Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/688

 was shown by the presidential vote in the following November, which gave a democratic majority of only 160 for presidential electors out of 22,000 votes cast by the state.

In 1870 L. F. Grover, who ever since 1864 had been president of the democratic organization of the state, was elected governor of Oregon, with S. F. Chadwick as secretary.

The legislature of 1870, following the example of its immediate predecessor, rejected the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, which extended the elective franchise to negroes. The manner of the rejection was similar to that of the rescinding resolutions of 1868, and like them, a mere impotent expression of the rebellious sentiments of the ultra-democratic party in Oregon. It had no effect to prevent negroes in Oregon from voting, of whom there were at this time less than 350. It also, in obedience to party government, provided for the appointment of three commissioners to investigate the official conduct of the state officers of the previous administration, succeeding in discovering a defalcation by Secretary May of several thousand dollars,