Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/735



Government and laws took root and were established and enforced in the organization of society in Oregon without the aid of lawyers. There was not a single lawyer in the convention that decided in favor of and organized the provisional government which is described at length in chapter VII of this book. The first intimation of laws, authority or courts in the vast district west of the Rocky mountains was an act of the British parliament extending to English subjects on the Pacific coast the protection of the laws of Great Britain; and under which three justices of the peace—all British subjects—were appointed. The British had in fact no sovereignty of the country authorizing such action; but the act did not pretend to include in either its protection or control, citizens of the United States.

The first movement of American citizens to provide the protection of law, or of judicial action, was a public meeting of the American settlers in the Willamette valley held at the American mission house in the prairie seven or eight miles north of where the state capital is now built. This meeting was held on the 18th day of February, 1841; and at which meeting I. L. Babcock was chosen and elected by the settlers to fill the office of "supreme judge," and instructed to exercise the powers of a probate judge. Detailing the history of this meeting, W. H. Gray in his history of Oregon says that Babcock "was lawmaker, judge, jury and executioner, as much as John McLoughlin was to the Hudson's Bay Company." I. L. Babcock was not a lawyer, but is recorded in the history of that day as a doctor.

Politics, scheming for advancement and advantages, seems to be almost universally associated in the American mind with government. And this first meeting of two or three dozen scattered settlers to set up a government to rule the whole of Oregon, was no exception to the rule. The first act of the meeting and the first proposition for adoption was the appointment of a committee to form a constitution and draft a code of laws. It could hardly be said that the convention was packed, "for there were not enough people all told to make a pack." But the initial step had been prepared before the settlers got together, and came up in the form of a resolution designating the men to compose the committee on constitution and laws. This first committee to form a government was to be Rev. F. N. Blanchet, Rev. Jason Lee, and Rev. Gustavus Hines. This was too many preachers for the farmer settlers, and they bolted the proposition and finally got on another preacher—Rev. J. L. Parish—and five farmers: D. Donpierre, M. Charlevo, Robert Moore, Etienne Lucier and William Johnson.

That was the first effort at lawmaking in Oregon. But it fell as a dead letter on the settlements. The Hudson's Bay Company and Catholic priest influence discouraged the movement; and the Americans were not yet ready for it. Judge