Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/394

 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

376

was

a creature of Congress, from framing a constitution whenever they wished. Later he said, after several other Representatives had discussed the population topic, "This debate

seems to have been anticipating that which will take place on bill. Let us dispose of this bill today." Those

the Kansas

who

desired to see Kansas a slave state, however, were trying

to establish a point on the population issue in the Oregon bill. Smith of Virginia said that the Ordinance of 1787, "to which

some gentlemen look as an impersonation of inspired wisdom," required 60,000 as the population before the territory could be made a State, consequently by what right could Oregon ask to be represented in the House with less than the legal ratio for a Congressman.

Giddings took issue with that and said the

right depended

on the

all

this objection

ability to support a State government; about the population ratio was a new one

and not based upon the Constitution.

The

rule of propriety

alone, he maintained, should determine admission,

and

it

was

When pressed to state definitely proper to admit Oregon. whether he would vote to admit Oregon with or without slavery Giddings practically announced that he would only favor admission as a free State, for he said he would not vote to transgress the laws of God and of nature.

Proposed amendments, confining the proposed State to the territory west of the Cascades, extending the suffrage to noncitizens (the territorial bill ha'd given the franchise to those

who had

declared intention to become citizens), restricting the

right to vote for delegates to the constitutional convention to free white males over twenty-one years of age, were all rejected.

woman clause

Bowie of Maryland discovered a possible opening for suffrage, and moved to insert the word "male" in the where the vote was given to "the people of Oregon,

being citizens of the United States." All the discussion and modification, however, did not get Oregon into the sisterhood of States. Congress adjourned with the bill still in Commit-

Whole, and Mr. Lane was obliged to return to Oregon disappointed both as to statehood and the money for the Indian war expenses which his constituents had trusted him to

tee of the

secure.