Then, too, many of the earlier laws had been repealed or partially amended, so that it was some- times difficult to determine whether a given statute or provision was or was not the law.

The poor arrangement in the Territorial compilations was also a factor which in- creased the labor of discovering the law in this tangled mass of legislation.

The first suggestion of an official nature that the laws of the State should be revised and properly codified is found in the speech of acceptance of Mr Thomas Baker, the President of the Senate, who said : You have many important duties to perform during the present session among which is to establish a code of laws for the govern- ment of the State, in conformity to the constitution, which is to constitute the basis of our action and supremacy of our laws.

3 On the following day, December 2, 1846, Governor James Clarke, the retiring Territorial Governor, in his second and last annual message to the legislature, likewise declared in favor of early codification in the following words : The period has arrived when a complete revision of the laws of Iowa is on all hands expected.

The want of such a code has been felt and acknowledged for years, but it was deemed inexpedient to commence its compilation until after the organization of a State Government.