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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016
Oregon aims to preserve original constitution, warts and all
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — Inside the
white-marble state archives
building, way in the back of a
cavernous room, lies Oregon’s
original constitution. It’s in
poor shape, and among its fad-
ing pages is a clause from an
ugly chapter in the state’s his-
tory that completely conflicts
with its progressive image.
Now, the state is trying to
raise funds from schoolchil-
dren and others to restore the
leather-bound document, and
to buy a special case to pre-
serve and display it, warts and
all. They’ve raised one-tenth of
the amount needed so far.
On a recent morning, State
Archivist Mary Beth Herk-
ert walked past rows of laden
shelves that mechanically shift
at the touch of a button. She
got to a door, spun a wheel like
one on a submarine hatch, and
walked inside a vault. There,
sitting in a box on a shelf, was
Oregon’s founding document.
Herkert carefully opened the
constitution with gloved hands.
Some pages were starting to
fall out. The vegetable ink on
linen paper is fading after 159
years.
It could be even worse, con-
sidering how the document was
kept for decades. For many of
those years, there isn’t even any
record of where the constitution
was stored, Herkert said. She
could not confirm one account
that the constitution was saved
from a fire that destroyed the
Oregon State Capitol in 1935.
“That it is not in awful con-
dition, I think, is pretty remark-
able,” Herkert said. “Until
1990-1991, when we moved
into this building, it never was
in an environmentally con-
trolled space.”
These days, the constitution
is kept with 250 million other
pieces of paper, all at a chilly 65
degrees with 45 percent humid-
ity in the archives building.
AP Photo/Andrew Selsky
Oregon State Archivist Mary Beth Herkert holds Oregon’s original constitution in Salem.
Signed in 1857, it is becoming tattered and torn. Herkert is trying to raise money to restore it,
buy a case to display it and preserve it. The constitution contains a clause prohibiting blacks
from residing in the state, which Herkert calls shameful but says shouldn’t be hidden.
that Oregon had to strike a bal-
ance to achieve statehood, with
America becoming sharply
divided over slavery. Two years
after Oregon became a state in
1859, the Civil War broke out.
The exclusionary clause
remained until it was repealed
in 1927. That history reverber-
ates even now. Oregon’s popu-
lation is only 2.1 percent black,
compared with 13.3 percent for
all of America, according to the
2015 U.S. census.
‘Racialized policies’
In the county that encom-
passes Portland, African-Amer-
icans “continue to live with the
effects of racialized policies,
practices and decision-mak-
ing,” a 2014 report said. The
report by the Coalition of Com-
munities of Color and Portland
State University cited discrim-
ination in housing, school dis-
cipline and the justice system,
and racial profiling by police.
On a recent Friday, several
dozen demonstrators in Port-
land affiliated with Black Lives
Matter accused the police of
racism, and complained of
excessively rough treatment at
a demonstration two days ear-
lier. Demonstrator Nita Kelly
described witnessing racial
profiling, saying that during the
earlier demonstration at City
Hall, police assaulted an Afri-
can-American woman wait-
ing for a light-rail train “simply
because she looked like some-
one who participated” in the
demonstration.
In 1984, Oregon students
raised over $37,000 to re-gild
the golden pioneer statue on
top of the State Capitol. In
the current fundraising drive,
$6,000 has been contributed
so far, Herkert said. A total of
The clause
Written by white men in
1857 after a constitutional con-
vention, it contained a clause
prohibiting black people from
residing in Oregon. That clause
was approved in a popular
vote, along with a ban on slav-
ery. That made Oregon the only
state admitted to the Union
with an exclusionary clause in
its constitution.
“It is a shameful part of our
history, but if you take it in con-
text of what the times were,
we were right before the Civil
War,” Herkert said, adding
Re-elect
Deborah
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serves as the foundational
document upon which Ore-
gon’s progress has been built
since 1857 and continues to be
built today,” Secretary of State
Jeanne P. Atkins said. “It should
be restored, publicly displayed,
and preserved for future Orego-
nians to learn about.”
Herkert doesn’t know if the
racist exclusionary clause will
be highlighted once the consti-
tution goes on display, but she
said it won’t be hidden either.
“We have to remember it’s
our history, and we have to
learn from our mistakes,” she
said.
PARTY
Saturday, October 29 • 4-9pm
Halloween Punch • Food
Boone
State Representative
HD 32, Democrat
Native Oregonian
Rural homeowner in HD 32 since 1974
FUN & MORE!
Costume Contest
451 AVE. U, SEASIDE
503-738-5261
www.seasidegolfcourse.us
BooneforStateRep.org
Paid for by: Boone for State Representative, P.O. Box 637, Cannon Beach, OR 97110
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
T UESDAY E VENING
$60,000 is needed. Officials are
also asking adults to donate on
behalf of schools. Schools that
donate more than $250 will
have their names on a plaque
next to the display.
“The Constitution helps
remind us of our past — both
good and bad — just as it
AP Photo/Andrew Selsky
The leather cover of Oregon’s original constitution, is
shown in Salem. The cover and binding were added years
after the constitution was written in 1857.
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