Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/347



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Immediately after Oregon was organized as a Territory it began to aspire to statehood. In fact, at the very first session of the new territorial legislature the formation of a constitution for a state was proposed, and in the following ten years, that covered the life of the Territory, the question of statehood was voted upon by the people several times.

The territorial government had begun to function immediately upon the arrival at Oregon City of General Joseph Lane, of Indiana, who had been appointed by President Polk as governor, and who had traveled to Oregon in company with Joseph Meek, the newly appointed United States marshal. Polk's administration, which was to end on the inauguration of his successor, March 4, 1849, was entitled to the credit of having settled the long pending Oregon Question, and of having negotiated with success the boundary treaty with Great Britain. It was during this administration that the bill organizing Oregon Territory had been passed, after bitter and protracted debates, and the new officers owed their