[Colorado]: [Leverson, Montague Richard]:

$7,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

DRAFT OF A CONSTITUTION PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A COMMITTEE OF CITIZENS OF COLORADO FOR CONSIDERATION AND DISCUSSION. A rare and eccentric Colorado constitution, proposed the year before the territory attained statehood. Wynar credits authorship of this Colorado constitution to Montague Richard Leverson, and the Yale copy is inscribed by Leverson to Yale paleontologist, Othniel C. Marsh. Leverson (1830-1925) was a British-born lawyer and follower of Jeremy Bentham, who eventually became a Colorado rancher. This draft of the Colorado constitution was issued anonymously but endorsed by a group of eighteen concerned citizens, and is out of the norm in drafting a state constitution. The text includes a nine-page introduction, apparently by Leverson but signed in print only by "The Author." The constitution proposes that the chief officer of the state not be a governor but a "Minister of Justice." "After the first few years of experiment, it is hoped and expected that the appointment of the MINISTER OF JUSTICE will be confided to the legislature, and that his tenure of office will be for life, or at least for a long term of years, unless removed for cause." The appointment system would be greeted with stiff opposition from the politicians. "How far the 'politicians' may be expected to resist the adoption of such a system...may be judged from the following facts: The office of County Clerk and Recorder of Arapahoe County is currently believed to yield to its incumbent an i

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