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762 raise a regiment of volunteers in the territory to serve for twenty months, which was agreed to. This amendment was followed by one by Hale of New Hampshire, who moved that the 12th section of the bill of the last session, touching the ordinance of 1787, should be inserted in the place of its substitute in the present bill; but as the subject was one of importance to the whole country, desired the debate on it postponed until the 12th of June.

Bright opposed the amendment of Hale, on the around that it would raise discussion and retard the passage of the bill, whereas it was of the utmost importance that it should be pressed to an immediate vote. Niles of Connecticut, on the other hand, objected to the unusual urgency displayed by the western senators, and proposed to make Benton's amendment a separate bill and pass it immediately, while the remainder of the territorial bill should take time for examination. Hannegan of Indiana, however, expressed a determination to vote against the amendment of Benton. The whole of Oregon, he said, lay within the boundary from which slavery was excluded by the Missouri compromise; which statement being challenged, he declared that no sane man believed that slavery would ever exist in Oregon, and hoped the bill would be passed without delay. "He appealed to every man not to turn a deaf ear to the cries of our citizens in Oregon, surrounded by hostile Indians and not to be turned from it by this wicked and useless question being agitated."

Benton followed with an eloquent appeal, saying that the Oregon settlers had deserved well of congress for their enterprise, and now the neglect of government had encouraged the murderous outrages which compelled the settlers to send an express encountering the hardships and dangers of a winter journey across the mountains and plains to ask for the interposition of an ungrateful government. He closed by calling on senators of every variety of opinion to