Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/404

 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

386

mined to use Oregon as a lever to bring Kansas in if Kansas was kept out, Oregon must stay out. All the strength of the Republican organization was to be used to prevent the passage of the Oregon bill; Thurlow Weed and Horace Greeley went

Washington to use their influence to prevent any Repubfrom getting out of line. 13 It was, nevertheless, a Republican who was responsible for the passage of the bill. Eli Thayer, who had been a member of the New England Emigrant Aid Company and who was chiefly responsible for the Kansas Crusade, took the stand that it was unfair to make Oregon suffer for the sins of others. As Mr. Thayer, writing to

lican

many

years later,

14

says



"I protested against this policy (of the Republican caucus), saying that Oregon had been a territory for ten years, that the House had passed an enabling act with which she had complied, and that the Senate had voted to admit her with the aid of Republican votes that she now asks admission into the Union as a State, presenting for our acceptance a freeState Constitution. That I would not be bound by the decision of the caucus that I was strongly in favor of the admission of the new State, and that I should work for it, and induce other members of the party to vote for it, but that I should vote in favor of it even if no other Republican could be



found to do so. "As soon as the caucus was over I went to Mr. Stephens and told him that I would work night and day in favor of his report "I began at once to urge upon Republicans the duty and good policy of admitting Oregon. By persistent effort I secured sixteen who promised to vote for admission, and should have had others, but Greeley and Weed frightened some of these away and weakened my support. But on the day of the vote we retained fifteen who, with the Democrats, were able to admit the State by a majority of eleven. 15 "On the day of the passage of the bill I gave my reasons.

.

.

.

13 See "Eli Thayer and the Admission of Oregon," by Franklin P. Rice, Proceedings of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Admission of the State of Oregon Into the Union (Salem, 1909), from the Worcester Magazine of Feb. and

in

Mar., 1906. 14 In a letter to Rice. 15 Either Mr. Thayer's memory was treacherous or he counted as Republicans some who were not so considered, for the roll call of the vote shows but thirteen Republican votes and one Whig vote for the bill.