Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/71

 POLITICAL PARTIES IN OREGON 63 delegates to the National Convention. The convention was unfortunate in the selection of its congressional nominee. While a man of marked ability, Logan's habits made him a vulnerable candidate, There was great dissatisfaction over his nomina- tion and his defeat was freely predicted at once by members of his own party. 9 4 The temperance and church people deserted him, especially the Methodist Republicans, Smith, the Demo- cratic nominee, being a Methodist. The campaign of 1868 was marked by that vehemence of party feeling which had always rendered Oregon politics in- tense and strenuous. The Oregonian made a target of the first plank of the Democratic platform, which expressed renewed allegiance to the time-honored principles of the Democratic party. It insisted that these principles were embodied in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, with their offspring of nullification, secession and rebellion. On the subject of re- construction, the Democrats demanded the admission of the Southern representatives in Congress at once and now main- tained Lincoln's position that the seceding states had never been out of the Union. The question of repudiation, or the payment of United States bonds in gold or paper figured prominently. But more noisily discussed than all was the question of negro suffrage and equality. The Democrats ac- cused the Republicans of standing for universal negro suf- frage. This the latter denied, maintaining that the colored men had been enfranchised in the Southern states as a measure of necessity in reconstruction, but that those states, when again in the Union, would each have power to regulate the suffrage for itself. But the Democrats returned continually to the at- tack with such convincing arguments as, "Do you want your daughter to marry a nigger?" "Would you allow a nigger to force himself into a seat at church between you and your 94 In a letter to Nesmith, March 27, Deady said Jesse Applegate was instru- mental in securing the nomination of Logan, controlling nearly all the southern county votes and capturing J. G. Wilson by making him chairman of the convention. "Billy Adams, Medorem Crawford and Huntington are furious and all swear they will not support Dave. Billy says openly that he will vote for Smith. I think that all the federal officers are opposed to Dave, while he is defiant and swears that if he is elected their heads shall tumble."