in Salem, together with the names of the leading members. This publication produced no little excitement. Several gentlemen who had been named as members of the lodge called upon Mr. Bush and declared they would hold him personally responsible if he did not give them the name of his informant. This threat Mr. Bush ignored, and refused to give the makers of it any satisfaction, and it was expected for some days that he would be assaulted, but the expected did not happen. This exposure in the Statesman was a fatal blow to the know-nothing party in Oregon. Determined, however, to make the know-nothings show their hands, the legislature, at its December session, 1854, passed an act requiring all voters at the polls to vote viva voce, that is, to proclaim publicly the name of the candidate for whom they voted. This act, after it had accomplished its purpose, was repealed.
Much of the time of this session was devoted to a controversy about the location of the capitol. Finally a bill was passed locating the capitol at Corvallis and the State University at Jacksonville. A bill was also passed creating Multnomah County, and another submitting to the people the question as to the formation of a state government. Congress had made appropriations for a state house and other public buildings at Salem, and some of these buildings were partly constructed when the seat of government was changed to Corvallis, and thereupon the Controller of the Treasury refused to recognize the act changing the capitol, and held that moneys appropriated by congress for public buildings in Oregon could be expended only at Salem.
In the legislature of 1854 a proposition was made to exclude free negroes and Chinese from the territory, and a motion was made by a member from Jackson County to amend the bill so that slaveholders might bring and
