Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/263

 Slavery Question in Oregon. 239 but nith no avail. In the number of The Oregon Statesman containing the Judge's letter (July 28th, 1857), Mr. Bush re- marked editorially as follows, to-wit: ''We publish a long letter from Judge Williams, on the slavery question, this week, but have room only to call attention to it. It is written in a spirit of inquiry and moderation, and if his facts and arguments do not convince the reader's judgment, the spirit and manner of this letter must command his approval." And still the inquiry. Why was this able and adroit letter omitted by the historians? Simply because— in the slang of the day— they did not "catch on." They did not maturely consider the causal relation of things. One of the very few exceptions in the rank and file of the Democratic paity I may mention was a lowland Scotchman from Newcastle upon Tyne, settled upon a section claim, some two or thi-ee miles south of Salem. Born to toil, he early began lucrative employment as a breaker-boy in the mines, later ^ mule driver underground, and, keeping pace with his physical powers, he rose to the work of a full-pay miner. To avoid strikes and lockouts he, in company with his father's family, emigrated to America in the year 1840, and finding the s-i-rike prevalent in Pennsylvania, worked his way west- ward and across the plains to the Oregon Territory in the year 1844. Like nearly all foreigners coming to this country, he joined the Democracy, under the mistaken notion that the party stood for real democracy. Up to the time when slavery became a question here and the party discipline of suppres- sion began, this adopted citizen experienced no interference with his opinions as to the duties of citizenship, of which by this time, as Mark Twain said of his own morals, he had accumulated a full stock. As a result of the closed season the pi^rty harness did not fit him even a little bit. Although his book education had not exceeded the three R's, he was an omnivorous reader and an incessant self -disciplinarian, and taking this along with his inheritance of the three B's— brain and brawn and Burns— he made an unreliable party slave. Indeed, what can be hoped for in such obedience from a man