Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/164

 156 W. C. WOODWARD columns of the press. In August, P. J. Malone, correspondent for the Sacramento Union, wrote that paper from Salem that the men who desired slavery in Oregon were limited to the comparatively few who had owned one or two negroes in some slave state; and who had early secured a section of land in Oregon under the donation land law; that they were generally too lazy to cultivate their own lands and thought it very desirable to have slaves to raise wheat that they might compete sucessfully with California farmers in California markets. On the other hand, those who had come later to Oregon, and had secured only 160 or 320 acres did not as a rule desire slavery. "And they are the more numerous class, as the ballot box will show." 1 On November 9, the Constitution was adopted by the people of Oregon by a vote of 7195 to 3215. Free negroes were re- fused admission into Oregon by the overwhelming vote of 8640 to 108 1. 2 One-fourth of the people desired slavery while about one-tenth only were willing to receive the negro free. The vote on slavery in a few of the southern counties was close, but was almost unanimous against the negro unenslaved. 8 The summing up of the situation by Bush immediately after the election, is important as presenting the regular Democratic viewpoint. 4 He felicitated the party on having taken the "high and distinct ground of the Kansas principle on the subject of slavery," and "without any of those abuses or obstructions which have been most unfairly cast in the way of state organi- zations otherwheres, by designing and characterless politi- cians." He held that to bring to a successful conclusion the great, model scheme initiated by Douglas for adjusting the vexed question, it now remained only for Congress, a majority of the members of which had been elected on the basis of that scheme, to receive Oregon into the Union with or without slavery, as its Constitution should prescribe. This done and i Quoted in Argus, September 12. zOfficial returns in Statesman, December 22. 3See appendix for the vote in detail. 4Statesman, editorial: "Democracy and the Slave Question," November 17.