An 1885 act by the state legislature authorized the purchase of up to 2,000 copies of this book for schools, public libraries, other state societies, public officers, and members and employees of the legislature. The author stated in the Preface that, “…the principal design of the work is to present a history of Territorial Legislation…, the design has been departed from so far as to incorporate into each chapter the most important of the contemporaneous events of the period to which it relates, although they may have no direct connection with legislation.” He also maintained that this is a compilation rather than an original history, because he relied so heavily on the written works of others.