The legislature of 1844 has been censured by some for undoing so much of the work of the previous year.[1] But in their opinion as well as in the judgment of the executive committee, it must be done; the code of the older colonists must be changed, but it was an ungrateful task. The new-comers composed three fourths of the legislative committee of eight, the ninth member not being elected. But two thirds of the executive committee who recommended the changes were old colonists.[2] Burnett before going to take his seat in the committee had never been at Oregon City, nor examined the laws of 1843.[3] Therefore to charge upon him as has been done a premeditated intention of subverting them is manifestly unjust.
Having his attention drawn to the peculiarities of the organic law by the executive committee before making an examination of it, Burnett, who had been district attorney in Missouri, and was an able jurist, declares that on attempting to separate the fundamental from the statutory part of the code, or to understand where the constitution ended and the statutes began, he found himself unable to do so, and that it became necessary to make some distinction
- ↑ The standing committees were as follows: Ways and means, Newell, Hill and Gilmore; military affairs, Hill, Kaiser, and Gilmore; land claims, Waldo, Lovejoy, and Newell; roads, Burnett, Waldo, and Kaiser; judiciary, Burnett, Lovejoy, and Gilmore. Gilmore was a plain farmer, and carried no great weight on the judiciary committee. Burnett, it is understood, did the responsible work. The committee to draught rules for the government of the house consisted of Lovejoy, Burnett, and Waldo. The different parts of the executive message were then referred to the committees chosen to consider them; and on motion of Burnett, so much of the executive committee's message as relates to a more thorough organization, to vesting the executive power in a single individual, and to the appointment of several judges, and also those parts of said message that relate to the amendment of the laws of chancery, were referred to the judiciary committee. Grover's Or. Archives, 39.
- ↑ Gray, who was on the first legislative committee, is very bitter toward the committees of 1844. Hist. Or., 375. And even the more just Applegate, offended because his friend Shortess was not found to be a faultless legislator, says: 'The few and simple duties prescribed to these committees by the organic law were far too limited for the display of abilities and statesmanship which they hoped to obtain the credit of possessing; and not understanding that the apparent defects of the organic law were its wisest provisions, without warrant first obtained from the people to do, and without submitting their work, when done, to their sanction or rejection, proceeded to remodel the organic law itself to an extent amounting to its subversion.' Views of History, MS., 41.
- ↑ Burnett's Rec., 204.
