Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/64

 56 W. C. WOODWARD made the official organ of the Johnson Administration in the State and thus remained a staunch Johnson advocate. The other Democratic papers refused to follow its lead and made the Herald a target for their splenetic shafts. The Oregonian, in commenting upon the efforts of the Herald to commit Ore- gon Democrats to Johnson, thus aptly characterized the Oregon Democracy : "This Johnsonized organ has made a grand mis- take. Oregon Democracy is not the sort of material the official appointee supposed. It is radical. It is earnest. Its ideas are precisely those which animated the late Confederacy. It will adopt no half way measures. It cannot be warped from this policy to that, as in other states. It never had any sympathy with the Philadelphia Convention or regard for Johnson. It will not tolerate anything but the most extreme doctrine. In supposing the party might be made somewhat more conserva- tive, Johnson's organ has made a grievous mistake. "78 The term of Senator Nesmith was about to expire and it was for the legislature of 1866 to choose his successor. Serving in such a momentous period, embracing the whole of the Civil War, he had rendered conspicuous service to the Union.7 8a As Congressman McBride had written home,79 Nesmith, deserting his Democratic confreres, had supported nearly every Adminis- tration measure for the prosecution of the war. He exercised a large influence in the framing of some very important measures and some of them passed through the aid of the one Democratic vote. During his six years in the Senate no Oregonian had gone to Washington without feeling a sort of proud consciousness that his senator was a man among men and that it was something worth while to be known as one of "Old Nes' constituents/' 80 Under these, circumstances he might apparently, have expected re-election at the hands of a legisla- ture which was safely Union. But there was hardly even a possibility of such. On the issues which had arisen out of the war, he had disagreed with the Republican element of the 78 Oregonian, Jan. 12. 78-3 Nesmith was a member of the Committee on Military Affairs. 79 Argus, March 13, 1863. SoDeady, Oct. 27, 1866, to Bulletin.