other officials, and helped to set in motion the wheels of the new political machine.
And so, without any noise or revolution, the old government went out and the new came in. The provisional government was voluntarily laid down, as it had voluntarily been taken up. It was an experiment of a part of the American people, who represented in their small and isolated community the principles of self-government in a manner worthy of the republican sentiments supposed to underlie the federal union, by which a local population could constitute an independent state, and yet be loyal to the general government. Under judicious management, good order and happiness, as well as a general condition of prosperity, had been maintained. The people were industrious, because all must work to live; they were honest, because there was no temptation to steal; they were not miserly, because they had no money to hoard; they were hospitable, because every man expected to need the kindness of his neighbor; and they were moral both on account of a public sentiment created by the mission and Hudson's Bay Company's influence, and from the absence of temptation. In such a community there is strength; and had there been neither Indian war nor gold-discovery, the same organization might have continued to stand for a generation without further assistance from the general government.[1]
- ↑ 'In the din of battle it also stood the test. It declared and successfully waged war to redress the unprovoked wrongs the citizens had suffered; from its own resources, without extraneous aid, it levied the necessary troops; in the hour of danger its citizens responded to the call of their constituted authority. The Cayuse war was probably the most important historic feature of the period. By it was fully demonstrated, not only the inherent strength of the provisional government, the unity of feeling it had engendered, its entire capability to meet the requirements of the people, but the inciting cause of the war had been the constant surrounding of the pioneers.' Evans, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1877, 34. 'The men of the "forty's" were no common men; they would have been men in any country; they had been winnowed out of a great nation, a chosen band. They came as a community with all the necessary characteristics to establish a well-organized government; this they put into operation as soon as they arrived—rocked the cradle of the infant provisional government—nurtured and trained the rapidly developing youth of the "territorial government."' Brown's Autobiography, MS., 33. 'Thirty
