Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/397



ADMISSION OF OREGON 369

and that party I may characterize as the anti-negro party. They said that they would sooner vote for a slave state than for a free state with a constitution admitting free negroes and mulattoes. They preferred to have slaves in Oregon rather than free negroes ; and it was for the purpose of securing their vote for a free state that the Republicans and Free-State Demo- crats inserted and advocated this provision. The leading Re- publicans of that Territory advocated the adoption of the Con- stitution containing this provision. Mr. Logan, who received every Republican vote for United States Senator, advocated, on the stump, the adoption of the Constitution with this clause. What was the vote? Why, sir, this clause of the Constitu- tion had a majority of seven thousand five hundred and fifty- nine votes; while the Constitution itself had a majority of only four thousand votes. The Democratic majority in the Terri- tory, as shown in the election of a Representative to this House, was only one thousand six hundred and thirteen votes. Then it is proved, by the official record, that the Republican party combined with the Free-State Democratic party to sanction and ratify this provision of the Constitution which is here called in question. There is also abundant evidence, outside of the record, to satisfy any one that such is the fact. This, then, is the apology for the action of the people of Oregon on this question. What Republican, or what friend of free states, is justified under these circumstances, in voting to exclude the people of Oregon from this Confederacy on account of this provision, which is only an expedient, and not a thing for practical use? It is very easy, at this distance, to censure the people of Oregon, and to pronounce judgment against them, but such judgment may be neither wise nor just.

"Then at the balance let's be mute,

We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute,

But know not what's resisted."

But, sir, there is another objection urged from certain quar- ters, with great pertinacity. I mean the objection to the suf-