Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/176

158 should be a free territory which could not make a bondsman of a black man, but it must exclude the remainder of the conflict then raging on his behalf in certain quarters. Judge Nelson upheld the constitutionality of the law against free blacks, and two offenders were given thirty days in which to leave the territory.

The judges found a large number of indictments in the first and second districts. The most important case in Yamhill county was one to test the legality of taxing land, or selling property to collect taxes, and was brought by C. M. Walker against the sheriff, Andrew Shuck, Pratt deciding that there had been no trespass. In the cases in behalf of the United States, Deady was appointed commissioner in chancery, and David Logan to take affidavits and acknowledgments of bail under the laws of congress. The law practitioners of 1850–1–2 in Oregon had the opportunity, and in many instances the talent, to stamp themselves upon the history of the commonwealth, supplanting in a great degree the men who were its founders, while endeavoring to rid the