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History

The issue on which the first delegate to congress elected in Oregon, Samuel B, Thurston, received his majority, was that of the anti-Hudson s Bay Com pany sentiment, which was industriously worked up by the missionary element, in the absence of a large number of the voters of the territory, notably of the Canadians, and the young and independent western men.

22 Thurston was besides a democrat, to which party the greater part of the population belonged; but it is the testimony of those who knew best that it was not as a democrat that he was elected.

23 As a member of the legislature at its last session under the provisional government, he displayed some of those traits which made him a powerful and useful champion, or a dreaded and hated foe.

Much has been said about the rude and violent manners of western men in pursuit of an object, but Thurston was not a western man ; he was supposed to be something more elevated and refined, more cool and logical, more moral and Christian than the peo ple beyond the Alleghanies; he was born and bred an eastern man, educated at an eastern college, was a good Methodist, and yet in the canvass of 1849 he introduced into Oregon the vituperative and invective style of debate, and mingled with it a species of coarse blackguardism such as no Kentucky ox- driver or Missouri flat-boatman might hope to excel.

24 Were it more effective, he could be simply eloquent and impressive; where the fire-eating style seemed likely to win, he could hurl epithets and denuncia tions until his adversaries withered before them.