Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/459

Rh 12, 1859; the bill was approved by the president on Monday, the 14th, on which day Lane and Smith presented their credentials to the senate, and were sworn in. On drawing for their terms, Lane with his usual good luck drew the term ending in 1861, while Smith's would expire the following month. On the 15th Grover took his seat in the house, to which he would be entitled only until the 3d of March.

The satisfaction which the friends of state government expected to derive from admission to the union was much dulled by delay and the circumstances attending it. Party leaders had taught the people to believe that when Oregon became a state the war debt would be paid. The same leaders now declared that after all they had gained little or nothing by it, and were forced to solace themselves with pleasant messages from the western states, from which had gone forth the annual trains of men and means by which Oregon had been erected into an independent commonwealth. She had at all events come into the union respectably, and had no enemies either north or south.