William Gilpin was elected governor, and John Evans and Jerome W.Chaffee were chosen senators of the United States.

But when the new senators reached Washington (early in the year 1866) they found that the policy of the National Administration on the subject of new States had changed, and that instead of a friend in the White House, as Mr.Lincoln had steadily proved, they had a determined opponent in the person of Mr.Johnson.
Congress with reasonable promptness passed the bill in both Houses for the admission of Colorado, though it was opposed by the more radical class of Republicans because negroes were excluded from the right of suffrage.

It is a striking illustration of the rapid change of public sentiment, that in the winter and early spring of 1866 a bill containing that provision could pass a Congress in which the Republicans had more than two-thirds of the membership of each branch, whereas in less than a year negro suffrage was required as the condition of re-admission of the Southern States.
The Colorado bill passed the Senate by a vote of nineteen to thirteen, and the House by eighty-one to fifty-seven.

It reached the President on the fifth day of May and was promptly vetoed.

Mr.Johnson did not believe that the establishment of a state government was necessary to the welfare of the people of Colorado; "nor was it satisfactorily established that a majority of the citizens of Colorado desire, or are prepared for, an exchange of the Territorial for a State government." He thought that Colorado, instead of increasing, had declined in population.