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Show 33 In December of the same year President Taylor urged Congress in his message, to legislate further for the ef- 1 feotive extension of Indian intercourse in the new region. Utah Beoonea a Territory. Meanwhile the Mormons in Utah had drawn up a territorial conetitution, in which the state in formation was named Deseret, meaning Honey- Bee in the Book of Mo rraon. A part of the Paoific littoral was olaimed within its boundaries; holding slaves was prohibited, but no other deviations from the constitutions of the other states were proposed. In the bill which pasoed through Congress in September 1850, making Utah a territory, the Indian name was preferred to the Egyptian one of Deaeret, and the claim upon the Paoific litoral was not considered. The boundaries of the new territory were: Weet, California; north, Oregon Territory; east, the summit of the Rooky Mountains; and south, the thirty- seventh parallel of north latitude. That is on the east and south was the watershed which separates the streams pouring into the basin( of the Salt Lake) from those which 3 flow into the Rio Colorado and the Mexican Gulf." 1 House Executive Documents, 31 Cong., 1 Seas., Vol. Ill, Doo. b, p. 12 ( 569). 2 Littell, Living Age, 1355, Vol. X, 3 Series, p. 532. September 9, An aot to eatablish a Territorial Government Sor Utah, 1350. |