Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/50

42 W. C. WOODWARD less, the Oregonian declined to acquiesce in such a policy which in general terms it admitted to be logical and necessary. It furthermore opposed Johnson for extreme clemency toward "the rebels" when he had said on his accession that treason was a crime and must be punished with severity. The Oregon Sentinel, which represented the Union party in the southern part of the state, declared the best test of a man's Unionism to be that he was a firm, consistent supporter of the Johnson Administration, exactly as the support of the Lincoln Administration had been the test during the war.54 Even after the veto of the Freedmen's Bureau bill in February, 1866, which marked the decisive break between Johnson and Congress, the Sentinel was conservative and declared its allegiance to the President. It made the statement that of the eight Union papers in Oregon, six favored the veto, agreeing that it was necessary and that the President had not and would not aban- don the Union party and go to the Democracy ; that only one paper had abused President Johnson for his vetoes On February 24, the Oregonian frankly admitted the schism between the President and Congress. It accused Johnson of ignoring the latter; of having pursued a plan which was ob- noxious to a very large proportion of the loyal people of the country ; of recognizing with political power, the rebels. "The Union party does not want to break with President Johnson. It is loth to declare its dissent from his policy. . . . But it will no longer potter with rebels nor will it consent to have the advantages of the great and costly victory it has gained, frit- tered away. . . . We will not abandon the President ; let us wait and see if he will totally abandon us." In a two column editorial, "A Decisive Hour," the Statesman, February 26, treated, rather dramatically,, the opening political feud at Washington. After defending the grounds on which 54 Sentinel, Oct. 21, 1865. 55 Ibid., March 17, 1866. The opposite view is given by Deady in a letter to Nesmith, March 2: "The Statesman sustains the President, but I know of no other Union paper or leading influence that does in this state. I know nothing about the merits of the Freedmen's Bill, but the reasons he gives for its veto I think radically wrong as is his whole theory about the states of the late Southern Confederacy. I suppose you agree with the President and I fancy are a candidate for the Senate."