184 DOROTHY HULL
we could not have by and of ourselves? Let us think before we act. The growing disparity of habits between us and the Atlantic States, and the pecuniary advantages or disadvantages of a separation from the states are not the only questions which ought to be considered. Is it policy for us to join a government, the different sections of which are even now antipodal on a most exciting question, and which are cultivat- ing a spirit of disunion by their altercations?
"Do we wish to embroil ourselves in the agitation of a ques- tion which might be totally foreign to us? This agitation may cease, and in the name of heaven we hope it may but present aspects are most cheerless. Looking at this question coolly and dispassionately, that is, the policy of uniting ourselves to a gov- ernment already shaken by civil feuds and sectional dissensions, and which we should enter into by an entrance into the Union, and which we could avoid by refusing to bind ourselves by any closer ties, we are compelled to ask seriously, what is our duty in this respect to the present and future of Oregon. These questions may be deemed visionary by fogyism, so was that of the separation of the United States even after Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill had been wet with crimson dew, yes, and until after the Continental Congress had assembled at Philadelphia."
Carefully laying the burden on the shoulders of an over- ruling Providence, Oregon's Democratic leaders, with these facile arguments, tentatively broached the subject of the Pacific Coast Republic.
The leaders of opposing political complexion were not slow to take up the challenge. The Oregonian (Whig) was par- ticularly bitter in its denunciation of these Revolutionary ideas. An editorial headed, "Revolutionary Filibustering in a ne'w direction," ran as follows: 1
"Four years ago we repeatedly told the people of Oregon that the leaders of the self-styled Democratic Party designed at no distant day to throw off their allegiance to the United
i Oregonian, July 28, 1855. Thomas J. Dryer, editor.
