the county of Clackamas, which tribunal congress had adopted as a territorial court of the United States. The permanent judicial power provided for in the organic act was not in force, or had not superseded the temporary courts, because it had not at that time entered upon the discharge of its duties, Chief Justice Bryant not assuming the judicial ermine in Oregon until the 23d of May 1849, the cases in question occurring in March.[1] To the point attempted to be made later, that there had been no court because of the irregularity of the judges in convening it, he replied that the court itself did not cease to exist, after being established, because there was no judge to attend to its duties, the clerk continuing in office and in charge of the records.[2]
There had been a contest immediately after the establishment of the territorial government concerning the right of the foreign residents to vote at any election after the first one, for which the organic act had distinctly provided, and a strong effort had been made to declare the alien vote of 1849 illegal. The first territorial legislature, in providing for and regulating general elections and prescribing the qualifications of voters, declared that a foreigner must be duly naturalized before he could vote, the law being one of those adopted from the Iowa statutes. One party, of whom Thurston was the head, supported by the missionary interest, strenuously insisted upon this construction of the 5th section of the organic law, because at the election which made Thurston delegate the foreign-born voters had not supported him, and with him the measures of the missionary class.
The opinion of the United States judges being
- ↑ In Pratt's opinion on the location of the seat of government, he reiterates this belief, and says that both he and Bryant held that 'no power existed by which the supreme court could be legally held before the seat of government was established.' Or. Statesman, Jan. 6, 1852. According to this belief, the proceedings of the district courts were illegal for nearly two years.
- ↑ Or. Spectator, May 22, 1851.
