Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/369

Rh the prospect of adoption if submitted again to popular vote was excellent. The bill was hurried through both houses, and was adopted without a dissenting vote.

The new election was held on the first Monday of June, 1857, under favorable auspices, ane at last the people voted in favor of statehood and elected delegates to a Constitutional Convention. The vote for Convention was 7617, and the negative mustered but 1679 votes, so that the sweeping victory shown by the majority of 5938 was the more remarkable in view of the previous repeated rejections. In the seven years of territorial existence the question had been voted upon by the territorial legislature in one form or another nine times, and by popular vote four times, while congress had considered Oregon statehood bills at two sessions.

The explanation is found in the fact that as early as November 1, 1856, the Oregonian had withdrawn all opposition and had announced its intention not to oppose state government. It was agreed upon all sides that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention would be elected at the same time the popular vote was taken on the question of statehood, and the Act so provided. The change of attitude upon the part of those opposed to slavery was because of a growing belief that President Buchanan's in-coming administration was planning to force slavery upon free territories by federal action. "The moment Kansas is admitted as a slave state," said the Oregonian in an editorial upon the Buchanan administration, in which that intention as to Kansas was prophesied, "the whole power and force of the slavery propagandists will be concentrated to make Oregon a slave state also." "If we are to have the institution of slavery forced upon us here, we desire the people resident in Oregon to do it, and not the will and power of a few