Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/103

Rh of the National Government in connection with the Indian wars—it seemed plain that two senators and one congressman who could vote as well as talk could accomplish more than one delegate who could only talk; and so the vote for the adoption of the State Constitution was 7,195 for and only 3,215 against.

On the subject of slavery, submitted to the people at the same election, the vote was likewise significant and illuminating, 7,727 voted for freedom and but 2,645 for slavery. Coming as this overwhelming vote did when the agitation of the slavery question was at a white heat both in and out of Congress, it was startling in its clear and unequivocal verdict on this great question—and it is especially significant when we recall the great preponderance of Oregon voters born in slaveholding states and cradled in the doctrine of African bondage. Can the conclusion be other than that they realized the economic and moral blight of the slave system and resolved to have none of it in their fair State.

In this election the free soil democrats and the whigs under Thomas J. Dryer were found quietly but none the less actually fighting shoulder to shoulder.

It is a delicate task to attempt to chronicle history while yet the actual participants are some of them living and the children and grandchildren of many more constitute our friends and neighbors, and far be it from me to criticise the motives or sincerity of those who were wrong in the troublous days that followed except in so far as is necessary to set forth the facts of history.

On the fourteenth of February, 1859, Oregon became a State of the Union. From the loins of the old Whig party in Oregon, as well as elsewhere in the country, sprang forth that young giant the Republican party, and to the leadership of Dryer was added the silvery eloquence of Edward D. Baker, lately come from California.