Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/296

 Thus, the act which Mr. Gray asserts could not be executed was repealed about one year before it could have taken effect in a single case, Mr. Gray being present when the repealing act was passed. The historian seems to have had about as vague a conception of the matter he was treating as a man with a distorted vision would have of the country represented.

On the 18th of August, 1845, I was elected by the House of Representatives Judge of the Supreme Court of Oregon.

On the 4th of December, 1845, the House, on motion of Mr. Gray, passed this resolution:

Resolved, That the Supreme Judge be called upon to inform the House whether he had examined the laws enacted by the previous legislature of this territory; also, to inform the House how many of said laws are incompatible with the organic articles of compact, adopted by the people on the 25th of July, 1845, if any there be. ("Oregon Laws and Archives." 127.)

To this strange and singular resolution I made a firm but respectful answer, declining to decide in advance, and before proper cases came up before the court, whether an entire code of laws was constitutional or not.

On the 12th of December, 1845, the speaker informed the House that he had communications from the Supreme Judge, which he had been requested to present to the House. The communications were read and referred to the committee on the judiciary. On the same day Mr. McCarver, from the judiciary committee, reported back the communications from the Supreme Judge, which were then referred to a select committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Gray, Hendrick, Garrison, McClure. and McCarver. ("Oregon Laws and Archives," 140-41.)

There is no further mention of these communications in the journal, as no report was ever made by this select committee. There was not a single lawyer among the members