Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/832

Rh other officials, and helped to set in motion the wheels of the new political machine.

And so, without any noise or revolution, the old government went out and the new came in. The provisional government was voluntarily laid down, as it had voluntarily been taken up. It was an experiment of a part of the American people, who represented in their small and isolated community the principles of self-government in a manner worthy of the republican sentiments supposed to underlie the federal union, by which a local population could constitute an independent state, and yet be loyal to the general government. Under judicious management, good order and happiness, as well as a general condition of prosperity, had been maintained. The people were industrious, because all must work to live; they were honest, because there was no temptation to steal; they were not miserly, because they had no money to hoard; they were hospitable, because every man expected to need the kindness of his neighbor; and they were moral both on account of a public sentiment created by the mission and Hudson's Bay Company's influence, and from the absence of temptation. In such a community there is strength; and had there been neither Indian war nor gold-discovery, the same organization might have continued to stand for a generation without further assistance from the general government.