The process of becoming a justice on the territorial supreme court had four steps: 1) be nominated by the President or receive a recess appointment by him; 2) if nominated, be confirmed by the U. S. Senate; 3) receive a commission from the President, and accept it; and 4) take the oath of office in Minnesota Territory.
PART TWO, which has six subparts, reproduces documents of each of these steps for the ten men who served on the territorial court. The documents include each justice's presidential commission, oath of office, and excerpts from proceedings in the U. S. Senate. The exact dates of each justice's term are stated.
PART TWO-A covers Chief Justice Aaron Goodrich and Associate Justice David Cooper. Justice Goodrich was commissioned by President Taylor on March 19, 1849, and was removed by President Fillmore on October 21, 1851. Justice Cooper was commissioned also on March 19, 1849, and he served until his commission expired on March 18, 1853.
Bradley B. Meeker's three commissions are reproduced in PART TWO-B, as is the clerk's docket entry on August 15, 1854, of the territorial supreme court's denial of his "request" to be restored to his former post on the court. Meeker's published his legal arguments in a lengthy open letter to the residents of the territory, in the "St. Anthony Express," on May 6, 1854; it is posted in its entirety in PART THREE.
PART TWO-C covers Chief Justices Fuller and Hayner.
PART TWO-D covers Chief Justice William H. Welch and Associate Justice Andrew G. Chatfield.
PART TWO-E covers Associate Justices Moses Sherburne and Rensselaer R. Nelson. The reason President Buchanan commissioned Justice Nelson to be United States District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota ten days before the Senate confirmed his nomination is explored in PART TWO-E.
PART TWO-F covers Associate Justice Charles E. Flandrau. President Buchanan's recess appointment of John Pettit to be associate justice on April 21, 1857, the hostile reaction of a local newspaper, and Pettit's decision to decline the commission two months later are also discussed in PART TWO-F.