Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/470

452 the opposite faction, which called a convention to protest against the indorsement, and to nominate presidential electors, to be held in September. The convention was fully attended, indorsed the Douglas platform, declared the Oregon democracy loyal to the union of the states, denouncing secession. Anything so earnest and unsectional had not been enunciated by the Oregon democracy in all its previous history. Comparing their new platform with that of the republicans, there was no essential difference.

On the 10th of September the legislature met at Salem, and the preponderance of Lane men among the democrats caused a fusion between the Douglas democrats and the republicans, which gave the fusionists a majority in the house of twenty-one to fifteen. An attempt to organize in the senate was defeated by the difficulty of electing a president, the Douglas men having nominated Tichenor, and the Lane men Elkins, another Douglas democrat; and the vote standing seven to seven without change for the first day. On the morning of the second day it was discovered that six senators, Berry, Brown, Florence, Fitzhugh, Monroe, and McIteeney, had left Salem, and were keeping in concealment, with the intent to defeat the election of United States senators, which in the then impending crisis was of unusual importance. The