Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/623

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The organization and maintenance of the Provisional Government for nearly six years without wealth, arms or the aid of the United States during an expensive Indian war, and administering justice by organized courts, showed that the Pioneers were practical State builders. As a matter of fact their experience with the Provisional Government had largely qualified them to govern themselves well, and to receive the boon of National recognition and authority with strong and capable hands. There was but a single college graduate in the whole convention which organized the Provisional Government, and with that exception — Rev. John S. Griffin — not a single member of the so-called learned professions. But their division of the Oregon country into districts and counties, and their practical methods of ascertaining and executing the popular will exhibited their wisdom and capacity for self-government.

The organization of Oregon into a U. S. Territorial Government had been opposed in Congress for four years by the Southern slave-holding members of Congress vainly trying to fasten the institution of human slavery on the new State. That opposition was finally beaten down and exhausted by a Senator from the slave state of Missouri — Thomas H. Benton. The opposition to a Ter- ritorial Government was finally abandoned after an all night session of the United States Senate, and the organization Bill passed on Sunday morning August 13, 1848. President Polk signed the Act within a few hours after its passage, and soon after appointed General Joseph Lane of Indiana the first Governor of Oregon under U. S. authority ; and then appointed Joseph L. Meek U. S. JIarshall for Oregon and gave him the Governor's Commission to carry to Lane at his home in Indiana. And within three days after ]Meek delivered that Commission, Lane sold out his property and started with Meek for Oregon.

The new Governor and Marshal came to Oregon by the way of the Ohio and Mississippi river steamboats from Indiana to Fort Leavenworth, Missouri. There they got an outfit and followed the Santa Fe trail through New Mexico, Arizona, and California to old Los Angeles, finally reaching the Pacific Ocean at San Pedro. Here they took passage on a little sailing vessel bound for San Francisco. Reaching San Francisco Bay in safety they found the U. S. Sloop of war, St. Mary, and jIeek demanded that as he and Lane were U. S. Gov- ernment officials the war ship should take them aboard and carry them up to