Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/145

 OREGON PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 137 organized. Its first legislature met at Oregon City July 16, 1849. The last session of the Legislature of the Provisional Government adjourned sine die February 16, 1849. SUMMARY OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. In one sense the Oregon Provisional Government may be said to have had its beginning in February, 1841. The Wolf meeting in March, 1843, the Champoeg meeting of May 2, and the meeting of July 5 of the same year, were but carry- ing into practical effect what had been attempted in 1841. As I have shown, the organization of a provisonal government was largely a matter of sentiment, but in the summer of 1845 the organization of a true, provisional government became a necessity, not only from existing conditions, including the in- crease of population by the arrival of the large immigration of 1844, but in anticipation of the arrival of the immigration of 1845 and of succeeding immigrations until, at least, the settle- ment of the Oregon Question between the United States and Great Britain. It is most creditable to the pioneers of Oregon, up to the organization of the Oregon Territorial Government, in 1849, that the Provisional Government conducted itself as though it had real sovereignty in the disputed Oregon Coun- try ; that it derived and sustained its powers "from the consent of the governed" ; that it was always just and fair to all peoples and their properties within its control and power; that it was, at least, tacitly recognized by Congress as competent to conduct affairs in the part of the Oregon Country determined as be- longing to the United States by the boundary treaty of June 15, 1846, up to the organization of the Territorial Government. By the Act of Congress of August 14, 1848, establishing the Territory of Oregon, it was provided that the existing laws of the Provisional Government, then in force, excepting all laws making grants of land or encumbering the titles of land, should continue to be valid, and to operate therein so far as the same were not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and the principles and provisions of said Act. This was a high and just compliment to the law makers of the Oregon Provisional Government. The effect was to con-