Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/366

CHAPTER XIV.

GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT.

1854–1855.

Resignation of Governor Davis—His Successor, George Law Curry—Legislative Proceedings—Waste of Congressional Appropriations—State House—Penitentiary—Relocation of the Capital and University—Legislative and Congressional Acts Relative Thereto—More Counties Made—Finances—Territorial Convention—Newspapers—The Slavery Sentiment—Politics of the Period—Whigs, Democrats, and Know-nothings—A New Party—Indian Affairs—Treaties East of the Cascade Mountains.

 

In August 1854 Governor Davis resigned. There was no fault to be found with him, except that he was imported from the east. In resigning, he gave as a reason his domestic affairs. He was tendered a parting dinner at Salem, which was declined; and after a residence of eight months in the territory he returned to the states with a half-declared intention of making Oregon his home, but he died soon after reaching the east. Although a good man, and a democrat, he was advised to resign, that Curry might be appointed governor, which was done in November following.^[1]

Curry was the favorite of that portion of the democratic party known as the Salem clique, and whose organ was the Statesman. He followed the Statesman's lead, and it defended him and his measures, which were really its own. He was a partisan more through necessity than choice, and in his intercourse with the people he was a liberal and courteous gentle-

1. Lane's Autobiography, MS., 59; Or. Statesman, Dec. 12, 1854; Amer. Almanac, 1855–6, 1857–9.

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