Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/62

 54 W. C. WOODWARD its allegiance to Johnson, espousing the Philadelphia Convention. It declared for the re-election of Nesmith as senator against the attacks directed against him by the Oregonian and savagely attacked negro suffrage. The "middle of the road" position, which the Statesman now assumed was a difficult and untenable one. As Deady had keenly observed, this was a narrow field in Oregon, or better, it was a wide field but very thinly populated. The political exigencies were sharply dividing the people into the Radical Unionists on the one hand and the Democrats on the other. Few indeed were they who maintained a middle position, and the Statesman was thus now the spokesman of a very small constituency. As the weeks passed, it seemed to realize the hopelessness of its position. On November 5, 1866, in answer to critics, who prophesied for it a speedy dissolution, the Statesman gave expression to a despairing protest which is here quoted in part as portraying very accurately the feelings of those who struggled against the political currents which would take them to one extreme or the other : "There must be a golden mean somewhere between" sympathy with rebellion and the worship of thick-lipped deities. . . . Surely there is a love of country which shall not combine with too great a veneration of the Negro. . . . With Stephen A. Douglas we entertain a few somewhat heretical notions about this being a white man's government and do not propose to yield them. . . . But there is one platform that is wide enough for us all support of the Union, and for the flag, love and loyalty. The Statesman was with the Government in the Valley of the Shadow' and shall not wander from its faith when the night is scattering and brighter fields are opening be- yond. ... A liberal policy toward the conquered states was the one, in our judgment, most worthy of the Nation and best calculated to harmonize the clashing an- tagonisms of a broken Union and soothe the virulence of a discomfited people ; and for that, no excess of radical ma- jorities shall drive us to the confessional." By this time, after the fall campaigns in the East in which the President had demonstrated his personal foibles, the States- man felt compelled to abandon him. But yet while "blushing