Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/196

178 houses together upon the amendments. The report of the committee was that the council should recede, but this report was not adopted in the council. As a result thereof, the bill did not become a law, and the question still remained unsettled.

According to the State Constitution, which went into effect upon Oregon's admission into the Union, the legislature did not have power to locate the seat of government, but at its first regular session after the adoption of the Constitution it was to provide by law for the submission to electors of the State at the next regular election thereafter the matter of the selection of a place for a permanent seat of government; and no place should ever be the seat of government under such law which should not receive a majority of all the votes cast on the matter of such election. The Constitution further provided that when once located, the seat of government should not be changed for a period of twenty years. (Art. 14, Sec. 1, Oregon Constitution.)

At the first extra session of the State legislature, held in May, 1859, a bill was proposed to put the matter before the people, but this bill was lost.

Pursuant to the Constitution, the first regular session, which met September 18, 1860, acted upon the matter November 19th. By this act, the location of the seat of government was to be submitted to the public vote at the next general election in June 1862, "and every general election thereafter," until some one point should receive a majority of all votes cast upon the question.

At the election in June, 1862, owing to the fact that nearly every town in the State received a few votes, there was no election. But at the election in 1864, Salem received 6,108 votes; Portland, 3,864; Eugene, 1,588; and all other places 577 votes. Salem received 57 majority of the whole vote cast, whereupon Salem was duly declared "the permanent seat of government."

Thus, after a struggle which lasted for nearly fifteen years, the question was settled. The account of the erection of the Capitol is a story complete in itself, and will not be touched upon here.