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228 T. W. Davenport. of the p-ront donations of land by the general government, section and half -section claims occupying the valleys of the richest portion of the Territory, and the scarcity and high price of labor, and we may not wonder at their anxiety. They had undoubtedly read in their histories of the frequent attempts of the settlers in Indiana Territory to obtain from Congress a temporary suspension of the anti-slavery ordinance of 1887, so they could obtain laborers to open their timbered farms, but the pioneers of Indiana were restricted in their land holdings as compared with the Oregonians. And it is a highly suggestive circumstance, contrasting strangely with the attitude of the powers at Washington in the year 1856, that John Randolph, a slave-holder of Virginia, wrote the answer denying their request, in part as follows: "In the salutary operation of this sagacious and benevolent restraint, it is believed that the inhabitants of Indiana will, at no very distant day, find ample remuneration for a temporary priva- tion of labor and of emigration. ' ' And one feature of our situation, more disquieting than all others, was the extreme partisanism evinced by the chief organ of the Oregon Democracy, The Oregon Statesman, which, though non-committal in its editorial columns and sparingly permitting communications, pro and con by promi- nent Democrats, yet was engaged so incessantly in a personal, partisan warfare with opposition papers devoted to the free- state cause, thereby subordinating all other questions of a political nature, that its influence must have been to obscure the only issue and befog the voters in its own party. Its editor and owner, Mr. Asahel Bush, an able and educated gentleman from Massachusetts, probably did not as a first choice select that style of journalism, but when it is deter- mined by the party managers to ignore great public questions that are pressing for solution, the so-called "Oregon style" seems to be a necessary diversion. At such times, slang and innuendo, invective and scurrility, are much in demand, and the Oi^egon editors on both sides were deep in the game. The question, "who began it?" was never asked and probably