POLITICAL PARTIES IN OREGON 29 right and privilege to furnish the next Representative. At the same time, it passed the resolution : "It is indispensable to the unity, harmony and success of the Union organization that we ignore all local issues and political divisions on local in- terests, which only inure to the advantage and success of fac- tionists and the common enemy !" 2 9 A good example, this, of the difficulty, which characterized the period, of harmonizing political theory and practice. As the war advanced the polit- ical considerations party, personal and sectional tended to en- croach more and more upon the purely patriotic. The Union State Convention heartily endorsed the war meas- ures of the Administration, including especially the, Emancipa- tion Proclamation. The prospective amendment to the Consti- tution abolishing slavery was championed. The Amnesty Proc- lamation was approved as a peace measure both honorable and magnanimous. Locally, a resolution was adopted against tax- ing mines "a Morgan for the election to catch miners' votes for somebody."^ It was the one concession granted to the Southern Oregon voters. On the first ballot for nomination of a Congressman to suc- ceed J. R. McBride, the leading candidates and the votes given them were: McBride 11, W. C. Johnson 9, Dr. Wilson Bowl- ley 4, O. Humason 15, J. H. D. Henderson 34, Joel Palmer 10, Orange Jacobs 25. 3I The fifth and deciding vote stood: Hen- derson 60, Palmer 31, Jacobs 21. Henderson, a Presby- terian minister and a school teacher, might be consid- ered a charter member of the Republican party and rep- resented the radical element in it. This was his first appear- ance in politics, except for his canvass for a seat in the legis- lature in 1854 on the Maine Law ticket. Sectional jealousies were largely responsible for the defeat of McBride for renom- ination. Oregon was at this time asking for a branch United States mint and McBride's disposition toward having it located 29 Oregon Sentinel, March 19, 1864. 30 Deady to the San Francisco Bulletin. 31 Proceedings, in Statesman, April 4.
