Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/229

 Slavery Question in Oregon. 205 other being possible by a vote of its inhabitants, and repre- sented at the same time by Gwin and Weller, the former a propagandist and the latter a sympathizing confederate ! who shall explain snch an apparent paradox? But it is easily explained in one sentence; as for themselves they demanded freedom, as for others they did not care. As to any harm that might come to slavery or any curtailment of its power at that time, California might as well have been a slave State. Of this they did not care. The prospect of being supplanted in the gold diggings by the owners of slaves they could not for a moment endure. That such a relation as master and slave should have a legal existence upon American soil, did not influence the decision of many who voted to make Cali- fornia free. Although a great part of human actions is of the thought- less or impulsive kind, yet in matters that are premeditated, there is always a good and sufficient reason back of them and consistent with the mental and moral make-up of the actors and their environment, and that is all that is practical in human affairs, whether it be progress or otherwise. The Californians in 1849-50 did not perpetrate that inconsistency of a free-state Constitution carried to Congress by pro-slavery representatives, "just from pure cussedness," but from that preponderance of selfishness which everywhere characterizes the great majority of human beings who, from habit arising out of their own wants and necessities, must think first for themselves and after that for others. From mere selfishness, they could not brook slavery within their own borders, but they wanted to be citizens of a State and sovereign over their own local affairs, and knowing that slavery was dominant in the general government, they must present as few points of antagonism as possible to the powers that be, so that their prayer for admission might be speedily realized. Besides, they wanted appropriations for their harbors and rivers and coast defenses, and none of these were likely to be answered when presented by men opposed to their system. Of course this was pure selfishness, but it was a reasonable and defensi-