Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/162

144 John Minto. It was the love of freedom, more than any other motive, that settled Oregon. The man to whom I gladly became an assistant on the way to Oregon told his kinsmen and neighbors in my hearing that he was going to Oregon, "Where there are no slaves and men will all start even." He and a large ma- jority of those who were here when the Oregon Boundary Treaty was settled in 1846, were what were called "Free Soil Democrats" and believed that a settler on the public domain had all the right to make his local law that a citizen of the oldest State had; and that the man who took another man from a slave State as a slave, into unorganized public domain, made that slave his own equal in natural rights. Being a citizen by adoption, I was free from the influence which being born in a slave State had over good men who had left such States to get away from the institution. Always deeming myself a soldier of and for the United States if the need arose, I never disguised my sentiments but beyond that, took little note of politics. Like a large proportion of foreign-born citizens, I classed myself a Democrat, but never could under- stand how a real Democrat could believe in holding another man in slavery. I watched intently the growth of the seccession sentiment^ and at a primary Democratic meeting held in Salem, first felt constrained to publicly declare my views. The Democrats most active as leaders had a resolution generally submitted soon after a meeting was organized, which bound participants in advance to support the nominees who should be named by the majority present, and this proposition was about to be voted on, as was usual. I got to my feet just in time and said: "Mr. Chairman, I beg to say that I will not support that resolution, and will not be bound by it if it passes." A man called out, ' ' Why V ' "Mr. Chairman, I '11 tell the gentle- man why. Before we can know the names of those whom this meeting is preliminary to nominating, the Charleston Conven- tion will have met to nominate the national officers, and signs point to a division between those who desire to extend slavery and those who are opposed to its extension ; and I wLsh