In 1864 the U.S. Congress created Montana Territory through the Organic Act, establishing its basic government and leaving key decisions about the first election, legislative apportionment, and meeting place to Governor Sidney Edgerton, whom President Lincoln appointed as the territory's first governor. After a census and apportionment, Edgerton held the first territorial election on October 24, 1864, but although most counted residents lived in or near Virginia City and Alder Gulch, he kept the first legislature in Bannack, where it met from December 12, 1864 through February 9, 1865 amid Civil War tensions and sharp division between Democrats and Unionist Republicans. That legislature passed nearly 100 bills, including laws such as prohibiting the counterfeiting of gold dust, and chose a territorial capital; in February 1865 Virginia City was approved as the new capital of Montana Territory, after previously being selected as the site of its first federal court in 1864. Even so, no permanent government building was erected there, and legislative sessions and territorial offices occupied upper floors of halls, saloons, stores, billiard halls, and other rented spaces. In September 1865 President Andrew Johnson's appointee Thomas Francis Meagher arrived as territorial secretary, became acting governor when Edgerton left for Washington, and at first worked with both parties before aligning with Democrats and deepening political conflict. Meagher called an extraordinary legislative session in Virginia City on March 5, 1866, then convened the legislature again in the winter of 1867, prompting Republicans to denounce the special sessions as illegal; Wilber F. Sanders went to Washington and Congress rescinded the laws passed during those sessions. After Green Clay Smith was appointed governor in October 1866 and later returned to Virginia City following work in Washington on the territory's behalf, Meagher's political career ended with his mysterious death in July 1867, and Smith called another legislative session to replace the annulled laws. The Fourth Legislative Assembly met in Virginia City in the winter of 1867 and created Meagher County, designated Deer Lodge as the site for the territorial prison, and saw Helena become an incorporated city. Benjamin F. Potts, appointed governor by 1870, helped stabilize territorial government, but repeated efforts to move the capital from Virginia City to Helena continued: voters kept the capital in Virginia City in 1867, an 1869 election was nullified when the returns were destroyed by fire, and after a contested 1874 vote involving forgery in Meagher County results and other political maneuvering, the territorial supreme court supported Helena's claims and Helena became Montana's new seat of government.