LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
346
the fertile regions north of the Columbia and about Puget Sound, served to goad a few families to find homes in that
The stream of migration, started in 1842, continued unabated until the news of gold in California turned the greater flood in that direction in 1849 and the years following. country.
Such was the volume of emigrants that in the debates in Congress as early as 1845-6 ten thousand was freely stated A as a conservative figure for the population in Oregon. memorial in 1848 said that there were 12,000 American citizens in the territory, and Governor Lane's census of 1849 showed a population of 8,785 Americans, and at that time the exodus had started. The first actual enumeration, in showed a total non-Indian population of 13,294, hence it is probable that the estimate of the Provisional Government in 1848 was not more than twenty per cent, above the actual
to California
1850,
figure.
The great increase in population obliged the people of Oregon to modify their organic laws. The Utopian scheme of a government supported by voluntary contributions, however well would have continued to operate with the original parties to the compact, proved inadequate as soon as the new comers, it
unfamiliar with the situation, were on the ground. In 1844 the Legislative Committee levied a tax of one-eighth of one
per cent, on certain improvements and on some commodities; all who refused to pay were to have none of the benefit of the laws of
Oregon and were
2 not,-io vote.
In the revision
of the organic laws in 1845 the legislative body was specifically given power to "pass laws for raising a revenue, either by the levying and collecting of taxes, or the imposing licenses on
merchandise, ferries or other objects." The revision of the organic law in 1845 also brought about a change which gave practically a constitution on the lines of the State constitutions of the time, including the customary bill of rights. 3 Instead of a Legislative Committee there was to
be a House of Representatives composed of not 2 Act given in White's 3 Ibid., 358-67.
Ten Years
in Oregon, 347-9.
less
than
