The settlers of that struggling western territory longed to see the American flag floating over them, longed for the time when they should feel secure in person and in property, under the protection of that flag. After the election of James K. Polk, and after the final settlement of the boundary question, they hoped that they would have to wait only long enough for the accomplishment of the legal forms, until they would be a part of the Union, but they were doomed to bitter disappointment.
The summer rolled around and September came, more than a year after the settlement of the boundary question, before any information was received of the doings of the national legislature, in the matter of establishing a Territory in Oregon, and then it was only to inflict further disappointment. The president had, indeed, strongly recommended the establishment of a territorial government in Oregon, and a bill had been reported by Douglas of Illinois, in December, which passed the House the 16th of January, "but there Southern jealousy of free soil nipped it."[1]
Frequent memorials were sent to Congress by the settlers, complaining of neglect, setting forth their inability to deal with the Indians and with criminals.[2] Governor Abernethy, upon his own responsibility sent J. Quinn Thornton to Washington to plead the cause of the territory, an action which aroused much opposition in the American party, for it was felt that Thornton represented the interests of the missions more than those of the territory, and his conduct in Washington shows that such was the case. Not to Thornton, but to Joe Meek is due the credit for final recognition.
"Affairs in Oregon reached a crisis at precisely the same time as in the sister Territory of Texas."[3] This in itself
- ↑ Oregon Spectator, September 8, 1847.
"The stubborn opposition of the South was not due to lack of sympathy, but to a sense of danger to their sacred institutions, from extending the principle of the Ordinance of 1787 to territory acquired since its adoption."—Mason of Virginia in the Congressional Globe, 1847-48, p. 913. - ↑ Brown,Political History of Oregon, Vol. I, p. 141, also p. 250.
- ↑ Lyman, History of Oregon, Vol. II, p. 65.
