enough to take it, whether leading a column in defense of the weak when the war-whoop shook the nerves of the strong, or as the cynosure of a political campaign. What he did was assumed to be right, at least respectable, and his position with the slave-holding party, though he might not say a word or write a line, exerted a most pernicious influence upon that class of people who are not self -directed. In April, 1855, General Lane was nominated again by his party for Delegate to Congress. On the 18th of the same month ex-Governor John P. Gaines was nominated in opposition by a convention of Know-nothings and Whigs held at Corvallis. The Democrats adopted a platform of principles, but the members of the Corvallis convention did not deem it wise to make any declaration further than "John P. Gaines against the world." There were good reasons for such reticence, however, for Knownothingism was on the wane and the Whig party had passe into the shadow of slavery in the nation, and was losing its hold upon all those who had resolved to resist the further encroachments of the slave power. There were, too, many members of the Freesoil, abolition and temperance parties, who could not be rallied under any declaration in opposHion to their principles, but might vote in opposition to the Democracy.
Both candidates were good speakers and there was a spirited canvass, personal and partisan in the main, but no discussion of the paramount issues then before the country and in which the people of Oregon were vitally interested. The Kansas struggle had begun; the border ruffians had invaded the territory and carried the first election; the squatter sovereignty principle had swept away all barriers to slavery in the territories, thus reviving the question in Oregon, but upon all this or any part of it neither Lane nor Gaines ventured an argument or an opinion. Gaines was more fluent and graceful on the stump, in fact, was almost an orator, and quite gifted in the highly popular art of storytelling, in which his rival was deficient and seldom indulged, a disparity which gave the Whigs a lively hope of victory.
