Chapter I INDEBTEDNESS DUE TO THE NEEDS OF PUBLIC DEFENSE Once only has Oregon dealt with the bond broker, and then the amount of bonds sold was but sixty thousand dollars/ Sev- eral issues of state bonds have been authorized; but they have been made over directly either to the individuals whose claims upon the state's bounty or relief were recognized, or to an agency undertaking a work of public improvement. The narrow limits within which the state has held itself in its use of its public credit have been justified on the ground that there has been no pressing exigency in its history war- ranting the shifting of any considerable burden upon a suc- ceeding generation; neither has any public work or public building been constructed of such monumental character as to make it seemly to share the cost with the generation that fol- lowed. Bond Issues to Volunteers During the Civil War Period — Bounty Bonds. Oregon was admitted as a state on the eve of the opening of the Civil War, but the mountainous mass of indebtedness that the meeting of this crisis brought upon other northern states Oregon to a large degree escaped. Its remote and lonely loca- tion in the Pacific Northwest for once was an advantage; participation in the fierce struggle between the states was denied it through the fact that a two-thousand-mile stretch of wilderness, unspanned by any iron way, lay between it and the scene of conflict. Furthermore, in the composition of its people it was essentially a border state. Neighborhoods were made up almost equally of sympathizers with the opposing sides. Sectional feelings were tense. The only safety lay in mutual restraint/ iLaws of Oregon, 1880, pp. 13-16. 2The anomalous state of the public mind in Oregon at this time is evinced in the history of the first attempt to raise federal troops in 1861. As the regulars had been called East so that only seven hundred remained to garrison the eight forts and temporary posts in Oregon and Washington, Colonel George Wright, com- manding the district of Oregon and Washington, made a requisition upon Governor Whiteaker in the summer of 1861 for a cavalry company to be enlisted for three years, unless sooner discharged. Hostile demonstrations of the Indians east of the Cascades was the special reason given for the call. The Governor had been openly and consistently opposed to "political views" of the party in power, but disavowed any intention of "trammeling the action" of the Government. When the Governor essayed through a recruiting officer, cherishing like sentiments with himself, to raise the troops there was little alacrity of response. The cause of reluctance to enlist might have been economic rather than political. Nevertheless, the national authorities after a few weeks ignored the Governor. The few men that had been enrolled were ordered disbanded and the War Department authorized Colonel Cornelius to raise a regiment for the Oregon District. — Governor's Message and Executive Correspondence, Appendix to House Journal, pp. 4" 2 S«
