In his message to the legislature in 1850, Governor Burnett recommended the exclusion of free Negroes. This was always Burnett's hobby. He incorporated this into the laws of Oregon when he revised them in 1844. Burnett had been brought up in the South and although he had ceased to be a slaveholder, he could not think of living with Negroes as freemen. The exclusion of the blacks too had a sort of popular appeal in it. The legislature, however, was divided on the question as to what should be done with the free Negro. A bill in compliance with the wishes of the Governor was introduced but defeated. Undaunted by this, however, the enemy of the free Negroes won a victory in another quarter in enacting a law that no black or mulatto person or Indian should be permitted to give evidence in any action to which a white person was a party. The leaders of the Negroes held another convention in 1856 to protest against this law. Another bill providing for the prohibition of the immigration of free persons of color into the State was introduced in 1858 and after much debate put through both houses, but it never became a law. The black code, of course, was abrogated after the Civil War. DELILAH L. BEASLEY FOOTNOTES: [16] Bourne, "_Spain in America_," 271. [17] _California Miscellany_, I, 9. [18] Bancroft, "_History of California_," I, 175; _Place Notices_, I, 151. [19] Hittell, "_History of California_," II, 115. [20] Garrison, "_Westward Extension_," 26. [21] _Cong. Globe_, 29 Cong., 2 Sess., 509. [22] Garrison, "_Westward Extension_," 254-268, 284-314. _Cong. Globe_, 29 Cong., 2d Sess., 178, 453, 455; 30 Cong., 1st Sess., 875, 989, 910, 1002-1005, 1062, 1081; 2d Sess., 216, 381. [23] Tuthill, "_Hist. of California_," 312, 316. [24] PROCLAMATION TO THE INHABITANTS OF CALIFORNIA.