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POLITICAL PARTIES IN OREGON 345 to observe a manifest disposition on the part of some who had professed themselves Union men, to discourage the Union ticket. It was intimated that a movement was on foot to put a People's Union ticket in the field, which was stigmatized as a covert attack on the loyal spirit of the state and designed alone to render assistance to the secession party, falsely styling themselves Democrats. 1 Editor J. H. Slater of the Corvallis Union issued a call to the Democracy of the state to meet in convention at Corvallis, April 15. The invitation to participate was made to include all "who are opposed to the political policy of the present Admin- istration and who are in favor of the establishment of the Union as it was and the supremacy of the Constitution as made by the Fathers of the Republic." The Argus charged that the use of the past tense of the verb in "was," was an acknowledgment that the Union had ceased to exist and was a recognition of secession. 2 The keynote of the whole ob- struction policy of the Oregon Democracy as now constituted was given in the reference to the supremacy of the Constitu- tion. That the Democratic call was largely signed and by many former Douglas Democrats who had refused to join the Union movement, is indicated in the following paragraph from the Argus of March 1 : "Some are expressing surprise at the large number of names attached to the rebel call for a seces- sion convention at Corvallis that were formerly of what were called the Douglas Democrats." The following was the ticket nominated at Corvallis: for Congressman, A. E. Wait; governor, John F. Miller; printer, A. Noltner; secretary, Geo. T. Vining; treasurer, J. B. Greer. Of these men, Wait was the only one who had been considered as a Douglas Democrat and he was not distinctively so. The editor of the Dalles Mountaineer was a delegate to the con- vention and a participant in its proceedings. The characteri- zation of the situation by him, which may be credited with 1 Oregonian, May 10. 2 Argus, Feb. 15.