Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/343

Slavery Question in Oregon. 315 boss-doniiuated and exclusive variety, like those in the Wil- lamette. They had minds of their own and spoke their opin- ions freely, even respecting slavery, which was then a mooted question among them, and as many of them were from the Southern States, the pro-slavery sentiment was very strong in the county. They did not fear that discussion of the question would compromise their standing as citizens or DemocratSj and so the social cleavage did not follow party lines. Litigants cared nothing about the politics of an attorney-at-law ; so that he could succeed before a court and jury. Every question stood upon its own merits in Rogue River Valley. Likely this dissimilarity resulted from isolation, for the people of that mountain-framed valley were far removed from the settle^ ments north and south of it. Three days' travel over a diffi- cult mountain road and through a twelve-mile canyon, almost impassable in the wet season, separated them from the Umpqua, and nearly as far over a higher range of mountains they were compelled to travel to reach the settlements in California. No doubt the Rogue River people felt the inde- pendent spirit which characterizes sequestered peoples the world over. As they depended upon getting their merchan- dise from San Francisco by another mountain road from Cresent City, a port on the Pacific, there was talk at one time among them of asking to be annexed to California, but this was before General Hooker was detailed by the Govern- ment to improve the road through the twelve-mile canyon, leading northward to the Umpqua and Willamette. It has been observed that mountains, rivers, and seas make enemies of nations that would otherwise be friends, and this fact depends, no doubt upon the estranging effect of non-inter- course. I was amused at one time in the '50s upon hearing Ben Harding remark that the Democratic members of the Legislature from Jackson County had no politics but Jackson County. Likely he experienced some difficulty in managing them with reference to party interests. And likely, too, theii) independence of spirit was the result, in some degree, of the large per cent of the gold-mining population, whose minds