Political Career
In 1844, Asa Lovejoy was elected to the Provisional Legislature of Oregon to represent Clackamas District. Lovejoy ran for the newly created office of governor that replaced the Executive Committee in 1845 with the adoption of the Second Organic Laws of Oregon. George Abernethy won the election after he received the most votes with 228, followed by Osbourne Russell with 130, William J. Bailey with 75, and finally Lovejoy with 71 votes. Though he lost the election for governor, he was elected as mayor of Oregon City that year.
Lovejoy returned to the legislature in 1846 and served as Speaker of the body. In 1847, Lovejoy ran against Abernethy for governor a second time. Lovejoy lost the election 536 to 520. From 1847 to 1848, he served as adjunct general during the Cayuse War, the war resulting from the Whitman Massacre.
Lovejoy was elected in 1848 to what would be the final session of the Provisional Legislature, which was held in late 1848 into early 1849. However, Lovejoy now representing Vancouver District north of the Columbia River resigned before the session started. In September 1848, he traveled with a group to California during the California Gold Rush, but returned aboard the brig Undine in January 1849 after six weeks in California. During the same session he resigned from, he was selected by the Provisional Legislature as Supreme Judge of the government on February 16, 1849, but never served and the Provisional government was dissolved the following month with the arrival of the territorial government.
Once the government of the Oregon Territory arrived in March 1849, a new legislature with two chambers was established. Lovejoy was elected to the first session of this legislature, first serving in the lower chamber Oregon House of Representatives. Representing Clackamas District again, he also became the first Speaker of the Oregon Territorial Legislature. In 1851, he returned to the legislature, serving in the upper chamber Council. The following year, he remained in the Council, but now elected as a Whig Party politician. In 1854, he was back in the House of Representatives, and in 1856 he served in one final session, now as a Democratic Party member.
In 1857, Lovejoy represented Clackamas County at the Oregon Constitutional Convention in Salem. The convention created the Oregon Constitution in preparation for the territory becoming a U.S. state. Lovejoy, still a Democrat, served as the chairperson of the boundaries committee and also served on the committee responsible for matters concerning the legislature. The convention finished on September 18, 1857, and submitted the finished document to a vote of the public on November 9. This vote approved the Constitution and on February 14, 1859, Oregon entered the Union as the 33rd state.
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