development of civil institutions. It is interesting to review the gradual evolution of a locality from primitive conditions of wildness to that perfect form of social life where individuals act under the privileges and restrictions of a civil government, voluntarily imposed and perfectly integrated with the larger scheme of national government. It is a stimulating process to try to make any correct estimate of the various agencies which have taken part in the complex process of growth, and to place an accurate valuation upon the services of leading personalities, the influence of aggregates of less prominent individuals, and general determining influences which may not at first be seen at all. It is a test of judgment to put oneself at the different points of view, so often conflicting, to be fair to all and to be firm in drawing conclusions where the weight of evidence seems to lie; and a knowledge of the slowness of this process of growth, with the careful thought and heroic action by which it has come about, creates a respect for government and prepares for a wiser use of the privileges enjoyed under its beneficent rule. In following out the theme set before us it is to be remembered that by Oregon is meant that piece of territory whose boundaries have been gradually shrinking to their present compass from an area extending from the Spanish possessions at the forty-second degree of latitude to the Russian possessions at the fifty-fifth degree, and between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
In many respects this history resembles that of the other states of our Union. In common with them there has been a gradual growth from those fragmentary germs of civic life out of which civil government grows, which fragmentary forms begin to operate as soon as individuals come together in social relation, often long before localities are entitled to take their places as parts of a
