Oregon Constitutional Convention

Oregon Constitutional Convention
Oregon Constitutional Convention

Seal of the Oregon Territory
Other names Constitutional Convention of 1857
Participants see below
Location Salem, Oregon
North America
Date August 17 to September 18, 1857
Result Created Oregon Constitution

The Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857 drafted the Oregon Constitution in preparation for the Oregon Territory to become a U.S. state. Held from mid-August through September, 60 men met in Salem, Oregon, and created the foundation for Oregon's law. The proposal passed with a vote of 35 for adoption to 10 against. Oregon then became the 33rd state of the Union on February 14, 1859.[1]

Contents

Background

In June 1846 the Oregon Question was decided with the United States gaining sole possession of all disputed land south of the 49th degree of latitude.[1][2] Afterward, on August 14, 1848, the United States government created the Oregon Territory, and in 1853 the northern and eastern sections of the territory became the Washington Territory.[3] In 1854 and 1855 bills in the Territorial Legislature pressing for statehood for the territory were defeated.[2] Then on December 12, 1856, the legislature passed a bill authorizing a convention to establish a constitution.[4] On June 1, 1857, the voters in the territory approved the resolution and elected delegates to a constitutional convention.[4] The vote was 7,209 in favor of holding a convention to 1,616 against the proposal.[5]

Convention

Matthew Deady, president of the convention

On August 17, 1857, 60 delegates selected by the voters met in Salem to write a state constitution in preparation of statehood.[2] This body then selected officers, set up rules (45 in total) for the meeting, and divided into committees on various subjects such as military, judicial, legislative, and elections.[4] At the Convention, Chester N. Terry was elected as the secretary of the group, while several people served at different times as the chairperson including William W. Bristow, Asa Lovejoy, Delazon Smith, and La Fayette Grover.[4] Judge Matthew Deady served as the president of the convention.[4] The group also settled a the debate over a disputed seat at the convention in favor of Perry B. Marple over F. G. Lockhart to represent Coos County.[4] Thirty-four of the delegates were farmers, while 18 were lawyers, including the three justices of the Oregon Supreme Court.[5] Two of the delegates were newspaper editors, five were miners, and another was a civil engineer.[6]

The main debates concerning a constitution revolved around slavery and the exclusion of Blacks, liquor laws, and what would be the boundaries of the new state.[2] After meeting for 31 days, the convention ended on September 18, when the delegates voted to approve the document as the constitution.[7] The final tally was 35 votes for passage and 10 against; 15 members of the convention were absent and did not vote.[2] The document was modeled after Indiana's 1851 Constitution and included a provision that denied the right to vote to “negro, Chinaman or mulatto” citizens in the state to be, and though female suffrage was discussed, women were also denied the right to vote.[6] The final draft submitted to the populace contained a total of 18 articles.[4] Over half of the document's content was derived in part from the Indiana constitution.[8]

Members

All members of the convention and what county they represented:[9]

Subsequent history

On November 9, 1857, the voters approved the document to serve as a state constitution upon statehood.[2] At this same vote, measures to allow slavery and to allow free Blacks to live in the state were defeated[10] after they had been submitted as separate items to vote on by the convention.[2][4] The vote to approve the constitution by the citizens of Oregon was 7,195 for the constitution and 3,215 against the document.[5] The vote on slavery was 2,645 to allow slavery and 7,727 to make it illegal, and the vote to make it illegal for Blacks to live in the state was 8,640 to ban them and 1,081 to allow them to live in the state.[5] All white men over the age of 21 were allowed to vote, and after the passage a delegation was sent east to Washington, D.C. to press for statehood.[7]

Oregon then waited on the United States Congress to accept the constitution and approve Oregon for statehood.[2] Due to the ongoing debate over slavery in the country as the nation approached the American Civil War, the U.S. Senate did not pass legislation to bring Oregon into the Union until 1859, when Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14.[2] The Oregon Constitution was not altered until 1902.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Oregon: The Oregon Question. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on March 2, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corning, Howard M. Dictionary of Oregon History. Binfords & Mort Publishing, 1956.
  3. ^ Establishment of Oregon Territory. HistoryLink.org. Retrieved on March 2, 2008.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the state of Oregon held at Salem, commencing August 17, 1857, together with the constitution adopted by the people, November 9, 1857.. W.H. Byars, Salem, OR. 1882. http://books.google.com/books?id=3CgHAAAAMAAJ. 
  5. ^ a b c d Horner, John B. (1919). Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland.
  6. ^ a b Leeson, Fred. Framing the Constitution – 60 men took 32 days to propose Oregon’s legal foundation. The Oregonian, March 26, 2004.
  7. ^ a b Information The 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention. Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on March 2, 2008.
  8. ^ Friedman, Lawrence M. 1985. A History of American Law, 2nd Edition. Simon & Schuster; New York, NY. p. 347.
  9. ^ Information About 1857 Constitutional Convention Delegates Sought. Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on March 2, 2008.
  10. ^ The constitutional measure forbidding Blacks to live in Oregon, though never enforced, remained on the books until after World War I.

Further reading


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Oregon Territorial Legislature — Seal of the Oregon Territory Type …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon Constitution — The leather cover of the original Oregon Constitution Created September 18, 1857 …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon Supreme Court — State Seal of Oregon Established 1841 Jurisdiction Oregon …   Wikipedia

  • Ohio Constitutional Convention (1802) — Ohio Counties in 1802 The Enabling Act of 1802 was passed on April 30, 1802 by the Seventh Congress of the United States. This act authorized the residents of the eastern portion of the Northwest Territory to form the state of Ohio and join the U …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon Country — Map of Oregon Country The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810,… …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon Territory — Territory of Oregon Organized incorporated territory of the United States …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon pioneer history — Provisional Government of Oregon Salmon Seal. Oregon Pioneer History (1806 to 1890) is the period in the history of the U.S. state of Oregon when pioneers and mountain men, primarily of European descent, traveled west across North America to… …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon Treaty — Map of the lands in dispute The Oregon Treaty[1] is a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States that was signed on June 15, 1846, in Washington, D.C. The treaty brought an end to the Oregon boundary dispute by settling competing… …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon tax revolt — Part of a series on Taxation Taxation in the United States …   Wikipedia

  • Oregon State Seal — The Oregon State Seal is the state seal of Oregon, United States. It was designed by Harvey Gordon in 1857, two years before Oregon was admitted to the Union. The seal was preceded by the Salmon Seal of the Provisional Government and the Seal of… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”