314 T. W. Davenport. Jacobs ran again the next year, 1855, but a Democratic Legis- lature had in the interim enacted into law the viva voce or open ticket system of voting, the more effectually to prevent Democrats straying away from the party and its principal rendezvous, the saloon, whereby the Maine-law candidate was left far in the rear on election day. The law was aimed mainly at those Democrats who had gone into the Knownoth- ing lodges, but it told as well against any sort of departure from the Democratic fold. The editor of The Statesman said it was to make people honest (ol course, he meant Democrats) ; certainly it made them party slaves. Not all of the Democrats were tipplers, but so large a part of them w^ere that the saloon habit was prima facie evidence of Democracy. And on the other hand, the habit in an anti- slavery Whig raised a doubt as to the genuineness of his politics. Indeed, liberty for the white man was so all-embrac- ing—liberty to make slaves of others, to indulge depraved appetites to the detriment of individuals and society, that Democratic editors declared all so-called sumptuary laws an infringement of personal liberty, and therefore opposed to Democratic principles. The editor of The Argus, Parson Billy Adams, published frequently that the Democratic idea of liberty was merely libertinism. And if we appeal to reason as a guide for human conduct and admit the right of any human being to make a slave of another, have we not removed all limits to the gratification of his personal desires? can any- thing less be denied him? Moral principles are cast aside and the individual wavers and wanders the victim of blind impulse. Finding the law in Marion exclusively Democratic, Mr. Jacobs emigrated to Southern Oregon in August. 1857, and there easily took first place as a public speaker. His arrival was quite opportune, for with this gift and an attractive com- panionship, he gave much strength and adhesiveness to the free-state proclivities in Jackson County. He went into the school house again, but his sphere of lucrative employment was much broadened. The Democrats of Jackson County, though largelj^ in the majority, were not of the shut-mouth,
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