1849 he introduced into Oregon the vituperative and invective style of debate, and mingled with it a species of coarse blackguardism such as no Kentucky ox-driver or Missouri flat-boatman might hope to excel.[1] Were it more effective, he could be simply eloquent and impressive; where the fire-eating style seemed likely to win, he could hurl epithets and denunciations until his adversaries withered before them.[2]
And where so pregnant a theme on which to rouse the feelings of a people unduly jealous, as that of the aggressiveness of a foreign monoply? And what easier than to make promises of accomplishing great things for Oregon? And yet I am bound to say that what this scurrilous and unprincipled demagogue promised, as a rule he performed. He believed that to be the best course, and he was strong enough to pursue it. Had he never done more than he engaged to do, or had he not privately engaged to carry out a scheme of the Methodist missionaries, whose sentiments he mistook for those of the majority, being himself a Methodist, and having been but eighteen months in Oregon when he left it for Washington, his success as a politician would have been assured.
Barnes, in his manuscript entitled Oregon and California, relates that Thurston was prepared to go to California with him when Lane issued his proclamation to elect a delegate to congress. He immediately
- ↑ 'I have heard an old settler give an account of a discussion in Polk county between Nesmith and Thurston during the canvass for the election of delegate to congress. He said Nesmith had been accustomed to browbeat every man that came about him, and drive him off either by ridicule or fear. In both these capacities Nesmith was a strong man, and they all thought Nesmith had the field. But when Thurston got up they were astonished at his eloquence, and particularly at his bold manner. My informant says that at one stage Nesmith jumped up and began to move toward Thurston; and Thurston pointed his finger straight at him, after putting it on his side, and said: "Don't you take another step, or a button-hole will be seen through you," and Nesmith stopped. But the discussion proved that Thurston was a full match for any man in the practices in which his antagonist was distinguished, and the result was that Thurston carried the election by a large majority.' Grover's Pub. Life, MS., 96–7.
- ↑ 'He was a man of such impulsive, harsh traits, that he would often carry college feuds to extremities. I have known him to get so excited in recounting some of his struggles, that he would take a chair and smash it all to pieces over the table, evidently to exhaust the extra amount of vitality.' Id., 94.
