USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 76
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Berrien of Georgia suggested that the shortest way to a final vote would be to adopt Westcott's amend- ment of substituting the former senate bill; and Cal- houn was not disposed to interpose any delay which his duty did not imperatively require. He wished to give a government to the territory of Oregon imme-
10 This is a reference to the amendments made by the judiciary committee of the senate to the Oregon bill at the previous session, which were rejected by the house. They may be found in the Or. Spectator, Sept. 16, 1847. 11 Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 805. See Thornton's pretensions in note 8.
12 I find several references to the fact that the Oregon bill was drawn up on the plan of the territorial acts of Iowa and Wisconsin. Id. Bright says, page 809, that 'the bill is substantially the same as the bills for the admission of Wisconsin and Iowa, with the exception of the 12th section.'
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diately. At the close of the day's proceedings the Oregon bill had not advanced a step toward its pas- sage.
On the following day the consideration of the bill was resumed, when Hale of New Hampshire offered an amendment which was only another fagot to the flame of southern opposition to free territory, em- bodying as it did the conditions of the ordinance of 1787, as well as confirming the laws already in force in Oregon not incompatible with the remainder of the act, subject to alteration or modification by the gov- ernor and legislative assembly; and extending the laws of the United States over that territory. This was objected to as a firebrand, and Hale offered to withdraw his amendment for the present, to be re- newed if he deemed it best on seeing the course taken by the bill.
Calhoun of South Carolina replied to a proposition of Bright to strike out the obnoxious 12th section, to which Hale objected, that the removal of that section would not be a removal of the difficulty. "There are three questions involved," said Calhoun: "first, the power of congress to interfere with persons emigrat- ing with their (slave) property into the state; second, the power of the territorial government to do so; and third, the power of congress to vest such a power in the territory;" and recommended either Westcott's amendment by substitution, or the passage of the military section as a separate bill.
Miller of New Jersey expressed surprise that the people of Oregon had not the right to prohibit slavery. Whence, then, had they derived the right to sanction slavery? To pour oil on the billows, Dick- inson of New York suggested leaving out the 12th section, and permitting the people of Oregon to settle for themselves the question of free territory. To this proposal Bagby of Georgia gave, by implication, his consent, by saying that congress had no more right over the territory than over any other property of
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COMPROMISE BILL.
the United States; and denying that it could "erect a wall around a territory in which citizens of other states could not meet without leaving their property behind them." For him, he wished the 12th section stricken out. At the same time he called Dickin- son's doctrine, that Oregon could make its own laws, a monstrous one, and called his suggestion an "attempt to stir up agitation in reference to a territory into which it was generally admitted slavery was never likely to enter;" whereupon Hale retorted that this was a "southern firebrand" which was now thrown in.
Bagby again "deprecated the new doctrine as to these ephemeral things called territorial governments, by which any twenty thousand settlers on the public lands might set up a government, and demand the right to enact their own laws." Foote of Mississippi, though declaring that he did not wish to enter upon the discussion of the question of slavery at that time, as it "might enable an individual to whom the aboli- tionists were attracted to increase his popularity," announced that he would vote for the bill if the 12th section should be stricken out. Hale replying to the personalities of Foote, the debate ended in remarks of no pertinency to the history of the Oregon bill.
The third day was but a repetition of the two pre- ceding, except that some new voices were heard in the debate. Things were said of the Oregon government that would have roused the resentment of its founders could they have heard them, and at every renewal of the contest it was evident that the prospect for Oregon darkened. At length Houston of Texas, hoping to put an end to the discussion, moved to amend the 12th section by inserting a modifying clause, which was agreed to, but did not prevent the recurrence of the motion to strike out the section.13 A vote being taken
13 The following is the paragraph so obnoxious to southerners, with the amendment in italics: 'Sec. 12. And be it further enacted that the inhabi- tants of the said territory shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities heretofore granted and secured to the territory of Iowa and to its inhabitants; and the existing laws now in force in the territory of Oregon,
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on striking out, resulted in a two-thirds majority against it, which was the end of that day's proceedings.
I need not follow the bill through the ensuing six weeks of discussion. On the 13th of July it was re- committed to a select committee on the organization of territorial governments in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, which reported a bill on the 18th to establish these several territories. This bill was in- tended to be a compromise, and granted to Oregon the right to organize by a popular vote, and by the "temporary adoption of their present laws prohibiting slavery, until the legislature could adopt some law on the subject;" while organizing the other two territo- ries without this privilege, by appointing governors, senators, and judges; their legislatures to have no power to make laws concerning slavery.14 It did not take away the liberties granted by the 12th section of the original Oregon bill, the modifications being slight, but withheld from California and New Mexico even the right to send a delegate to congress. It was with this powerful sedative the committee proposed to quiet the agitation on the question of slavery in the terri- tories until Oregon could be organized without over- turning the free principles upon which the people had erected an independent government, which they might choose to retain rather than yield to the subversion of their rights enjoyed under their own organic laws.
The contest then continued upon the propriety of yoking Oregon, "a native-born territory," with terri- tories hardly a month old and peopled by Mexicans and half-Indian Californians. But after daily dis-
under the authority of the provisional government established by the people . thereof, shall continue to be valid and operative therein so far as the same shall not be incompatible with the provisions of this act, or in violation of any rights by the law or constitution of the United States vested or secured to the citizens of the United States or any of them; subject nevertheless to be altered, modified, or repealed by the governor and legislative assembly of the said territory of Oregon; and the laws of the United States are hereby ex- tended over and declared to be in force in said territory, so far as the same or any provision thereof may be applicable.' Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 812.
14 Id., 950; Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 3; Clarke, in Over'ind Monthly x. 411-13; Benton's Thirty Years' View, ii. 729-44.
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EVADING THE ISSUE.
cussion for another week, and at the close of a thirty hours' session, at eight o'clock in the morning of the 27th of July, the compromise bill was passed 15 by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-two, and sent to the house, which almost at once voted to lay it on the table, upon the ground that it did not settle, but would only protract, the vexed question to which it owed its birth.
But while senators were thus evading the final issue which all felt must soon be met, the lower house had not been free from agitation on the same subject. On the 9th of February Smith of Indiana reported a bill to establish a territorial government in Oregon. This bill as introduced, by comparison with the Doug- las bill of 1846, appears to be nearly identical. It was made the special order of the house for the 28th of March. Several debates were had, but little af- fecting the passage of the bill up to the time of Meck's arrival in Washington, and the president's message to congress on the subject of furnishing a government to that territory at the earliest practica- ble moment. Fear of the delay which the inevitable discussion of slavery was likely to involve led to the proposition to refer the message to the committee on military affairs, in order that troops might at once be sent to Oregon; but this motion was not allowed, and the bill took its course through the arguments for and against slavery in the territories, as the senate bill had done. The only amendments agreed to were a proviso in the first section confirming to each of the missions in Oregon six hundred and forty acres of land,16 the introduction of several new sections offered as amendments by the committee on commerce, con- cerning the establishment of a collection district, ports of entry and delivery, extending the revenue laws of the United States over Oregon, and appropriating
15 See text of bill in Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 1002-5.
16 This proviso, introduced in the territorial act, when a land bill had already been reported, but without the prospect of passing at that session, explains a part of Thornton's errand.
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money for the erection of light-houses at the mouth of the Columbia and at the entrance to Admiralty Inlet; a section forbidding the obstruction of the Oregon rivers by dams which would prevent the free passage of salmon; and a section appropriating $10,000 to be expended under the direction of the president, in payment of the services and expenses of the persons engaged by the provisional government to convey communications to and from the United States, as also the purchase of such presents for the Indians as might be required to make peace with them.17
It is asserted by Thornton that he secured the amendments on commerce,18 and knowing nothing to the contrary, I shall hope that he did so, because he should have done something to earn the money for his expenses, which charitable members of congress were induced to procure for him out of the public treasury. The bill as it now stood, with the ordinance of 1787 and all, passed the house on the 2d of August by a vote of one hundred and twenty-nine to seventy- one, and was sent to the senate, where for nine days it received the same discursive treatment to which the senate bill had been subjected, but was finally passed between nine and ten o'clock Sunday morning, August 13th, after an all-night session.
Seldom was there so determined opposition to a bill as that offered by the southern senators to the establishment of Oregon Territory : not, as they them- selves said, from a want of sympathy with the people of that isolated section of the country, who were, as all believed, still engaged in a bloody contest with hos- tile savages; nor from a conviction that slavery would strike root in this far northern soil; but only from a sense of the danger to their sacred institution from extending the principles of the ordinance of 1787 to
17 By the language of this appropriation the $10,000 was intended for Meek and his associates. Meek received a large share of it, and the Indians not any. See Victor's River of the West, 458-62. Thornton also received money for his expenses, probably from the contingent fund.
18 Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1874, 94.
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FINAL PASSAGE OF THE BILL.
the territory acquired since the passage of that ordi- nance.19 From their point of view the people of the southern states were defrauded of their inheritance in the vast possessions of the federal Union by the exclu- sion of slavery from any part of the common territory of the United States. They claimed the right to go whither they pleased, and to carry their human chat- tels with thein, fiercely combating the opposition of the northern men that negroes were not property, in the usual acceptation of the term.
It had been agreed that congress should adjourn on Monday the 14th, and the policy of the opposition was to defeat the Oregon bill by preventing the ayes and noes from being taken. Almost the whole of Saturday was consumed in debate, in which Calhoun, Butler of South Carolina, Houston, Yulee, Davis, and other eminent southerners, argued the question over the same familiar ground with no other object than the consumption of time. Benton only had re- plied at any length.
In the evening session, after a speech by Webster, the debate was continued till after midnight, when a motion was made to adjourn, which was defeated. Butler then moved to go into executive session, when an altercation arose as to the object of the motion at that time,20 and the motion being ruled out of order,
19 Mason of Virginia said: 'The ordinance of 1787 was a compact formed between the United States government and the people of the north-west terri- tory before the constitution was formed. The history of that ordinance is shrouded in secrecy, as the journals were not made public. But it is well known that there was much conflict. The item concerning slavery was the result of compromise ... Some states came into the measure with difficulty and some with a protest. Virginia would never have been a party to that compact, never would have made the cession she did, had she supposed her right to extend her population whither she would, would have been denied ... There are now 3,000,000 of slaves penned up in the slave states, and they are an increasing population, increasing faster than the whites. And are the slaves to be always confined within what may be deemed their prison states ?' Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 903.
20 Thornton, in his History of the Provisional Government, in Or. Pio: er Assoc., Trans., 1874, 91, gives some particulars. He says Butler made the 10- tion to go into executive session for the purpose of inquiring into the con ... ict of Benton, who he had alleged communicated to the reporter of the New York Herald some proceedings done in secret session; that Butler called Benton's act dishonorable; and that Benton sprang toward him a rage, with clinched HIST. OR., VOL. I. 49
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a vote was taken on appeal, and the chair sustained. In this manner the night was, like the day, wellnigh wasted, without coming to a vote on the Oregon bill.
Toward morning, Foote, who had already spoken several times, rose again, when he was called to order. The friends of the bill thinking the best way to bring matters to a conclusion was to humor the Mississippian, entreated that he might be allowed to proceed; and he, declaring his ability to speak until Monday night, commenced at the history of the creation, as given in the books of Moses, and talked on in a rambling strain until after nine o'clock Sunday, when it may be assumed that his spirits began to flag, and he sat down. Benton then hastened to recede from some amendments which he had offered, but which the house had refused to accede to; and the bill, restored to its precise form as it passed the house, was finally passed by the senate, the long and trying ordeal was over, and Oregon was a Territory of the United States, on her own terms.21 The rule disallowing bills to be presented for signature on the last day of the session was suspended, and this one was signed on the 14th of August, the president returning it to the house with a message, in which he reviewed the question of free and slave territory at some length, deprecating the agitation arising from it, and predicting that it would. if not checked, dismember the union.22
Oregon had indeed been granted a territorial organ- ization with all that usually accompanied such creative acts, the appropriations amounting to $26,500,23 besides the salaries of all the territorial officers, including the
hand and violent gestures, calling Butler a liar. The two white-haired sen- ators were separated by their friends, Butler saying, 'I will see you, sir, at another time and place;' and Benton rejoining in great heat, 'that he could be se. n at any time or place, but that when he fought, he fought for a funeral !' Se also Clarke, in Overland Monthly, x. 412.
1 Niles' Reg., Ixxiii. 274; Benton's Thirty Years, ii. 711.
For the territorial act of Oregon, see General Laws of Oregon, 1843-72, 52-63; Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 1079-80.
23 For public buildings, $5,000; for territorial library, $5,000; for light- houses, $15,000; for contingent expenses, $1,500 annually.
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LAND DONATION.
members of the legislature, which would bring a sum of money into circulation annually sufficient to afford partial relief to the currency of the country.24 But the subject of land titles had not been touched, except so far as to secure the missions in the possession of six hundred and forty acres each, and except that the territorial act deprived every one else of all the title they formerly had under the provisional government.25
The omission to provide the Oregon settlers with their long-promised donations was not through either the injustice or intentional neglect of congress, but simultaneously with the territorial bills both houses had been notified that a land bill would follow. Sen- ator Breese of Illinois on the 3d of January asked leave to bring in a bill to create the office of surveyor- general of public lands in the territory of Oregon,26 and to grant donation rights to settlers. In the house, notice of two bills on the same subject was given by McClernand of Illinois January 31st, and by Johnson of Arkansas February 10th. McClernand's bill was referred to the committee on public lands, of which Collamer of Vermont was chairman, who reported it back April 25th, with an amendatory bill, and there the subject of land donations remained while the bat- tle was being fought over the ordinance of 1787. When that fight was over it was too late to move in the matter at that session. Its subsequent course will be related elsewhere. 27
For the relief of Oregon in the matter of troops and
24 Salary of the governor, who was also Indian agent, $3,000; 3 U. S judges, $2,000; secretary, $1,500; legislators, $3 per day and mileage; chief clerk, $5 per day; other officers, $3; marshal the same as the marshal of Wisconsin.
25 ' All laws heretofore passed in said territory making grants of land or otherwise affecting or encumbering the title to lands shall be, and are hereby declared to be, null and void.' Sec. 14 of territorial act, in Gen. Laws Or., 1843-72, 60.
26 Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 95.
27 It is interesting to know that the widow of Captain Robert Gray, who first entered the Columbia, had a bill for relief, on the ground of discovery, before the house committee on public lands at this and a previous session. See memorial of Martha Gray, in Or. Spectator, Sept. 3, 1846; Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 679.
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munitions of war, nothing was done, or could have been done in time to have averted a crushing disaster to the colony, had the Indians not been checked. The Mexican war, which had only been brought to a close in the summer of 1848, had made a heavy draft upon the treasury, and the army28 was at that time small. The government was averse to enlisting men especially for Oregon, inasmuch as the rifle regiment which had been raised for service there and along the road to the Columbia would now be marched to its original destination, from which it had been diverted by the war with Mexico, so soon as its ranks, thinned by bat- tle, desease, and desertion,29 could be recruited. In- stead of raising a new regiment, or ordering away the men in garrisons, it was concuded by the secretary of war to furnish the material likely to be required from the companies and stores already on the Pacific coast. Accordingly orders were despatched to John Parrott, navy agent at San Francisco, to forward orders to Commodore Jones to send "men, arms, ammunition, and provisions to Oregon," and also to forward by any safe conveyance $10,000, to be paid over to the gov- ernor. But this order was not issued until the 12th of October, when peace had been restored.30
During the progress of affairs from May to August, the two informal Oregon delegates had been charac- teristically employed. Thornton, with a serious air and a real love of scholarly association, sought the society of distinguished men, profiting, as he believed, by the contact, and doubtless being often consulted upon Oregon affairs. He asserts that he was approached while in Washington by an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company who wished to sell the possessory rights of that corporation in Oregon to the United States for the sum of $3,000,000, and that he became involved
28 The total strength of the army after the discharge of the volunteers en- listed for the war was 8,866. Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 1006.
29 The rifle regiment was reduced to 427 men. Id.
30 30th Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, 18-20.
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THE FUR COMPANY'S RIGHTS.
in some trouble with the president for his course in refusing to sanction the purchase.31 That he became the object of Polk's dislike may be true; but that the president cared for his opinion is hardly probable.
With regard to the proposition of the Hudson's Bay Company, I learn from various sources that the senate had under consideration a proposal to purchase its possessory rights in Oregon, upon the representa- tion that the anomalous condition of the company after the treaty would lead to trouble. Sir George Simpson and Mr Finlayson paid a visit to Washing- ton32 about this time, and the matter was in the hands
31 The cause of the trouble was really not so much the fact that he dis- approved of the purchase, which any one was at liberty to do, as the manner taken to show his disapproval. As the matter is stated by himself, he re- ceived a call at his lodgings, from Knox Walker, the private secretary of the president, who brought with him and introduced a Mr George N. Saunders, whom he left with Thornton when he took his leave. The latter, according to Thornton, proceeded to make an attempt to bribe him to advocate the justice of the Hudson's Bay Company's pretensions, and offered him $25,000 to write such letters as he should dictate, to two members of the cabinet. The pious plenipotentiary's reply, if we may believe him, was to threaten to kick Saunders down the stairs, when that person saved him the exertion by going of his own accord. Not satisfied with this, Thornton wrote a letter to the president, which brought him another visit from Walker, who urged him to withdraw the letter, intimating that it would be better for his private interests to do so, but that he still refused. The story soon after transpiring through a communication to the New York Herald, written by Thornton, and signed ' Achilles de Harley,' the president took umbrage, and not only refused to appoint him to the place of one of the judges for Oregon, but also to pay his expenses as a messenger from Oregon out of the $10,000 appropriation. According to S. A. Clarke in the Overland Monthly, May 1873, who wrote from Thornton's dictation, Robert Smith, from the congressional district of Alton, Illinois, went to the president for money for Thornton's expenses, and was refused. Benton was then solicited to interest himself for Thornton, but put the business off on Douglas, who being refused, threatened to furnish Thornton with money to stay over to the next session, when he would move for a committee of inquiry to investigate the matter, in which the president was concerned. This threat brought Mr Polk to terms, and the sum of $2,750 was paid to Thornton, though he was obliged to return to Oregon with- out an office either for himself or the coterie he represented. Such is the explanation furnished by Thornton of the failure of his mission to Washington, and which he has repeatedly made, in his History of Oregon, MS., 1-6; in his Autobiography, MS., 48-55; in the statement made to Mr Clarke, and on other occasions. The real reason of Thornton's returning empty-handed was not any quarrel of the kind here narrated, but the citizens' memorial and the Nesmith resolution of the Oregon legislature, before spoken of, which Meek carried to Washington along with other documents. While there was no malice in Meek, he would have been sure to have his own sport with the governor's private delegate, the more so that Thornton professed to be shocked at the giddy ways of the authorized messenger.
32 Extract from Montreal Herald, in Niles' Reg., Ixxiv. 296-7.
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of the British charge d'affaires, Crampton. The Hudson's Bay Company placed a high value upon their property and lands in Oregon as guaranteed to them by the terms of the treaty of 1846; and as the latter were liable to be occupied at any time by American settlers who held in no respect their possessory rights, they were anxious to sell. The United States did not deny their right to do so. The only question was as to the price that was set upon them.33 Some of the senators, on political grounds, had favored the proposition from the first; but oth- ers, better acquainted with Oregon local affairs, as Benton and Douglas, called for information, and the secretary of state laid the whole matter before them, declaring that as adviser of the president he could not counsel its acceptance without first ascertaining the value of the property, but that if he were in the senate he should vote for the purchase, as it would prevent the trouble and annoyance likely to arise from the joint navigation of the Columbia River.34
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