Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/233

 Slavery Question in Oregon. 209 and continuous discipline. At the election in 1852 the "don't- cares" were quite numerous, and for all such, and that other class of Northern people who were willing to accommodate the Southern aggressors in all their demands, no doubt their proper place on election day was with the Democratic party, which was untinctured by any such heresies as conscientious scruples upon the question of slavery. The newly elected President, Franklin Pierce, in his in- augural address, and later in his first message, reiterated his pledge against slavery agitation in the following words, to- wit: "that this repose is to suffer no shock during my official term, if I have power to prevent it, those who placed me here may be assured." It must be remembered that the slave- holding interest, by its agent, the Democratic party, and all pledged against a renewal of agitation, were in undisputed control of the Federal Government in all its departments. And yet, notwithstanding all pledges by party or person, or of compromises, at the first session of Congress in the Pierce ad- ministration, began the work of repealing the Missouri Com- promise, and by the very men and the party who had lulled the country to sleep by false promises. It was in truth a bold stroke, but from the previous success of the aggressors in quieting Northern repugnance, they were sure of ultimate acquiescence in any scheme they might undertake. Upon the plea of a repartition of territory between slavery and free- dom, or that the Constitution carried the institution there be- cause of its being joint property, the repeal could not have made any headway even in that Democratic Congress, but the plea of leaving the question to the people of each ter- ritory, to be settled by themselves, was not only plausible but flattering to the self-sufficient pride of men who had set at defiance mountains and deserts and won the West. Stephen A. Douglas was wise in this, but probably blind to the result of arraying the same selfish motives against an in- stitution which every common-sense man knows is against the general interest, and that only a few can be privileged. He and the Southern representatives, without doubt, believed