Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/366

338 T. W. Davenport. The Democrats were divided into two hostile camps that year and were fighting each other with a ferocity peculiar to factional quarrels arising from self interest, and so, there was a fine opportunity for the Republicans to make an inning. But lacking a spirited and prominent leader, the work of the state convention was dropped, its nominees resigned, and the party units contented themselves by looking on or voting with the warring Democrats. The nominal division was the reg- ulars (Salem Clique) against the irregulars, and the former won. The leaders of the regulars were in large part Douglas men, and the others got their animus from the Buchanan admin- istration. Likely the offensive proposition turned down in the Repub- lican convention bore fruit, for Colonel Baker, hearing from his Oregon friends directly, or seeing the proceedings of the secret meeting, which were fully reported to the Oregon States- man by an eaves-dropping Democrat, saw his opportunity and emigrated with his family to Oregon in the winter of 1859-60, taking up his residence in Salem, sometime in January. Many of the Oregonians had heard the Colonel on his stumping tours in the Western States, some were old acquaint- ances from Illinois, and all lost no time in greeting him with a hearty welcome and renewing old acquaintance. It was a red-letter time for the inn-keepers of Salem, for there was a general pouring in from all quarters to see and shake hands with the most eloquent American living. And his tact as an entertainer was fully equal to his skill as an orator. There was nothing fussy or fulsome in his manner; he was neither reserved nor effusive ; his hand-shake was not that of a poli- tician or a dilettante. And though he had come among enemies as well as friends, both of whom from different motives were desirous of seeing something to find fault with, they looked in vain and went their way all thinking better of themselves, his political enemies shorn of their animosity and his political friends jubilant in the thought that the stock of the Black Republicans stood at par in the market.