Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/377

Rh expressing the sentiments and purposes of the members, and to appoint a committee to draft a platform for the anti-slavery party, to be reported to an adjourned meeting to be held at Corvallis on the 31st of October. This was the beginning of a movement in which the Argus played an important part, and which resulted in the formation of the republican party of Oregon. It was the voice crying in the wilderness which prepared the way for the victory of free principles on the Northwest Coast, and secured to the original founders of the Oregon colony the entire absence of the shadow and blight of an institution which when they left their homes in the States the earliest immigrations determined to leave behind them forever. With regard, however, to the progress of the new party, before it had time to complete a formal organization, events had occurred in Oregon of so absorbing a nature as to divert the public mind from its contemplation.

I have already spoken of the round of visits which Indian Superintendent Palmer made in 1854, about which time he concluded some treaties—none of those made by Gaines ever having been ratified—with the Indians of the Willamette Valley. It was not until October that he was able to go to the Indians of