Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/41

Rh James W. Nesmith for many years was a conspicuous figure in the politics of Oregon. He was a man of keen and ready wit, without much cultivation or refinement. He had a wonderful faculty of seeing the ridiculous side of things, and this faculty sometimes worked to his personal disadvantage. He was my colleague in the senate for two years. He was an ardent friend of Andrew Johnson, and I was his determined enemy. He secured nominations from the President, and I defeated them in the senate. This exasperated Nesmith and he became and for many years was my malignant enemy, and as a representative in congress did what he could with the help of some prominent republicans of Oregon to prevent my confirmation by the senate when I was nominated for Chief Justice by General Grant. But I am happy to say that before his last illness our friendly relations were reestablished, and while he was sick he wrote me a pathetic letter begging me to help him out of his imaginary troubles. He stood nobly by the administration of Mr. Lincoln in the prosecution of the war, and of the democrats in the senate voted alone for the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery, for which he deserves to be remembered with praise by the people of Oregon.

When the democratic national convention assembled at Charleston, on account of the resolutions adopted by the convention, the delegates from the slave-holding states withdrew and organized a convention of their own. Oregon and California went with them. They nominated John C. Breckinridge for President, and Joseph Lane for Vice-President. Their resolutions affirmed that the Constitution of the United States carried slavery into the territories, and protected it there irrespective of any legislation by congress or the people of a territory, denounced opposition to the fugitive slave law, favored the acquisition of Cuba, and a Pacific railroad. The other delegates