Here airain ;i quest ion offers, why did ;i senator from Mis-

souri urire the imposition of the laws of Iowa upon the people of On -iron .' Why not tlnse of Missouri, or Illinois, or Michi- gan, ralln-r than those of a fledgling territory? Two ex- planations suggest themselves.

The first explanation is that Iowa was adjacent to the Ter- ritory in controversy. It was consequent ly simply a matter of course that Senator Linn should propose to extend over Oregon and tin- intervening region the irovermnent and laws of the territory lying next to the lands in question. The nd is that Lewis F. Linn, lienton's colleague, in the Sen- ate, was a half brother of Henry Dodge, the first (lovernor of Wisconsin and Iowa. .They saw much of each other dur- ing this period in Linn's career; for from 1S41 to 1845 Dodge was the territorial delegate of Wisconsin in Congress. It is not. therefore, a violent presumption to believe that in the course of their intimate conversations. Dodge gave Linn much counsel and made suggestions that the latter made use of. It would not be strange if Dodge should ur^e upon Linn the wisdom of making use of the Iowa laws, made up as they were chiefly of statutes that he, Dodge, himself had helped to frame in the Council of Michigan, or had signed as Gov- ernor of Wisconsin. The Iowa laws reproduced the tra- ditional institutions and methods of administration common to the free States carved out of the Northwest Territory. Hence, it would be polite for a Missouriau. in those days when slavery was charging the air with suspicion of everything that came from south of Mason's line, if he wished to secure Northern sentiment in favor of his bill, to urge the adoption of the laws of a territory like Iowa.

Now. it is more than probable that the nature of the pro- visit us of Linn's bill had by 1843 become known to the pio- neers in Oregon. Learning that the laws of Iowa were th nrired for their irovernment by their staunchest friends in the halls of Congress, it would have IXMMI the natural and the diplomatic thinir. if such a surest ion is not preposterous, for the committee that drew up the articles for the Provis-