Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/817

766 on striking out, resulted in a two-thirds majority against it, which was the end of that day's proceedings.

I need not follow the bill through the ensuing six weeks of discussion. On the 13th of July it was recommitted to a select committee on the organization of territorial governments in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, which reported a bill on the 18th to establish these several territories. This bill was intended to be a compromise, and granted to Oregon the right to organize by a popular vote, and by the "temporary adoption of their present laws prohibiting slavery, until the legislature could adopt some law on the subject;" while organizing the other two territories without this privilege, by appointing governors, senators, and judges; their legislatures to have no power to make laws concerning slavery. It did not take away the liberties granted by the 12th section of the original Oregon bill, the modifications being slight, but withheld from California and New Mexico even the right to send a delegate to congress. It was with this powerful sedative the committee proposed to quiet the agitation on the question of slavery in the territories until Oregon could be organized without overturning the free principles upon which the people had erected an independent government, which they might choose to retain rather than yield to the subversion of their rights enjoyed under their own organic laws.

The contest then continued upon the propriety of yoking Oregon, "a native-born territory," with territories hardly a month old and peopled by Mexicans and half-Indian Californians. But after daily dis-