Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/54

 46 W. C. WOODWARD issues and personal quarrels. The fact of the non-partisanship of the meeting was strongly emphasized. In its resolutions a note of warning was sounded against the practice of disre- garding established courts and the legally constituted author- ities. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and Polk were quoted at length, giving warning against the encroachments of legislative power upon the other two departments and up- holding the authority of the courts. In the same issue 1 there also appeared a letter from "Independence," the purpose of which was to show the non-political nature of the location fight. The controversy was not Whig and Democrat not high or low tariff, not North or South, slavery or abolition, it was asserted, but merely location and anti-location. "With what face then can the Salemites declare this contest to be between Whigs and Democrats? Do not be deceived, brother Democrats. The controversy is purely local . . . and has not the least bearing on any doctrine in dispute between the two great political parties. This contest turns upon another hinge altogether. There is a thirsty, office-seeking class of demagogues who desire, for their own promotion, to organize the party, and something inflammatory that will rouse and excite our party to sectional antipathies must be heralded forth." This letter is very typical of the spirit of the oppo- sition. Week after week Editor Dryer of the Oregonian at- tacked the Democratic leaders with acrid and defiant pen. In return the epithets of "nullifiers" and "Encarnacionists" 2 were freely applied to the Whigs and those who espoused the cause of Oregon City. A rather notable incident of those stirring times was the appearance, shortly after the adjournment of the legislature, of a political satire by the versatile W. L. Adams, who was to become an important factor in Oregon politics. It was entitled "Breakspear A Melodrame entitled Treason, Strat- i Oregonian, May 8, 1852. 2Gov. Gaines was held up to contempt by the Democrats because in the Mexican war he had surrendered at Encarnacion, and, it was asserted, without offering adequate resistance.