Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/354

 326 T. W. Davenport. weighty speech at a time when it proved to be the climax of argument. I shall have occasion to refer to him again after the secession movement began in the spring of 1861. There were the three Anderson brothers, Joseph, Firm, and the preacher ; John McCall, John Wagner, Lindsay Applegate and his numerous sons, and John C. Davenport, who was nominated for the Legislature by the first distinctively free- state convention held in the Territory. Of course, he was not elected and no one was disappointed. My visit to Rogue River Valley in October, 1857, termi- nated the first week in November, a day or two before the Phoenix debate; and the election upon the Constitution oc- curred while I was detained by sickness at Cartwright's, at the north base of the Calapooia Mountains, as before men- tioned. On my way home the day after election, I made numerous inquiries as to the spirit manifested on that day, and all along the road the same answer was given— no excite- ment, no argument concerning slavery or free negroes ; every voter silently gave to the judges his open ballot and talked, if at all, upon other subjects. Even the returns scarcely at- tracted attention, and judging from the universal silence which prevailed, all were desirous of blotting out the record, so far as concerned the individuals who voted to implant the ancient barbarism. Of the 2,645 who were thus recorded, only a few, maybe a dozen, were sufficiently prominent to pass into history, the identity of all the others being lost in the general verdict, and not one has been known to claim a share in it. Looking only at the slave system and its dead-sea fruits, one can scarcely restrain his disgust for such people, and exclaim with sorrow for their depravity, "merciful is oblivion." But such a state of mind is neither philosophical nor just. Strange as it may seem to those born and reared in a free State and nurtured in a social atmosphere vibratory with the ethical maxims of equal and exact justice to all of God's creatures, those same 2,645 voters (in the usual proportion as to num- bers) were good people and wholesome citizens. There were no better neighbors, no more loyal and steadfast friends ; non?