EVADING THE ISSUE. 767

cussion for another week, and at the close of a thirty hours' session, at eight o'clock in the morning of the 27th of July, the compromise bill was passed 15 by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-two, and sent to the house, which almost at once voted to lay it on the table, upon the ground that it did not settle, but would only protract, the vexed question to which it owed its birth.

But while senators were thus evading the final issue which all felt must soon be met, the lower house had not been free from agitation on the same subject. On the 9th of February Smith of Indiana reported a bill to establish a territorial government in Oregon. This bill as introduced, by comparison with the Doug- las bill of 1846, appears to be nearly identical. It was made the special order of the house for the 28th of March. Several debates were had, but little af- fecting the passage of the bill up to the time of Meck°s arrival in Washington, and the president's message to congress on the subject of furnishing a government to that territory at the earliest practica- ble moment. Fear of the delay which the inevitable discussion of slavery was likely to involve led^ to the proposition to refer the message to the committee on military affairs, in order that troops might at once be sent to Oregon ; but this motion was not allowed, and the bill took its course through the arguments for and against slavery in the territories, as the senate bill had done. The only amendments agreed to were a proviso in the first section confirming to each of the missions in Oregon six hundred and forty acres of land, 16 the introduction of several new sections offered as amendments by the committee on commerce, con- cerning the establishment of a collection district, ports of entry and delivery, extending the revenue laws of the United States over Oregon, and appropriating

15 See text of bill in Cong. Globe, 1847-8, 1002-5.

16 This proviso, introduced in the territorial act, when a land bill had already heen reported, but without the prospect of passing at that session, explains a part of Thornton's errand.