The senate bill of Douglas was finally passed, after being amended in the spirit of compromise ever dominant in those days, whereby the colonial laws on the subject of slavery were to be continued in force until such time as "the legislature could adopt some other law on the subject," but the House promptly laid this bill on the table and rejoined with a measure practically identical with the Douglas house bill of 1846, and after a long and bitter contest, in which Thomas H. Benton led the fight for Oregon, on the fourteenth of August, 1848, Oregon became a territory of the United States on her own terms, and free soil in name as well as in fact.
President Polk promptly appointed General Joseph Lane, of Indiana, a native of North Carolina, and a veteran commander of the Mexican war, as the first territorial governor of Oregon, and urged upon him the immediate organization of the government, in order that it might be inaugurated before March 4, 1849, when there would be a change in the presidency.
The long journey of Governor Lane, accompanied by ex-Delegate Meek, now United States Marshal, across the continent by the Santa Fé trail, and up the coast from San Francisco, is one of the stirring incidents of those stirring times, and on the third of March, 1849, but one day before the expiration of President Polk's term of office, General Lane issued a proclamation making known that he entered upon the discharge of the duties of his office, and proclaiming the Federal laws in force over the Oregon country. Thus was the consummation so longed for by the President brought to pass, and what he had striven for so long and so patriotically fulfilled in the closing hours of his administration. During the years of territorial government the slavery question that was tormenting the brain and conscience of the North and the heart and chivalry of the South, played but little part in the life of the far distant territory.
The political complexion of the territory was overwhelmingly Democratic, but it was democracy of the free soil order, which only asked of the negro to keep out of its sight and out of its mind. In line with this temper was the enforcement against two unfortunate blacks of the territorial enactment against free negroes, which being promptly held constitutional by the territorial supreme court, the two offenders were gently but firmly deported from the boundaries of the "white man's country." This same deep-lying sentiment found added expression in the forth coming State Constitution, wherein it was enacted "No free negro or mulatto not residing in this State at the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall come, reside, or be within this State, or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the State, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the State or employ or harbor them." Added expression was given to this point of view in the vote on the subject of admission of free negroes, submitted to the people in connection with the vote on the adoption of the proposed constitution—here the vote in favor of their admission was 1,081, contrarywise 8,640.
A potent influence at Washington towards Oregon's admission as a state was the well-known democracy of the State, and at home the indebtedness to the colonists of the National Government in connection with the Indian wars—it seemed plain that two senators and one congressman who could vote as well as talk could accomplish more than one delegate who could only talk; and so the vote for the adoption of the State Constitution was 7,195 for and only 3,215 against.
On the subject of slavery, submitted to the people at the same election, the vote was likewise significant and illuminating, 7,727 voted for freedom and but 2,645 for slavery. Coming as this overwhelming vote did when the agitation of the slavery question was at a white heat both in and out of Congress, it was startling in its clear and unequivocal verdict on this great question—and it is especially significant when we recall the great preponderance of Oregon voters born in slaveholding states and cradled in the doctrine of African bondage. Can the conclusion be other than that they realized the economic and moral blight of the slave system and resolved to have none of it in their fair State.
In this election the free soil democrats and the whigs under Thomas J. Dryer were found quietly but none the less actually fighting shoulder to shoulder.
It is a delicate task to attempt to chronicle history while yet the actual participants are some of them living and the children and grandchildren of many more constitute our friends and neighbors, and far be it from me to criticise the motives or sincerity of those who were wrong in the troublous days that followed except in so far as is necessary to set forth the facts of history.
On the fourteenth of February, 1859, Oregon became a State of the Union. From the loins of the old Whig party in Oregon, as well as elsewhere in the country, sprang forth that young giant the Republican party, and to the leadership of Dryer was added the silvery eloquence of Edward D. Baker, lately come from California. The uncompromising slavery wing of the Democratic party nominated John C. Breckinridge for President and Joseph Lane, Oregon's first territorial governor and present senator, for Vice President. Stephen A. Douglas headed the regular Democratic ticket and Abraham Lincoln was the Republican chieftain.
In Oregon there was a new alignment alike of leaders and of the rank and file—despite the wonderful personal popularity of Oregon's favorite son Joseph Lane, and the passionate oratory of Delazon Smith his chief campaigner, Oregon cast her vote for Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States. The combined Douglas and Lincoln vote was 9,480, while Breckinridge and Lane polled 5,074; and from this computation we see that a trifle more than one third of the voters of Oregon were apparently prepared to follow the programme of disunion and secession. Colonel Baker, by a coalition of republicans and Douglas democrats, was chosen United States Senator, and left almost immediately for Washington to take up his official duties; but he left behind him the courageous inspiration of his lofty patriotism—he had played upon and touched both the heart and conscience of the young Commonwealth, and while the months that followed were months of waiting and watching and of prayer, as elsewhere in the Union, there was never any real question, after the wonderful rousing of the public mind and the public heart of Oregon, largely wrought by his matchless eloquence and high ideals, that should war, that saddest of all conflicts, a civil war, ensue, the brave young State would stand by the flag of the Fathers and the cause of human liberty. At the city of San Francisco, en route for Washington, Colonel Baker, in fiery and impassioned rhetoric, nailed his banner and Oregon's to the Nation's masthead.