Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/393

 FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON

375

and Seward would take an active part favoring the bill. Seward pointed out that already there were indications that if the bill did not become law Oregon would come in as CaliBut the Senate showed little disposifornia had, uninvited. tion to act, and even Douglas would move to table the measure, although he said he was willing to sit it out as long as there was any hope (it was then eleven o'clock on the morning 1

of Sunday, March 4th). Douglas said there was evidently a combination of Senators of the extreme North and the South bill. The vote to table, (27 to 11) however, did not reveal any ground for sustaining this accusation. 5 Of the eleven who voted against tabling, five were from New Eng-

to defeat the

two from Ohio, and one each from New York, Texas, Michigan and California. Thus the Thirty-third Congress came to an end with Oregon

land,

swaddling clothes.

in its territorial

still

In spite of occasional

echoes of the slavery contest over Kansas, that issue did not appear in any degree worthy of note in the Oregon discuswait until it was had a population equal to the ratio for one congressman; they were suspicious that the assurances of Joseph Lane were tempered by his hopes. This was, indeed, the case. Even in 1859, when the State was

Many

sion.

Senators were inclined to

affirmatively shown

that the territory

short by many thousands of the number Lane confidently stated in 1854. The Thirty-fourth Congress found Oregon before it with a

admitted, the population

new

bill

for statehood. 6

the measure

came up

fell

Late

in the

in the first session (June,

House and again met with

1856)

opposi-

on the population question. In all the preliminary discussion of the bill there were references to the pending legis-

tion

Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania, a Repub-

lation

on Kansas.

lican,

said very bluntly,

when controverting

the proposition

depended on Congress whether or not the people of Oregon should form a constitution, that there was no power

that

it

to prevent the people of a territory, although that organization .:

.

6 Globe,

XXXII,

1443.

The debate occurred

.IB.'

%


 * ',Vd

ol^

23 and 24 June.; Ibid., 1443-58.