Why were some of these fine, moral pioneers so keen on slavery?What was going on in their heads--if anything?



    By the letter of our correspondent, published Monday, it appears that the Oregon convention has adjourned, and the question of slavery or no slavery is to be submitted to a vote of the people. This is in accordance with the principles recognized in the compromise measures of 1850, and more clearly enunciated by the Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1854. It is the true reading of the doctrine that the people of a Territory shall be left to determine the character of their institutions for themselves, when they come to form a state constitution. It is, too, the true construction of squatter sovereignty.
    Our correspondent confidently expresses the opinion that the question will be decided overwhelmingly in the negative. In this opinion we concur, but we see by the preparations making that the opponents of the institution are not to be permitted to walk over the course. There are to be some vigorous efforts made in behalf of slavery, even in the latitude of Oregon. In this we confess our disappointment. Into a country so remote from any slave state, with a climate and soil not adapted to the growth of those great staples which are peculiarly the product of slave labor, we have never supposed that reasonable men could be found who would advocate the introduction of the institution of slavery. Indeed, we have doubted whether one man could be found to advocate the introduction of slavery into a community where it was not recognized by law. In this, too, we find ourselves mistaken. There are men in Oregon who avow themselves in favor of introducing slavery, with its ills, its anxieties and its blighting influences.
    Slavery on the Gulf of Mexico, where cotton, cane, rice and tobacco are made, and where the scorching sun and immense swamps render it almost impossible for the white man to live and labor in the field, may be considered an institution which a kind of overruling necessity forces upon the people. At any rate, the institution is there--inherited by the present generation; they could not, if they would, rid themselves of it, and would not if they could; therefore, it is natural and proper for people emigrating from a state bordering on the Gulf to a territory lying west, to carry slavery with them, and establish the institution by law in said territory.
    But Oregon occupies a vastly different position. She is located a long distance from any slave state, in a northern latitude, which is in the highest degree favorable to the labor of the white man. Her soil produces in agriculture those articles upon which his labor can be most profitably expended. Under this condition of things, the laboring white man in Oregon, we conclude, will never commit the folly of voting to introduce slave labor into the state. To believe him capable of so doing is to give him the credit of having parted with his natural instincts.
    Upon the profit and loss side of the question, the Jackson[ville] (Oregon) Sentinel thus discourses:
    "As to the expediency or policy of slavery in Oregon, that can and will be estimated by dollars and cents, and the cost of a slave should be compared to the amount of capital at interest, taking as a data that a slave will cost in Oregon $1,200. Now, that amount of money at ten percent interest per annum will make $120 per year profit to the owner, and if in the hands of a money lender, he may loan it in some instances at two percent per month. In that case it will amount to $24 per month, but this is hardly a fair case, for all men cannot become money lenders, for the best reason in the world: there would then be no borrowers. Rated at the last mentioned high rate of interest, the labor of the slave would be worth more than the interest on the amount of money the slave would cost."
    The question of "dollars and cents" is really but a small portion of the consideration coming under review, when arguing the proposition to introduce slavery into a community where it does not exist. But upon that branch the argument is excessively weak--the reasoning fallacious. "All men cannot become money lenders," says the Sentinel; it might, with equal truth, have added that all men cannot become slave owners in a slaveholding community. It is the few, and not the many, who own slaves where the institution exists; and the few, per necessity, become the aristocracy of the land.
    Those who own slaves must also provide themselves with more land than those need who cultivate their own farms. The slave owner, being a capitalist, must also have the best land, or the labor of his slave cannot be made as profitable as to loan out the $1,200 paid for him. Large tracts of land cause a country to be sparsely populated in a slave state; they place white neighbors at a distance from each other. This produces an unfavorable social condition, and destroys, as a general rule, all prospects of the success of a common school system. The poor white man who has his family to support, not being able, from want of capital, to compete with the slaveholder in buying good land, is gradually forced to take up with that which is classed poor, and which the slaveholder does not want.
    In political economy a negro is considered as property--capital invested. He is as much a machine as the spinning jenny, and the profits of his labor are considered as the interest paid to the owner upon the money invested. The returns of his year's work are, therefore, not the product of labor, but of capital. Whenever his work is brought into competition with the labor of the white man, it becomes at once a rivalry--a contest between the capital of the rich man, in the form of negroes, and the labor of the white man without capital. This result cannot be avoided; it may be traced in any slave state, and hence we consider it next to impossible for any white man in Oregon, who works to support himself and family, to vote to introduce slavery into that new state.
    There is another dollar and cent consideration which weighs heavily against slavery, and that is, to judge from the past history of the western states, that in ten years the land in Oregon, as a free state, will be twice as valuable as it would be were slavery incorporated in the constitution. This, in a great degree, is owing to the fact already mentioned, that slaveholders most generally own much larger tracts of land than non-slaveholders. On each tract but one improvement for a family is usually needed. The negroes live in cabins near the residence of the master. But when a country is cultivated by the labor of the white man, every head of a family strives to procure a piece of land; the country is cut up into small farms, and on every one there must be put sufficient improvements to accommodate a family. The land is vastly better cultivated, the production of the state greatly added to, and the taxable value of the soil and improvements very much augmented. This is only one view of the case, but even with this, it seems to us impossible for a laboring white man to vote to bring into competition with his labor the money of the capitalist in the shape of negro property.
Sacramento Daily Union, September 30, 1857, page 1


    The thirty-second ection of the Bill of Rights in the Oregon Constitution declares that the Legislative Assembly shall have power to restrain and regulate the immigration to this state of persons not qualified to become citizens of the United States. This points to the slave trade.
"The Latest News," New York Daily Tribune, February 14, 1859, page 4


    SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES.--Gen. Lane, of Oregon, thus expresses himself upon this question: In regard to the perplexing question of slavery, I hold that Congress has no power to legislate on the subject; that Congress can neither establish nor prohibit slavery in the territories; that the territories are the common property of the states of the Union, and while in a territorial condition, the people of all the states have equal rights in the enjoyment of such property as they may bring to the territories--otherwise there could be no equality of states; and further, I hold that the Legislative Assembly of a territory have no right, by non-action or hostile legislation, to exclude slavery from a territory, or, in other words, Congress cannot authorize a Legislative Assembly to do that they could not do themselves; and, that the Assembly can do nothing that Congress itself could not do. But I hold, also, that when the people of a territory come to form a state government, they then have the right to establish or prohibit slavery; and whatever their decision at that time may be on that question, Congress should admit the state into the Union regardless of that decision.
San Joaquin Republican, Stockton, California, May 7, 1859, page 2


    THE NEW PACIFIC GOVERNMENT.--The Times, of San Francisco, makes a somewhat startling announcement. It is informed that several turbulent politicians of San Francisco have lately met in conclave to decide upon the mode and means of separating California from the Union, and setting up on this coast a government of their own choice. "It is further stated," remarks the Times, "that these plotters are not agreed upon the plan which shall be finally adopted to give their movement effect. But on certain essentials they are unanimous. In the first place they discard universal suffrage, and repudiate the people as a basis of power. Secondly, labor must be performed by a servile class, and therefore the immigration of Coolies, South Sea Islanders and Negroes is to be encouraged, who are to be reduced to slavery immediately upon their arrival. If, in the expected secession of the South from the American Union, a line of slavery territory from Texas to the Pacific can be kept open, a majority of the conspirators favor an immediate combination with a Southern Confederacy. But another portion, in view of the probable wars in which the aggressive policy of these states will involve all their allies and confederates, favor the establishment of an empire at once, or an aristocratic system on the Venetian plan, which, while providing for an elective executive, deposits all power in the hands of the hereditary nobles."
Oregon Statesman, Salem, December 10, 1860, page 2


    A history of the slavery question in Oregon, its effect upon social and commercial conditions, and its influence upon men and events would fill, three times over, the generous space which the Oregonian today devotes to the story of the admission of Oregon. A rapid survey of the issue must, therefore, serve the purposes of this article. The slavery question came west with the earliest immigrants and held its share of public attention until it was forever settled by the 13th amendment.
    Fifty-six years ago Oregon territory was jointly occupied by the United States and Great Britain. When the two nationalities were not at war with one another they were fighting their common foe, the Indian. In 1843 the people got together long enough to organize a provisional government for "purposes of mutual protection, and to secure peace and prosperity among ourselves . . . until such time as the United States of America extend their jurisdiction over us." Organic laws were adopted at Champoeg July 5. Article 5 of section 1 of those laws was the forerunner of the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The two provisions, placed side by side for comparison, follow:

OREGON ORGANIC LAWS.		THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.
There shall be neiher slavery nor		Neither slavery nor involuntary
involuntary servitude in said territory,		servitude, except as a punishment for
otherwise than for the punishment of		crime whereof the party shall have been
crimes, whereof the party shall have been		duly convicted, shall exist within the
duly convicted		United States, or any place subject to
		their jurisdiction.

    It should forever be a source of pride to Oregonians that the great principle of humanity comprehended in the Missouri Compromise and the Thirteenth Amendment was the organic law of Oregon more than 23 years before it found its way into the Constitution of the United States. Standing by itself, it affords a convincing index of the sturdy character of the men who forced abandonment of the dangerous chimera of joint occupancy and saved Oregon territory to the sovereignty of the United States.
    The first legislation pertaining to slavery, free negroes and mulattoes was enacted by the legislative committee June 27, 1844. The members of that committee--which should not be confounded with the executive committee--were:
    Tualatin district--Peter H. Burnett, David Hill, M. M. McCarver, M. Gilmore.
    Champoeg district--Daniel Waldo, T. D. Keizur, Dr. Robert Newell.
    Clackamas--A. L. Lovejoy.
    On June 23 the rules were suspended for the special purpose of permitting Burnett to introduce, without previous notice, an anti-slavery bill. The bill was railroaded through and was passed on the 27th by the following vote:
    "Ayes--Burnett, Gilmore, Keizur, Waldo, Newell and Mr. Speaker McCarver--6.
    "Nays--Lovejoy, Hill--2."
    Burnett, the author of the bill, was a Missourian. He moved from here to California, and was, from December 30, 1849, to January 8, 1851, California's first governor under American rule. His bill prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, and was aimed as much at free negroes as at slavery. Its principal provisions were: Slaves were required to be removed from Oregon by their owners three years after being brought here. Failure by the owner to comply with this requirement would have the effect of making the slave free. Free negroes in Oregon at the time of the passage of the act, or any that came thereafter were compelled, if they were 18 years old, or upward, to leave in two years, if males, and three years, if females. If they were under 18 they were to have three years from the time they reached that age. By section 6, free negroes or mulattoes who failed to depart could be arrested upon a warrant issued by any justice of the peace; and, if upon trial, a negro was found guilty of being unlawfully in the territory, he should "receive upon his or her bare back not less than 20 nor more than 39 stripes, to be inflicted by the constable of the proper county." If any free negro or mulatto failed to quit the country within six months after being thus punished it was provided that the punishment should be inflicted once every six months until the culprit left. In December following the executive committee recommended that the legislative committee abolish the corporal punishment provisions of the law and instead require bonds for good behavior. The amendment was made.
    Although Chief Justice Thomas Nelson, of the territorial court, sustained the constitutionality of the Burnett law, there is no record that corporal punishment was ever inflicted. Two negroes were, however, found guilty of being in the country contrary to law and were ordered to leave. The names of the exiles were Winslow and Vanderpool A negro named Saul was also proceeded against before Justice Robert Moore, of Tualatin district, in 1844, for threatening to incense the Indians against the whites. He was found guilty. Thurston, the territorial delegate, defended the law when questioned in Congress. He justified it on the ground that the negroes incited the Indians to commit depredations. All of which was more or less untrue.
    Governor Curry, in his message to the territorial legislature of 1856, dealt as follows with slavery in general:
    "The election for President of the United States has just transpired, with more excitement than is usually incident to this quadrennial occurrence. For the first time in the history of the nation the candidate of a purely sectional party, powerful in numbers, has been sought to be elevated to power. The consequence of this was to have been foreseen. The whole nation was convulsed and the Union threatened with dismemberment in the event of the success of that party. But, fortunately for the country, the candidate of the Democratic Party has been elected. This party, the party of progress, from the triumph of its principles in the successful achievement and application of its measures for the public good has become pre-eminently the party of the Union and the Constitution--the preserver of the republic."
    A bill to prohibit negroes and mulattoes from settling in Oregon was considered in committee of the whole of the house on January 8 and 9, 1857. The bill was a straddle and satisfied neither the pro-slaveryites or the anti-slavery people. While the bill was under discussion one member, who favored slavery, said he would vote against the measure as it would prevent slave owners coming to Oregon with their "niggers." The feature of the session of January 9 was the speech of Delazon Smith, of Linn County, the great apostle of Democracy, against the bill. Mr. Smith indulged in considerable spread-eagleism in which he said that he was "prepared as an individual to vote against slavery in Oregon." He did not reveal what he, as a Democrat, was bound to do. The loquacious Delazon had foresight enough to understand that it was too early to put his meat on the fire. The general sentiment was that the question of slavery should be left open until statehood. So the committee arose and reported unfavorably on the bill. The house, by a vote of 22 to 4 and 2 absent, adopted the report.
    In June, 1857, the "old reliable Democracy" threw down the gauntlet, and let it be known that it wanted slavery. No more opportune time could have been selected, for the session of the constitutional convention was approaching and the questions involved in statehood were taking form. The definite declaration of the position of the Democracy came from the Occidental Messenger, published at Corvallis by Mr. Avery, and known to old timers, particularly to readers of the Oregonian, as "Avery's Ox." This is what the Messenger said:
    "Upon the question of domestic slavery now agitating the public mind of Oregon from one extent of the territory to the other, we cordially and frankly avow ourselves in favor of the institution. We not only believe it to be right in principle, but believe that the prosperity of this portion of the Pacific Coast depends in a great degree upon its adoption here in our embryo state. We desire to awaken the people of Oregon fully to the importance of this subject. African slavery is the conservative feature in our system of government. It is recognized by our federal constitution and the tribunals of the country, and must be maintained--broadly maintained, or the historian may now be alive who will record the dissolution of 'the most beautiful system of government ever devised by the ingenuity of man.'
    "The slavery representation in the United States Senate needs strengthening--the preponderance being in favor of the free states--and a fine opportunity is now presented to restore the equilibrium by the admission of Oregon with a slavery clause."
    The foregoing editorial from the Occidental Messenger correctly represented the sentiment of the Joe Lane Democracy at that time. Had the Democratic majority in the constitutional convention the courage of the writer of the editorial, Oregon would undoubtedly have asked for admission as a slave state. Why it did not and why the dominant political power of those days dodged the question, is fully described in the subdivision of this article which treats of the session of the constitutional convention.
    If the Democrats dodged the question in the constitutional convention, they did not overlook the opportunity to get a slavery law through the territorial legislature of 1857-58. After the constitution had been adopted, and the people of Oregon had, within five weeks, placed themselves unequivocally against free negroes or bond negroes, Representative William Allen, of Yamhill County, had the audacity to introduce in the house, on December 16, a resolution directing the speaker to appoint a committee of three to report "what legislation was necessary to protect the rights of persons holding slaves in this territory." The preamble recited that the supreme court of the United States had decided that Congress was without power to prohibit the introduction of slavery into the territories. It set forth, also, that slavery was tolerated by the Constitution of the United States.
    The Allen resolution was debated at length and indefinitely postponed by a vote of 17 to 9.
    Mr. Allen immediately changed his tactics. On January 9, 1858, he introduced a bill to protect slave property. A summary of it follows:
    Section 1. Slaves are personal estate.
    Sec. 2. No person shall entice or carry away a slave without the consent of the owner thereof.
    Sec. 3. Persons convicted of a violation of section 2 shall cause such slave to be returned to his owner and pay all damages in consequence, and the costs of prosecution.
    Sec. 4. When slaves are taken out of the territory in violation of this act, the persons so convicted shall be liable to the owner for the value of the slave, with costs.
    Sec. 5. Any person may apprehend any negro or mulatto suspected of being a runaway slave.
    Sec. 6. Every slave found more than 20 miles from home is a runaway.
    Allen's bill was an audacious scheme to foist slavery upon Oregon, regardless of the rejection of it at the November election. If it had succeeded the law would have been upon the statutes at admission.
    Such was undoubtedly Allen's scheme, and depended for its success upon continued Democratic ascendancy in politics.
    On January 16, 1858, the house went into committee of the whole to consider Allen's bill. Dryer opposed the bill because he was against slavery in any form, and for the additional reason that it was a recognition of slavery, which, said he, did not exist in Oregon.
    Allen answered Dryer in a fiery speech in which he emphatically stated that slavery did exist in Oregon. He said that slaves were even then held in Benton, Polk, Lane and Yamhill counties. Then, throwing back his head, and giving the abolitionist, Dryer, a defiant glance, he delivered himself of this speech, which was more worthy of South Carolina than of Oregon:
    "Well, sir; slave property is here. It then becomes our duty to protect that property, which is recognized by the Constitution of the United States. The organic act of Oregon (July 5, 1843), prohibiting slavery, which the gentleman (Dryer) from Washington and Multnomah affirms is still binding upon the people of this territory, was repealed by the Nebraska bill.
    "Again, it is said by the opponents of this bill that the people of Oregon have decided that they will not have slavery here, and therefore we have no right to legislate upon it. Well, it is true, but how? Black Republican stratagem. It was by introducing the free negro clause that they brought it about. It was a black Republican convention, and it is black Republican doctrine, that gentlemen are using against this bill. Some of the states have had a similar clause in their constitutions and they were rejected by Congress and had to strike out that unconstitutional clause before they could be admitted, and I think you will find it so with Oregon."
    Mr. Allen, foreseeing defeat, killed the bill by withdrawing his motion to adopt the first section. Then suspicion crept into the Democratic councils, and there was no more harmony. The pro-slaveryites, who wanted the Allen bill enacted into law, taunted the free state Democrats with joining hands with the black Republicans. After the adjournment of the legislature Allen's scheme was the subject of discussion and resolutions in nearly every section. The Clatsop County Republican convention met March 6, defined slavery and resolved:
    "That we deem it expedient upon the present occasion to say for the thousandth time that the Republican Party of Oregon and elsewhere claim no right and have no desire to interfere with slavery as it exists in any of the states of the Union; notwithstanding the foul aspersions of our political opponents who have taken especial care to denounce us as abolitionists, Union destroyers, etc., and that if they would first get the beam out of their own eyes they would see that disunionists exist anywhere besides in the Republican Party."
    The slaveryites busied themselves in 1858 in a final effort--the effort which preceded the destruction of the Democratic ship on the rock of slavery--to manufacture sentiment in Oregon in favor of slavery. When the legislature met in December it found itself flooded with petitions to protect slave property. These were referred to the judiciary committee of the house, which included among its members W. W. Chapman, of Lane; W. G. T'Vault, of Jackson; N. H. Cranor, of Linn, and E. D. Shattuck, of Washington and Multnomah. Chapman and T'Vault reported favorably on the petitions and submitted a bill protecting slavery. Mr. Cranor filed a minority report in which he maintained that a territorial legislature had no power to legislate on the question of slavery. Judge Shattuck filed a second minority report, holding that the legislature had power not only to legislate for the protection of slave property, but also to prohibit slavery in the territory. With Judge Shattuck the question of legislation was one of expediency, and he reported against it. Following is the full text of the report of Chapman and T'Vault:
    "The undersigned members of the judiciary committee, to whom was referred the petitions of sundry citizens of Oregon upon the subject of passing a law for the protection of slave property in said territory, have had the same under consideration and respectfully report:
    "That it is our opinion that the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, as pronounced by the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, authorizes the holding of slaves in any of the territories of the  United States; that the Constitution does not authorize Congress to legislate slavery into or out of a territory, but protects a citizen of any of the United States who may think proper to locate in a territory in the possession and use of any property he may be possessed of, which is recognized as property by the Constitution and laws of the state from which he may emigrate.
    "We believe that while a territory remains as a territory it is as much the property of a slave-holding state as it is of a non-slave-holding state, and that the citizens of a slave-holding state have the same constitutional right to convey their slaves to said territory and use them and be protected in their rights as the citizen of a non-slave-holding state has the right to convey any chattel property he may be possessed of to said territory and be protected in his right to such chattel property.
    "We do not believe that Congress, in legislating for a territory, has the constitutional right to decide what class of citizens shall locate in a territory nor what kind of property they shall be possessed of; nor do we believe that any power can be delegated by Congress to a territorial legislature that is not possessed by Congress; therefore the territorial legislature cannot prohibit slavery in the territory, for the inferior cannot exercise power that is not granted to the superior.
    "We do not believe that when Congress does organize a territorial government, extending to the people the right to legislate for their respective territories, that the Constitution of the United States guarantees to the inhabitants of such territory the right to legislate and regulate the manner how any person shall have his property protected, and he shall obtain the possession and control of such property, be the same a slave or any other chattel property.
    "Although your committee has not had the time and opportunity to investigate this subject as its importance requires, yet we are decidedly of opinion that the foregoing hasty conclusions are fully warranted by the Constitution and its legal construction, and beg leave to report the following bill for the protection of slave property in the territory of Oregon and recommend its passage.
    Appended is the text of the slavery bill submitted by Chapman and T'Vault:
    "Section 1. Be it enacted by the legislative assembly of the territory of Oregon that any person or persons who may have brought slaves to this territory, and owning property in such slaves as construed by the supreme court in the 'Dred Scott case,' shall have all the rights and remedies in the several courts in this territory, which are allowed for the protection and recovery of any other personal property of like value.
    "Sec. 2. Every person who shall knowingly hire, harbor, or employ any slave, brought into this territory without the consent of the owner, shall forfeit and pay five dollars to the owner for every day such slave shall be hired, harbored or employed by him, to be recovered by action of debt.
    "Sec. 3. Slaves shall be rated and assessed to the owners thereof as any other personal property.
    "Sec. 4. Any master, commander or owner of any boat or vessel who shall transport any slave out of this territory in such vessel or from one point or place in this territory to any other point or place in the same, in such vessel, without the consent or permission of the person to whom such slave does of right belong, or who has authority to grant such consent or permission, shall forfeit and pay the value of such slave to its owner, to be recovered by action of debt without prejudice to the right of such owner to his action at common law.
    "Sec. 5. Every boat or vessel used in navigating the waters of this territory whose master or owner shall violate the preceding section shall be liable to the same extent that such master, owner, or commander is, and such boat or vessel may be proceeded against for the recovery of such liability."
    The adoption of the Cranor report by the house January 22, 1859, about three weeks before Oregon's admission as a state, dissipated the last hope of the slavery owners for favorable legislation in Oregon. The Democracy was already going to pieces, and its great minds--Deady, Williams, Bush, Nesmith, Harding and others--were drifting away from it and leaving it to its destruction. The ultra-Democratic Party controlled the legislatures of 1868 and 1870, and returned to its rebellious sentiments by rescinding the ratification of the 14th amendment on October 5, 1868, and by rejecting the 15th amendment in 1870. In each case the action of the legislature was taken after the amendments had been declared ratified by the Congress of the United States.
Oregonian, Portland, February 14, 1899, page 10

Last revised November 9, 2025