ADMISSION OF OREGON 365
the part of the six Senators who voted for the rejection of Oregon to read out of the Republican party the eleven Senators who voted for her admission; and if that attempt is now to be made, we will see whether it is in the power of a minority of the people to read a majority out of the party.
But, sir, who are these people of Oregon, who come here now, asking admission? They are the pilgrims of the Pacific coast. If they are fanatics upon some subjects, we can refer to the pilgrims of the Atlantic coast, who also were fanatics upon some subjects. But, sir, if the pilgrims of the Atlantic coast finally became examples to the world in all that exalts our race, may we not hope that the pilgrims of the Pacific coast may yet become worthy of our esteem?
Nearly one-quarter of a century ago, in my boyhood, I studied the adventures of those men, who founded upon the western shore of the American continent what are now the cities of Oregon and Astoria. These men, who were then in the vigor of their lives, are now old men gray-haired and trembling with age. Their work of life is nearly completed; and this day they are sitting by their hearthstones, waiting to know what is to be the result of our deliberations ; waiting to know whether the proud consummation to which they have aspired for the last twenty years is now reached ; and whether Oregon, which, in toil and trial, in defiance of danger and of death, and with persistence and endurance such as belong only to our race, they have brought to her present proud and pros- perous condition, is now to be placed upon an equality with the original states of this Confederacy.
These are the men who have carried our institutions to the remotest boundaries of our republic. These are the veterans of the art of peace. American valor with conquering arms has carried our flag by Monterey and Chepultepec, until it was planted upon the halls of the Montezumas. But far beyond those halls have these heroes borne the victorious arts of peace. In the Territory of Oregon they have established our free institutions. There, sir, strong and deep, they have laid the
