Before the adjournment, letters began to arrive from Grover and Smith relative to the prospects of Oregon for admission. They wrote that republicans in congress opposed the measure because the constitution debarred free negroes from emigrating thither, as well as because the population was insufficient, and that an enabling act had not been passed. These objections had indeed been raised; but the real ground of republican opposition was the fact that congress had refused to admit Kansas with a population less than enough to entitle her to a representative in the lower house, unless she would consent to come in as a slave state; and now it was proposed to admit Oregon with not more than half the required population,[1] and excluding slavery. The distinction was invidious. The democrats in congress desired the admission because it would, on the eve of a presidential election, give them two senators and one representative. For the same reason the republicans could not be expected to desire it. Why Lane did not labor for it was a question which puzzled his constituents; but it was evident that he was playing fast and loose with his party in Oregon, whom he had used for his own aggrandizement, and whom now he did not admit to his confidence. The hue and cry of politicians now began to assail him. The idol of Oregon democracy was clay![2]
- ↑ In 1856, when the subject was before congress, Lane said he believed the territory could poll 15,000 or 20,000 votes. It had been stated in the house, by the chairman of the committee on territories, on the 31st of Jan. 1857, that Oregon had a population of about 90,000. Cong. Globe, xxxiv. 520. But the Kansas affair had made members critical, and it was well known be sides that this was double the real number of white inhabitants. Gilfrey's Or., MS., 17–18; Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 39. The population of Oregon in 1858 according to the territorial census was 42,677. The U. S. census in 1860 made it 52,416.
- ↑ In the ten years since the territory had first sent a delegate to congress, and during which at every session its legislature had freely made demands which had been frequently responded to, the interest of congress in the Oregon territory had declined. Then came the allegations made by the highest military authority on the Pacific coast that the people of Oregon were an organized army of Indian-murderers and government robbers, in support of which assertion was the enormous account against the nation, of nearly six million dollars, the payment of which was opposed by almost the entire press of the union. It is doubtful if any man could have successfully contended against
