FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON Phelps
(Vt), Whigs, and Bright
(Ind.),
285
and
Dickinson
(N. Y.), Democrats, for the North.
The committee immjediately proceeded to its work, but it found nearly as much difficulty in reaching a basis of compromise as had the Senate
itself. In the first place an unacceptance of the compromise line (36 30') was rejected, but Dickinson suggested a modification of what he had proposed on the floor of the Senate chamber; that is,
qualified
non-interference with the question in New Mexico and California. Upon this basis the committee reached a tentative proposition of the following nature: the existing land laws which prohibited slavery in Oregon were to be left in force until altered
New
by the
territorial legislature; in
California and
Mexico the
legislative power should be vested in a Governor, Secretary and three Judges for each territory, and these men should be restricted by Congress from legislating
slavery, leaving the question, if it should to the Calhoun, who was brought to conarise, judiciary. ference with the President through the mediation of Colonel
upon the question of
38
Franklin H. Elmore of Charleston, told Polk, who approved the plan, that he would support the proposition much dethe President who would the pended upon appoint judges who be men northern for but for the other two might Oregon
territories they
must be southerners
in
order that the southern
views on slavery might be maintained. "The tone of his conversation," wrote Polk, "on this point seems to be designed to elicit a pledge
from me to
I at once felt the this effect. promptly replied that that was a subject upon which I could not speak, that if the laws passed in the form suggested I would do my duty, and jocosely added that my friends, as Gen'l Harrison's Cincinnati committee in 1844 [1840?] said for him, must have a 'generous
delicacy of
my
situation
&
confidence' that I would do so." Elmore had asked Polk to request Calhoun to 38 Polk, Diary, IV, 17-24. (he had not done so since the Oregon treaty of the year before) but Polk that the Senator was an older man and had been longer ini public life, and a request of this sort would make it appear that he was seeking some sort of influence over him; he would, however, be glad to see Calhoun.
call
said
