Governor Stevens’s first speech in the House occurred May 12, on his bill to create additional land districts in his Territory, and was a brief one. The next day a bill came up to reimburse Governor Douglass for the supplies he had furnished in the Indian war, and the governor seized the opportunity to deliver a powerful speech in behalf of the war debt. He referred to Sir James’s emphatic testimony that his, the governor’s, course was the only one which could have protected the settlements, or prevented their depopulation, and vigorously defended the people and volunteers:—
“During the whole course of that war, not a friendly Indian, nor an Indian prisoner, was ever maltreated in the camp of the volunteers of Washington. For six months the people of Washington had to live in blockhouses; and yet so obedient were the people to law, so proud of their country, doing such high homage to the spirit of humanity and justice, that during all that time the life of the Indian was safe in the camp of the volunteers. Why, sir, there were nearly five thousand disaffected Indians during all this time on the reservations lying along the waters of the Sound, and not a man ever went there to do them harm.
“I trust that the same measure of justice, which the committee propose to deal out to Governor Douglass, will be dealt out to the people of the Territories of Oregon and Washington. The debt in all the cases rests upon the same foundation. Our people furnished supplies and animals and shipping, and rendered their own services, on the faith of the government.”
On the 31st he delivered a long and exhaustive speech on the same subject, giving the history of the war, vindicating his own course, and the patriotism and conduct of the volunteers and people.
On May 25 he delivered a speech of an hour upon the Pacific Railroad, the subject of all others in which he took the greatest interest and expended the greatest exertions. He took the broad national view, embracing the whole country, and advocated three routes, and then pointed out the superior advantages of the Northern route, and dwelt upon its value for gaining the trade of Asia:—
“Therefore I would not carve our way to the Pacific by a single route. It would not satisfy the country. It is not for its peace and harmony politically. It could not do the business of the country. It is not up to the exigencies of the occasion. But carve your way to the Western ocean with at least three roads.
“Considering, therefore, the greater shortness of the Northern route, and its nearer connections with both Asia and Europe, it must become the great route of freight and passengers from Asia to Europe, and even of freight from Asia to the whole valley of the Mississippi.”
These views have become established facts for so many years that it is hard to realize how far in advance of his contemporaries Governor Stevens was in holding them. He was one of the first, if not the very first, to discern the necessity for three transcontinental railroads, and the opportunity for securing the trade of Asia offered by the Northern route.
A few days later he sprang to his feet in defense of his friend Nesmith, who was bitterly assailed by M.R.H. Garnett, of Virginia, and answered him in a manner so complete and satisfactory as to defeat an amendment offered by him.
On the 27th he spoke in support of an appropriation for a military survey of the upper Columbia, and in a sharp and breezy debate had the satisfaction of exposing Cram’s report.