The Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857 drafted the

Oregon Constitution The Oregon Constitution is the governing document of the U.S. state of Oregon, originally enacted in 1857. As amended the current state constitution contains eighteen sections, beginning with a bill of rights.

in preparation for the

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the Oreg ...

to become a

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

. Held from mid-August through September, 60 men met in

Salem, Oregon Salem ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County, Oregon, Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, w ...

, 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.Oregon: The Oregon Question.
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on March 2, 2008.

History

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.Corning, Howard M. ''Dictionary of Oregon History''. Binfords & Mort Publishing, 1956. 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 The Washington Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

. In 1854 and 1855 bills in the Territorial Legislature pressing for statehood for the territory were defeated. Finally on December 12, 1856, the legislature passed a bill authorizing a convention to establish a constitution.''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.''
Salem: W.H. Byars, 1882. On June 1, 1857, the voters in the territory approved the resolution and elected delegates to a constitutional convention. The vote was 7,209 in favor of holding a convention to 1,616 against the proposal.Horner, John B. (1919). ''Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature''. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland.

Convention

On August 17, 1857, 60 delegates selected by the voters met in Salem to write a state constitution in preparation of statehood. The convention assembled at the Salem Courthouse, with Asa Lovejoy named president pro tem of the gathering.Hubert Howe Bancroft, ''The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: Volume 29: History of Oregon: Volume 1, 1834-1848.'' San Francisco, CA: The History Company, 1886; pg. 423. On the following day Judge

Matthew Deady Matthew Paul Deady (May 12, 1824 – March 24, 1893) was a politician and jurist in the Oregon Territory and the state of Oregon of the United States. He served on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1853 to 1859, at which time he was appointed to the n ...

was elected the permanent president of the convention. The delegates selected officers, set up rules for the meeting (a total of 45 in all), and divided into committees on various subjects such as military, judicial, legislative, and elections. 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 Lovejoy, William W. Bristow,

Delazon Smith Delazon Smith (October 5, 1816November 19, 1860) was a Democratic Party politician who briefly represented the state of Oregon in the U.S. Senate in 1859. He served for less than one month (February 14 to March 3), making his term among the shor ...

, and

La Fayette Grover La Fayette Grover (November 29, 1823May 10, 1911) was a Democratic politician and lawyer from the U.S. state of Oregon. He was the fourth Governor of Oregon, represented Oregon in the United States House of Representatives, and served one ter ...

. The group also settled the debate over a disputed seat at the convention in favor of Perry B. Marple over F. G. Lockhart to represent Coos County. Thirty-four of the delegates were farmers, while 18 were lawyers, including the three justices of the

Oregon Supreme Court The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest State court (United States), state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States.

. Two of the delegates were newspaper editors, five were miners, and another was a civil engineer.Leeson, Fred
Framing the Constitution – 60 men took 32 days to propose Oregon’s legal foundation.
''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...

'', March 26, 2004. The main debates concerning a constitution revolved around

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

and the exclusion of

Blacks Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ch ...

, liquor laws, and what would be the boundaries of the new state. After meeting for 31 days, the convention ended on September 18, when the delegates voted to approve the document as the constitution.Information The 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention.
Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on March 2, 2008. The final tally was 35 votes for passage and 10 against; 15 members of the convention were absent and did not vote.

Draft Constitution

The document approved by the convention 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, as was typical of the era. Provision was made for the ability of the legislature to regulate the immigration into the state of "persons not qualified to become citizens of the United States," thereby allowing legislative restriction of the number of free blacks coming into the state in the event that an outright ban did not achieve majority approval. Another section forbade any "Chinaman" who immigrated into the state after adoption of the constitution from ever owning real estate or working a mining claim, expressly giving the legislature power to enforce this provision. Even as far back as the 1880s such racial measures were regarded as socially retrograde, with historian

Hubert Howe Bancroft Hubert Howe Bancroft (May 5, 1832 – March 2, 1918) was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote, published, and collected works concerning the Western United States, Texas, California, Alaska, Mexico, Central America, and British Colum ...

remarking:

These proscriptive clauses, however they may appear in later times, were in accordance with the popular sentiment on the Pacific coast and throughout a large portion of the United States ... However that may be, the founders of the state government in Oregon were fully determined to indulge themselves in their prejudices against color, and the qualities which accompany the black and yellow skinned races.

The final draft submitted to the populace contained a total of 18 articles. Over half of the document's content was derived in part from the Indiana constitution.

Members

Of the 60 delegates in the convention, exactly half were farmers and an additional 19 were lawyers. All members of the convention and what county they represented:

Further development

On November 9, 1857, the voters approved the document to serve as a state constitution upon statehood. At this same vote, measures to allow slavery and to allow free Blacks to live in the state were defeatedThe constitutional measure forbidding Blacks to live in Oregon, though never enforced, remained on the books until after World War I. after they had been submitted as separate items to vote on by the convention. The vote to approve the constitution by the citizens of Oregon was 7,195 for the constitution and 3,215 against the document. 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. 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. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

to press for statehood. Oregon then waited on the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

to accept the constitution and approve Oregon for statehood. Due to the ongoing debate over slavery in the country as the nation approached the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, the

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

did not pass legislation to bring Oregon into the Union until 1859, when Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14. The Oregon Constitution was not altered until 1902.