Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/286

268 at the first election. When in 1852–3 the legislature amended the laws regulating elections, it removed in a final manner the restrictions which the Thurston democracy had placed upon foreign-born residents of the country. By the new law all white male inhabitants over twenty-one years of age, having become naturalized, or having declared their intention to become citizens, and having resided six months in the territory, and in the county fifteen days next preceding the election, were entitled to vote at any election in the territory.

To return to the donation law and its construction. Persons could be found who were doubtful of the meaning of very common words when they came to see them in a congressional act, and who were unable to decide what 'settler' or 'occupant' meant, or how to construe 'improvement' or 'possession.' To help such as these, various legal opinions were submitted through the columns of newspapers; but it was generally found that a settler could be absent from his claim a great deal of his time, and that occupation and improvement were defined in accordance with the means and the convenience of the claimant.

The surveyor-general, who arrived in Oregon in time to begin the surveys of the public lands in October, 1851, had before him a difficult labor. The survey of the Willamette meridian was begun at