Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/290

 to reside in the Territory, they were so framed as to effectually exclude the better portion; for surely every intelligent and independent man of color would have scorned the pitiful boon offered him of a residence under conditions so humiliating.

For years I had been opposed to slavery, as injurious to both races. While I resided in Tennessee and Missouri there was no discussion upon the subject of manumitting the slaves in those States. I was not then in circumstances that made it proper to discuss the question. But when I arrived in Oregon, the first opportunity I had I voted against slavery while a member of the legislative committee of 1844. I presided at a public meeting at Sacramento City January 8, 1849, that unanimously voted for a resolution opposing slavery in California. This was the first public meeting in this country that expressed its opposition to that institution. A public meeting was held in San Francisco February 17, 1849, which endorsed the resolution against slavery passed at Sacramento. ("Alta California," February 22, 1849.)

As already stated, one of the objects I had in view in coming to this coast was to aid in building up a great American community on the Pacific; and, in the enthusiasm of my nature, I was anxious to aid in founding a State superior in several respects to those east of the Rocky Mountains. I therefore labored to avoid the evils of intoxication and of mixed races, one of which was disfranchised.

It is more charitable to impute Mr. Gray's misrepresentations to inveterate prejudice than to deliberate malice. Some men seem to become the slaves of prejudice from long indulgence, until it grows into a chronic habit; and it is about as easy to make an angel of a goat as an impartial historian of a prejudiced man. His book, in my best judgment, is a bitter, prejudiced, sectarian, controversial work, in the form of history ; wherein the author acts as historian, controvertist, and witness.