ee who took
an active and influential part in the government, but the shaping of the law was
practically left to the men named.
And it is a most interesting study to go over this early history of the coun- try, and see how these thoughtful and patriotic men evolved a system of laws and government out of the chaos and opposition that environed them, and per- fectly adapted the system to the safety and well being of the infant state. Much was proposed, and sometimes enacted, that was crude and impracticable. And this had to be cut away, little by little, and the method or the principle adopted, which their new and original experience had found to be necessary. And in this way, and by this lamp of experience, these pioneer founders of the state of Oregon carefully and almost painfully steadily groped their way from the po- sition of no law and no organization, to the sure and immovable foundation of a well organized government.
There was not only no law, but there were no law books in Oregon when the pioneers organized their government. And the very first act to provide for laws, rules of action, adopted by the legislative committee on June 27, 1844, shows the extreme care and the profound wisdom, also, of those men of slight education in taking the first step to lay down rules to bind themselves and their neighbors. Article III of section I of the judiciary act, provides: "that all the statute law of Iowa territory passed at the first session of the legislative assem- bly of said territory, and not of a local character, and not incompatible with the condition and circumstances of the country shall be the law of the government unless otherwise modified; and the common law of England and principles of equity not modified by the statutes of Iowa or of this government, and not in- compatible with its principles, shall constitute a part of the law of the land."
Neither Lycurgus or John Marshall could have improved on that. Our pio- neers were exceedingly careful that no one should misunderstand as to what was the law. The first declaration of the law was prepared by what was called the "legislative committee," appointed by the public meeting of the settlers at Cham- poeg, on May 2, 1843. This committee was composed of David Hill, Robert Shortess, Robert Newell, Alanson Beers, T. J. Hubbard, Wm. H. Gray, James O'Neil and Robert Moore ; and not a lawyer on the list. Their report to the subsequent public meeting of the settlers was adopted by the people — the first example of direct legislation in Oregon and the United States. But when a regu- larly elected legislature was convened two years later, to cure any doubt that the laws thus prepared by the legislative committee and adopted by the people were not of binding force, the legislature on August 12, 1845, passed an act re- enacting the laws that had been prepared by the legislative committee.
And thus matters stood until the first session of the legislature after the or- ganization of the territory by congress held at Oregon City, July 16, 1849, when on September 29th, an act was passed "to enact and cause to be published a code of laws." This code consisted of seventy-two acts selected from "the re- vised laws of Iowa of 1843," with some modifications, together with the original acts passed at the same session. The provision for its publication failed. In the spring of 1850 the newly arrived U. S. district attorney (Amory Holbrook) pronounced the act making the selections from the Iowa statutes void because it embraced more than one subject contrary to section 6 of the organic act of August 14, 1848; and to stigmatize the law and make his charge of multifarious- ness stick, he named it the "Steamboat Code"; it carried a miscellaneous cargo.
Then the question arose whether the Iowa laws of 1839 or those of 1843 were the laws of Oregon. Neither of them were ever published in Oregon, for want of a printing press. Some new copies of the laws existed, having been brought from Iowa. Both volumes of the different laws were bound in blue pasteboards, and as the 1839 book was smaller than the 1843 book, they came to be known and called the "big" and the "little" blue books. The disputes as to what was the law entered into politics, and the controversy raged from one end of Oregon to the other. Finally, the United States judges, Matthew P. Deady and 'Wil-
