10A | WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Offbeat Oregon — Surge of confederate refugees changes politics
By Finn J.D. John
for The Sentinel
The urban-rural divide in
Oregon is something that’s
gotten quite a bit of press
recently, after a group of Re-
publican lawmakers left the
state to deny a quorum for a
bill they opposed. But it’s a
problem that’s been around,
in Oregon, since well be-
fore the place even became
a state. And it probably hit
its high-water mark in 1868,
just three years after the Civ-
il War — when an insurgent
majority from the rural party
actually voted to renounce
the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution — the one that
guarantees equal protection
under the law to all citizens,
and establishes automatic
birthright citizenship.
In its earliest beginnings as
a U.S. territory, Oregon was
more or less divided into two
broad categories of people:
homesteaders from Missouri
and surrounding states who
arrived on the Oregon Trail,
who tended to settle in the
rural areas; and Yankee trad-
ers and businesspeople from
New England who arrived by
ship, who established them-
selves in the principal cities.
On the great question of
the 1840s and 1850s — slav-
ery — the rural and urban
Oregonians were essentially
in agreement. The Yankee
traders, of course, found slav-
ery morally repugnant, not to
mention unnecessary. And
the homesteaders, although
they came from slaveholding
states, were adamant about
keeping the institution of
slavery out of the new state,
not for moral reasons but for
economic ones — they saw it
as unfair competition.
But the white pioneers,
on both sides, were still very
much products of their time
— that is, unselfconsciously
racist. And they didn’t want
free blacks competing with
them for land and resources.
This, of course, is why the
Territorial Legislature ap-
proved the infamous “lash
law,” by which black people,
whether slave or free, had to
report every six months for
a beating until they took the
hint and left the state.
The lash law was never
enforced, but it was on the
books in 1844, and was fol-
lowed by other, less egregious
laws calculated to make it
very clear that the opportuni-
ties of the new Oregon lands
were for whites only. And
it’s also why Oregon was the
only state to have entered the
union with a racial exclusion
clause in its actual constitu-
tion — which, although not
enforced, stayed on the books
until the 1920s.
That’s not to say the ur-
ban and rural parties agreed
about everything. Politically,
the Yankees were Republi-
cans and the Southerners
were Democrats. That, obvi-
ously, became a pretty hot is-
sue in the run-up to the Civil
War.
Then, after the war, a tor-
rent of what amounted to
refugees started flooding into
the state from the defeated
South. Lots of Southerners
who had gone into the war
as respected members of
their communities finished
it as penniless tramps. Plen-
ty of them, looking around
their ruined and smoking
communities, decided they
had nothing to lose; so, they
headed west, looking for new
opportunities.
With startling speed, the
balance of power shifted in
Salem.
There followed some par-
tisan wrangling as the dis-
appointed Democrats tried
to pass a resolution taking
Oregon’s consent back. The
Republican majority hasti-
ly circled its wagons, called
in its wandering voters, and
defeated it. The ratification
would stand.
But the Republican major-
ities in the House and Sen-
ate — they would not stand,
at least not for much longer.
As more and more commit-
ted Democrats poured into
Oregon from the ravaged
lands of the Confederacy,
and more and more locals
soured on Reconstruction,
the once-dominant Republi-
cans found themselves sud-
denly on the outside looking
in. And 1868 made it official:
Dems outnumbered Repubs
13 to nine in the Senate, a 59
percent majority; and 30 to
17, a 64 percent edge, in the
House.
Upon arriving in the cap-
itol in full control of the
works, the new Democratic
majority announced three
main goals: (1) to force the
state’s U.S. Senators, Repub-
licans Henry Corbett and
George Williams, to resign so
that they could be replaced
with Democrats; (2) to redis-
trict the state in such a way as
to, as historian Frances Fuller
Victor put it, “increase the
Democratic representation in
certain sections and decrease
the Republican representa-
tion in others”; and (3) to re-
scind the state’s ratification of
the 14th Amendment.
It was an ambitious agen-
da. Corbett and Williams, of
course, declined to comply
with the demand for resig-
nations — although in 1870
Williams came up for re-ap-
pointment and could be, and
was, replaced then.
One assumes the gerry-
mandering went according
to plan, as it usually does; but
it couldn’t have offered them
too much protection, since
the Republicans were back in
power again four years later.
But the rescission of the
state’s approval of the 14th
Amendment: that was the
big one. The Democrats were
basing their move on the
claim that the amendment
had never been legitimately
ratified. The defeated South-
ern states had all voted for
it; but doing so had been a
condition of readmission to
the union. The Democrats
felt that this was like enforc-
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ing a contract that had been
signed at gunpoint. As far
as they were concerned, the
amendment had not yet been
legitimately ratified, and un-
til it was, anyone who wished
to do so could withdraw their
consent.
So, just a day or two into
the session, Sen. Victor Tre-
vitt of Wasco County pro-
posed the bill.
The redoubtable Repub-
lican Harvey Scott, editor of
the Portland Oregonian, was
neither slow nor subtle in his
response to all this.
“In making a raid on the
Fourteenth
Amendment,
Sen. Tappertit Trevitt’s evi-
dent object is to strike a blow
at ‘[slur deleted] equality,’” he
wrote on Sept. 24.
In the same article, Scott
also claimed that Trevitt had
obtained his seat through
“fraud and rascality.”
On Sept. 28, Scott wrote
a sarcastic article urging the
Democrats to go ahead and
abrogate the United States
Constitution.
Beriah Brown, editor of the
staunchly Democratic Port-
land Herald, responded the
very next day with what has
to be one of the most ironic
statements ever to appear on
a newspaper editorial page.
He acknowledged that the
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Worship
Directory
COTTAGE GROVE:
6th & Gibbs Church of Christ
195 N. 6th St. • 541-942-3822
10:00am
Christian Education:
Pre-K through 5th
www.6thandgibbs.com
First Presbyterian Church
3rd and Adams St
541-942-4479
Rev.: Karen Hill
Worship: 10:00am
Sunday School: 10:00am
fpcgrove.com
Calvary Baptist Church
77873 S 6th St • 541-942-4290
Pastor: Riley Hendricks
Sunday School: 9:45am
Worship: 11:00am
The Journey: Sunday 5:00pm
Praying Thru Life: Wednesday 6:00pm
Hope Fellowship
United Pentecostal Church
100 S. Gateway Blvd.
541-942-2061
Pastor: Dave Bragg
Worship: 11:00am Sunday
Bible Study: 7:00pm Wednesday
www.hopefellowshipupc.com
“FINDING HOPE IN YOUR LIFE”
Cottage Grove Faith Center
33761 Row River Rd.
541-942-4851
Lead Pastor: Kevin Pruett
www.cg4.tv
Full Childrenʼs Ministry available
Services: 9:00am & 10:45am
First Baptist Church
301 S. 6th st • 541-942-8242
Pastor: David Chhangte
Sunday School 9:30am
Worship Service 10:30am
Youth Wednesday 6:30pm
cgfi rstbaptist.com
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Ed & Kori Sowa
Independent Owner-Operators
Delight Valley
Church of Christ
33087 Saginaw Rd. East
541-942-7711 • Pastor: Bob Friend
Two Services:
9am - Classic in the Chapel
10:30am - Contemporary in the
Auditorium
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Friday July 19, Jon Stinnett and Friends, 7:30-10:30 p.m. – Acoustic
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Saturday July 20 Jessy Bird and The Desert Sage, 7:30 p.m-10:30 p.m. –
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200 Gateway Blvd.
Cottage Grove, OR 97424
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(541) 942-5400
Mon. - Sat. 8am - 9pm
Sun. 9am - 8pm
Cottage Grove Bible Church
1200 East Quincy Avenue
541-942-4771
Pastor:Bob Singer
Worship 11am
Sunday School:9:45am
AWANA age 3-8th Grade,
Wednesdays Sept-May, 6:30pm
www.cgbible.org
1325 Birch Ave.
Cottage Grove
birchavenuedental.com
OUT OF THE UNION!”
The act directed that Ore-
gon’s rescission be forwarded
to the President and Secre-
tary of State, and presumably
this was done, although his-
torian Johannsen was unable
to find any documentation
of it. Harvey Scott suggested
that President Grant would
“probably use it to light a
cigar, while the copy sent to
Congress either go under the
table or on file as a curiosity
in the room kept for the rebel
archives.”
In the end, Herald editor
Beriah Brown was right. The
passage of Oregon’s rescis-
sion act had no effect at all,
other than to sully Oregon’s
reputation
Cottage Grove
Church of Christ
420 Monroe St • 541-942-8565
Sunday Service: 10:30am
• Sedation
vote wouldn’t likely change
anything; but, he added, it
would put Oregon on the
right side of history, “as fa-
voring a white man’s govern-
ment.”
Though in a tiny minori-
ty, the Republicans managed
to delay the vote on this box
of dynamite for a week or
so. But finally, on October 6,
it passed on a straight par-
ty-line vote.
Scott was ready for them,
and unleashed a five-deck
headline on the second page:
“THE ACT CONSUM-
MATED! / Passage of the
Secession Ordinance by the
Oregon Senate! / The Dem-
ocratic Party Repudiate the
Constitution! / OREGON
St. Philip Benizi, Creswell
552 Holbrook Lane
Sunday 8:30 AM
St. Andrews Episcopal Church
1301 W. Main • 541-767-9050
Rev. Lawrence Crumb
“Church with the fl ags.”
Worship: Sunday 10:30am
All Welcome
Seventh-day Adventist Church
820 South 10th Street
541-942-5213
Pastor: Kevin Miller
Bible Study: Saturday, 9:15 am
Worship Service: Saturday, 10:40
Mid-week Service: Wednesday, 1:00
Living Faith Assembly
467 S. 10th St. • 541-942-2612
Trinity Lutheran Church
Worship Services Sundays: 9a & 11a 6th & Quincy • 541-942-2373
Youth Worship Sundays: 11a (all
Pastor: James L. Markus
ages welcome)
Sunday School & Adult Education
Mondays: 5:30p (6th-12th grades) 9:15am
Sunday Worship 10:30 am
Non-Denominational
Comm. Kitchen Free Meal Tue & Thur
Church of Christ
5:00pm TLC Groups
1041 Pennoyer Ave
tlccg.com
541-942-8928
Preacher: Tony Martin
United Methodist Church
Sunday Bible Study:10:00am
334 Washington 541-942-3033
Sunday Worship:10:50am & 5:30pm New Pastor Craig Pesti- Strobel
www.pennoyeravecoc.com
Worship 10:30am
umcgrove.org
Old Time Gospel Fellowship
103 S. 5th St. • 541-942-4999
“VICTORY” Country Church
Pastor: Jim Edwards
913 S. 6th Street • 541-942-5913
Sunday Service: 10:00am
Pastor: Barbara Dockery
Join in Traditional Christian Worship Worship Service: 10:00am
Message: “WE BELIEVE IN
Our Lady of Perpetual Help MIRACLES”
and St. Philip Benizi
Catholic Churches
1025. N. 19th St.
541-942-3420
Father John J. Boyle
Holy Mass:
Saturday Vigil – 5:30 PM
Sunday – 10:30 PM
For weekday and Holy Day of
Obligation schedule see website
OLPHCG.net
Confession: 4 PM to 5 PM
Saturdays or by appointment
CRESWELL:
Creswell Presbyterian Church
75 S 4th S • 541-895-3419
Rev. Seth Wheeler
Adult Sunday School 9:15am
Sunday Worship Service 10:30 am
website www.creswellpres.org
Our Worship Directory is a weekly feature in this
newspaper. If your congregation
would like to be a part of this directory,
contact us today!
S entinel
C ottage G rove
541-942-3325
116 N. 6th Street
Cottage Grove, OR