judicial power and were thus unable to hear proof or swear witnesses. Taylor was inaugurated on December 12, 1899. Goebel announced his decision to contest the board's decision to the General Assembly. The Assembly appointed a committee to investigate the allegations contained in the challenges. The members of the committee were drawn at random, though the drawing was likely rigged – only one Republican joined ten Democrats on the committee. (Chance dictated that the committee should have contained four or five Republicans.) Among the rules the General Assembly adopted for the contest committee were: that the committee report at the pleasure of the General Assembly, that debate be limited once the findings were presented, and that the report be voted on in a joint session of the Assembly. The rules further provided that the speaker of the House preside over the joint session instead of the lieutenant governor, as was customary. The Republican minority fought the provisions, but the Democratic majority passed them despite the opposition. Republicans around the state expected the committee to recommend disqualification of enough ballots to make Goebel governor. Armed men from heavily Republican eastern Kentucky filled the capital. On the morning of January 30, 1900, as Goebel and two friends walked toward the capitol building, shots were fired, and Goebel fell wounded. After being denied entrance to the state capitol by armed men, the contest committee met in Frankfort's city hall and, by a strict party-line vote, adopted a majority report that claimed Goebel and Beckham had received the most legitimate votes and should be installed in their respective offices. When Democratic legislators attempted to convene to approve the committee's report, they found the doors to the state capitol and other public locations in Frankfort blocked by armed citizens. On January 31, 1900, they convened secretly in a Frankfort hotel, with no Republicans present, and voted to certify the findings of the contest committee, invalidating enough votes to make Goebel governor. Still lying on his sick bed, Goebel took the oath of office. Goebel died of his wounds on February 3, 1900. Leaders from both parties drafted an agreement whereby Taylor and his Lieutenant Governor, John Marshall, would step down from their respective offices, allowing Goebel's lieutenant governor, J. C. W. Beckham, to assume the governorship; in exchange, Taylor and Marshall would receive immunity from prosecution in any actions they may have taken with regard