Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/325

 POLITICAL PARTIES IN OREGON 317 in convention, manifested no desire for reconciliation. 1 Their uncompromising attitude was expressed in the resolution which endorsed the principle of non-intervention, "as the same was understood in 1848 when Gen. Cass was the Democratic nomi- nee for the Presidency; as the same was understood in 1852 when Gen. Pierce was the Democratic nominee ; as it was un- derstood in 1856 when James Buchanan was the Democratic nominee ; and as affirmed, re-affirmed, endorsed and re-endorsed by every state and national convention and every Democratic leader and statesman for the past twelve years." Douglas and Johnson were endorsed and their platform cordially approved. The following were nominated for electors: W. H. Farrar, Benj. Hayden, Wm. Hoffman : 2 The legislature had met September 10, with all attention centered on the election of United States senators. In an edi- torial upon the subject the week before, Bush argued that the next United States Senate would contain about an equal num- ber, 30, of intervention Democrats for slavery and interven- tion Republicans against, and that the safety of the Union in restricting the conflict between them lay in the small band of non-intervention Democrats who held the balance of power. Therefore, he maintained that it was important to send two non-intervention senators from Oregon, especially as Oregon had always occupied that ground. Note that Bush did not expressly demand that both senators should be Democrats. In fact he tacitly admitted that they would not be when he express- ed the hope that no overtures for a compromise would be enter- tained which looked to the election of anyone not pledged strictly to non-intervention.3 This drew the fire of the Union, which de- clared that "Never was treason more foul." It asserted that the Statesman proprietor had grown immensely rich by favors bestowed on him by the party and that now, "in the hour of its peril, he spurns it away and flippantly talks of electing two 1 "The Convention manifested no disposition to compromise present divisions for the sake of carrying the state against the Republicans beyond peradventure, but persisted in a spirit of blind infatuation known only to those who are goaded to desperation." Union, Sep. 22. 2 Proceedings in Statesman, Sep. 25. 3 Statesman, Sept. 4.