Oregon Historical Society

“ As to mere numbers and wealth, we have doubtless sufficient of both to maintain a state government; but a people in my opinion, require age and maturity, as well as wealth and numbers to make them competent to carry on a government successfully. As in the growth of the child and the oak so with a people. Thrown together as we have been, upon this coast, it requires time to knit together in one harmonious whole our diversified elements of population.” [19]
The Constitutional Convention met in August of 1857, at Salem, and was in session for four weeks. ”

“ But eighty years ago our population was confined on the west by the ridge of the Alleghanies. Within that period our people, increasing to many millions, have filled the eastern valley of the Mississippi, adventurously ascended the Missouri to its head springs, are already engaged in establishing the blessing of self-government in the valley of which the rivers flow to the Pacific. The world beholds the peaceful triumphs of the industry of our emigrants. To us belongs the duty of protecting them wherever they may be upon our soil. ”

“ There is every reason to appreciate the good judgment of those who framed it and did much to mold the character of the commonwealth, as conservative, as sound in its social and industrial policy, and to be depended on for sober and considerate action. Located, as the State of Oregon is, upon the Pacific Coast, where much of the history of the next century must be made, itself the product of an enlarged national life, it must, of necessity, exercise a greater influence in the national policies of the future than it has in those of the past. ”

“ No friend of the measure could have painted a bolder and more prophetic picture than that of the opponent who said: “The trade of the Pacific will naturally be with China, Japan, and the Philippines. They will not only be invited to this by their local position, but by the circumstances of their situation. Commerce is never so profitable as when it is carried on between a newly settled country, in which land is fresh and easily obtained, and one in which a dense population has made manufactures cheap and abundant.” ”

“ The history of civil government under such circumstances must necessarily be different from that of territory fully acquired by the national government. It is clear that it must connect, indissolubly, the question of a government with that of the boundary, and render any satisfactory solution of the former impossible until the settlement of the latter. The framing of any kind of a plan of government that would really be efficient without giving cause for offense to the partner to the title of the land must be a problem of the most difficult nature, as it was found to be. ”

“ Beyond all question the protection of our laws and our jurisdiction, civil and criminal, ought to be immediately extended over our citizens in Oregon. They have had just cause to complain of our long neglect in this particular, and have in consequence been compelled, for their own safety and protection, to establish a provisional government for themselves. Strong in their allegiance and ardent in their attachment to the United States, they have been thus cast upon their own resources. ”

“ The desire to perpetuate the Union, so dearly purchased, has laid at the foundation of many a policy. For its sake many things, desirable in themselves, have been given up or long delayed. That the national government could operate over a territory so vast, and regions so remote, with barriers separating them geographically from other sections, was questionable in the day before railroads and telegraphs. ”

“ It is a test of judgment to put oneself at the different points of view, so often conflicting, to be fair to all and to be firm in drawing conclusions where the weight of evidence seems to lie; and a knowledge of the slowness of this process of growth, with the careful thought and heroic action by which it has come about, creates a respect for government and prepares for a wiser use of the privileges enjoyed under its beneficent rule. ”

“ All that the United States government could wish to accomplish in securing an equal foothold in the territory, was brought about without action on its part and without complications that might have accompanied an extension of a United States territorial government over the country, as provided by the various bills. Every issue which the government itself could have forced, was forced by the pioneers themselves. A permanent break was made in the old order of things; the fur trading regime was forced to give place to an agricultural civilization. ”

“ I say I never endeavored to prevent the settlement of the country, or to cripple its growth, but the reverse. If the whole country had been my own private property, I could not have exerted myself more strenuously than I did to introduce civilization, and promote its settlement. “Now that he wants a few favors of our Government, he pretends that he has been the long-tried friend of Americans and American enterprise west of the mountains.” Mr. Wyeth states how I acted towards him and his companions, the first Americans that I saw on this side of the mountains. ”

“ To start on such a difficult and dangerous expedition as this unquestionably was during the proper pioneer family movement, from 1842 to 1852, would have seemed to all concerned too much like suicide of the sick or the chronically feeble.
The expedition to Oregon, as they looked upon it, called for a power of endurance that might be found only in the soundest. So by common consent poor health ruled its possessor from the ranks of the pioneers. ”

“ To characterize the opponents as ultra-conservative or self-interested would not be just to the many weighty arguments which they brought forward, and which, looked at from the standpoint of their day, were weightier than they seem now, when conditions have so changed. For a new nation, with a new national machinery, hardly yet in smoothly running order, to attempt expansion into regions separated by natural barriers, and inaccessible before the application of steam to travel, might well require careful thought. ”

“ The final settlement of the Oregon question was made easier than it otherwise would have been; and a splendid demonstration was given of the fact so often seen in the history of nations, that crises are settled most effectually by the people of the nation themselves. The English made an effort to adjust themselves to the new conditions and preserve their old authority. But their autocratic social machinery, which probably had been best fitted for the period of the fur trade, was unable to cope with the democratic provisional government in meeting the needs of an agricultural settlement. ”

“ We have seen a locality well fitted for the home of man pass out from the condition of a wilderness, through all the stages of development, to that high state of civilization where every individual enjoys the privilege of citizenship in a great nation, as well as all the liberties of local freedom. ”

“ Of the many interesting phases which have presented themselves, none has had so great an attraction for the writer as the development of civil institutions. It is interesting to review the gradual evolution of a locality from primitive conditions of wildness to that perfect form of social life where individuals act under the privileges and restrictions of a civil government, voluntarily imposed and perfectly integrated with the larger scheme of national government. ”

“ I vote for her admission on general principles. Her constitution is republican in form, and slavery is excluded from her territory forever. I regret with sadness that the people have deemed it expedient to adopt the article they have relative to free negroes, but I must regard it as but temporary and inoperative. I find no state west of New York ready to grant full rights and privileges of citizenship to free blacks; therefore it would be inconsistent to reject Oregon for this clause in her constitution. Oregon, at no remote day must be admitted as a state. ”

“ Most prominent among these were the feeling of nationality, the love of a democratic type of government, the desire for power to control the character of population that should come in, anxiety to secure permanent titles to the lands taken up, equal rights in the pursuit of the fur trade, protection from the Indians, prevention of lawlessness among a mixed population, facilities for the conduct of such business as growing numbers made necessary, and, perhaps, in some cases, personal ambition to exercise authority. ”

“ In their view the Rocky Mountain barrier was not a single line of mountains, but a complex system of ranges, like the one that separated Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas from the valley of the Ohio, with whose character they were familiar. They clearly apprehended the difficulties of such mountain travel, without roads or bridges, without shops for repairs, or towns for repurchase of supplies run short. They saw plainly the necessity of starting with wagons loaded for the whole journey, and of getting through before winter. ”

“ Circulars containing all the information available, were prepared and sent to the constituents of congressmen, and the nation began to be committed to a policy which it would take time fully to realize. The people had gained the impression that the United States’ title was perfectly clear to the whole valley of the Columbia; that the English were there only by sufferance until the formal settlement of a boundary at a more convenient time; and that the government was willing that American immigrants should occupy it, and would protect them as well as it could. ”

“ In order that we may see the wider scope of our subject we need only to remember that during the early centuries of exploration the territory whose civil life we are to study was at stake in the great struggle between those countries which were striving for the mastery of the world, and many a stroke of policy that seemed to affect these remote regions had its only significance as it bore upon the conflict of England and Spain. ”

“ To this end William A. Slacum, of the United States Navy, was appointed as a special agent, to visit Oregon and examine the conditions. This is important, as marking the policy the government intended to pursue while things were in process of transition. If the protection given was not adequate, it at least dispels the suspicion of utter heartlessness which would attach to a government which would let its citizens go, in support of its own interests, into this wilderness, without a single thought for their safety. ”

“ It is but natural, under the circumstances, that the colonists should take the matter into their own hands, and do what the exigencies of the situation demanded. The formation of the pioneer provisional government may be regarded, therefore, as an example of the true American spirit, exhibiting a resourcefulness equal to every emergency. ”

“ Although the official agent of the English company, a Scotchman by nationality, a Catholic in religion, and loyal to all the interests he represented, he was a man of too large a mold to be anything other than the instrument of justice and good order for all classes of people who might come within the bounds where his jurisdiction was exercised. “From 1823 to 1845 he was the controlling power in the country, and did more than any one else to preserve order, peace and good will among the conflicting and sometimes lawless elements of the population.” ”

“ The special messengers, J. Quinn Thornton and Stephen L. Meek, had been able to make suggestions which fitted the bill to the peculiar needs of the new territory. It was notable in being the first bill to set aside two townships of land, instead of one, for the purpose of supporting schools. It recognized the machinery of government already in existence, and endorsed the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, which had already been adopted, in regard to slavery. The transition from the provisional government to the territorial was easily made, and Oregon started out on a new era of existence. ”

“ First of all, then, these pioneers were all frontier people. In 1842 the only people who cared about the question of a migration to Oregon were frontier people of these Western States; people already familiar with the modes and the dangers of travel beyond the safeguards of civilization. And this fact gives us our first test in the classification of our pioneers—they were all frontier people. ”

“ In common with them there has been a gradual growth from those fragmentary germs of civic life out of which civil government grows, which fragmentary forms begin to operate as soon as individuals come together in social relation, often long before localities are entitled to take their places as parts of a nation. ”