From Youth to Age as an American. 145 to say here and now, that no resolution you can pass shall bind me to vote for slavery. ' ' The vote was not put, and the meeting dissolved in excitement. I had spoken in time. Two years later I was named to serve in the lower house of the legislature as a representative adopted citizen. I was disappointed in finding a proportion of English-born men indifferent to the success of the national cause in the impending struggle and a few actively in sympathy with seces- sion. This last was true in a greater degree among Irish-born citizens, but I ascribed their feeling to a natural sympathy with the weaker side in the contest ; their born relations to the stronger and harsher rule of England over Ireland being the fundamental cause. Col. E. D. Baker, in his speeches in Ore- gon, but still more in his address in Union Square, New York, represented me better than I could have done myself. As was customary, however, I was expected to state my views to the voters in my own county. Making a "canvass" where there are opposing candidates for every office to be filled, does not admit of many opportunities for making an unimpassioned statement of views on all the important ques- tions usually pending in the public mind, but in Oregon in 1862 the question that overshadowed all others was fealty to the United States Government. The one opportunity for me to state my position was made for me by unfair treatment. There were so many of us, that in order to give all a chance, fifteen minutes were allotted to each. At Silverton the sympathy with secession was strong and somewhat unruly. It happened my turn came last, and the man immediately preceding me unjustly used an hour and twenty-five minutes, during which time I was wedged in the middle of the crowd between two-young advocates of seces- sion, who vaunted their readiness to fight for their principles back and forth across me. To say that I was hot when I got a chance to mount the goods-box used as a rostrum, is to put it mildly. I told my audience that I had been constrained to listen to much talk in justification of secession and boasting of readiness to fight for it because the boasters had been born
