a government similar to the highest type of territorial establishment was provided for. If the convention had met on the authority of an enabling act, its career could not have been more dignified. Its constitution was readily adopted, while officers under it were chosen in an orderly election on October 24. Robert W. Steele, of Ohio, became its governor. On November 7 he met his legislature and delivered his first inaugural address. The territory of Jefferson which thus came into existence in the Pike's Peak region illustrates well the spirit of the American frontier. The fundamental principle of American government which Byers expressed in connection with it is applicable at all times in similar situations. "We claim," he wrote in his _Rocky Mountain News_, "that any body, or community of American citizens, which from any cause or under any circumstance is cut off from, or from isolation is so situated as not to be under, any active and protecting branch of the central government, have a right, if on American soil, to frame a government, and enact such laws and regulations as may be necessary for their own safety, protection, and happiness, always with the condition precedent, that they shall, at the earliest moment when the central government shall extend an _effective_ organization and laws over them, give it their unqualified support and obedience." The life of the spontaneous commonwealth thus called into existence is a creditable witness to the American instinct for orderly government.