I am requested by the Oregon Bar Association to write a paper on "The Preparation and Adoption of the First Code." Before writing about the actual preparation of the first code, I desire to say something about the confused and uncertain condition of statutory law in Oregon Territory, prior to 1853, and the reasons which induced the territorial legislature of 1852-53 to elect three commissioners to prepare a code of laws for Oregon Territory. On June 27, 1844, the Provisional Government of Oregon, declared that "All the statute laws of Iowa Territory, passed at the first session of the legislative assembly of said territory, and not of a local character, and not incompatible with the conditions and circumstances of this country, shall be the law of this government, unless otherwise modified": Laws, 1843-49, p. 100. The fourteenth section of the act of Congress of August 14, 1848, organizing the Territory of Oregon, continued these laws of the Provisional Government in force until they should be altered or repealed. At the first session of the legislative assembly, held at Oregon City, two acts were passed by that body, which, owing to the construction placed upon them by the supreme court of the Territory, had a tendency to produce dissension and discord among the people of Oregon, which lasted for two or three years. One of these was "An act to provide for the selection of places for location and erection of the public buildings of the Territory of Oregon," passed February 1, 1851. The other act was one which declared to be adopted, and in force, certain acts of the revised statutes of Iowa Territory published in 1843. The legislative assembly of Oregon by a single act adopted these acts of Iowa, designating them by their several titles, and the dates of their passage. This law was generally known as the "Chapman Code," owing to the fact that the bill was introduced by and its passage secured through the influence of Hon. W. W. Chapman, then a member of the legislative assembly. Soon after these two acts were passed, their validity was questioned, especially that of the one which located the public buildings, and transferred the seat of government from Oregon City to Salem. Those who denied their validity did so on the ground that they contravened that clause of the organic act of August 14, 1848, section 6, which provides that "To avoid improper influences which may result from intermixing in one act such things as have no proper relation to each other; every act shall embrace but one object, and that shall be expressed in the title."