then assembled at a territorial organizing convention held in Albany on February 11, 1857, which adopted the official name "Free State Republican Party of Oregon" for the organization. A platform for the new political party was announced, emphasizing the indissoluble nature of the United States, opposition of the expansion of slavery to free territory, prohibition of polygamy, construction of a Pacific railroad to link Oregon with California, government effort to improve the navigability of rivers and harbors, and admission of Oregon to the United States only as a free state. The year 1857 was marked by preparations for future Oregon statehood, including the holding of a constitutional convention, and the ruling Democratic Party found itself divided over the question of slavery, attempting to sidestep the issue by passing in state convention a resolution binding Democratic delegates to such a gathering to the position that the matter of slavery in Oregon be settled later by a vote of the people. The Republicans did not nominate a candidate for Representative to Congress in the June 1857 election, instead pooling their support for G.W. Lawson, a Free Soil Democrat running as an independent. While pro-slavery Democrat Joseph Lane was ultimately sent as the Territorial delegate to Congress, voting further down the ticket showed a Republican advance, with Republicans joining with so-called "soft" (free state) Democrats to elect about a third of the delegates to the constitutional convention and 10 of the 30 members to the Oregon Territorial Legislature. The constitutional convention held in the summer of 1857 ultimately steamrolled Republican sentiment and again sidestepped the slavery question by deciding to leave the slavery question to a vote of the people, while declaring that "no negro, Chinaman, or mulatto should have the right to vote." The bill of rights adopted by the Democratic-dominated constitutional convention gave the future state legislature the right to exclude African-Americans from immigrating to the state altogether, thereby setting the stage for restrictive racial laws in spite of Oregon's free state status. Three propositions were ultimately put to territorial voters, with the Democratic-authored Oregon Constitution gaining approval by a vote of about 7,200 to 3,100, a measure allowing slavery falling to defeat by a majority of nearly 5,100 votes, and a proposal allowing "Free Negroes" to settle in Oregon overwhelmingly defeated by a vote of 8,640 to 1,081. Oregon would not be a slave state but rather one closed to