Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/286

276 is an offense for which the party may be arrested, tried, convicted, and punished; and there is no provision in the act authorizing the arrest of a white man for any act whatever.

It is perfectly clear that Mr. Gray either willfully misrepresented the original act, or attempted to state its substance from memory; and if the latter be true, then, as his memory was bad and his prejudices great, he misrepresented the measure, and made it much worse than it really was. There can be no excuse for the misrepresentation of an act by a grave historian, especially one that he condemns in the harshest language, when he has easy access to the act itself.

But he not only essentially misrepresents the original act itself, but entirely ignores the amendatory bill; and does it in such a way as to increase the censure of the legislative committee of 1844. There are two modes of falsehood; false statement of fact, and false suppression of the truth. The historian first misrepresents the substance of the original act, then informs the reader that the executive urged its amendment, and then suppresses the fact that the act was amended. This mode of historical misstatement and suppression left the reader to say to himself: "These men first passed an act containing objectionable provisions, and then obstinately refused to amend, when their attention was urgently called to the error." Throughout his history of this act he represents it as unamended and as in full force according to its own terms; and his last words in regard to it are that "Burnett's negro- whipping law was never enforced in a single instance against a white or black man, as no officer of the provisional government felt it incumbent upon himself to attempt to enforce it."

It will be seen by an inspection of the original act itself that it was prospective, and that not a single case could possibly arise under it until the expiration of two years after its passage; and that no officer was required to act until he was commanded to do so by the regular warrant or order of a justice of the peace. In the meantime, and eighteen months before a single case could possibly arise under the act, it was