RENEWAL OF THE OREGON JOINT OCCUPATION CONVENTION.
The American settlement at the mouth of the Columbia, or Oregon,
was made in 1811. It was an act of private enterprise, done by the
eminent merchant, Mr. John Jacob Astor, of New-York; and the young
town christened after his own name, Astoria: but it was done with
the countenance and stipulated approbation of the government of
the United States; and an officer of the United States navy--the
brave Lieutenant Thorn, who was with Decatur at Tripoli, and who
afterwards blew up his ship in Nootka Sound to avoid her capture
by the savages (blowing himself, crew and savages all into the
air),--was allowed to command his (Mr. Astor's) leading vessel, in
order to impress upon the enterprise the seal of nationality. This
town was captured during the war of 1812, by a ship of war detached
for that purpose, by Commodore Hillyar, commanding a British
squadron in the Pacific Ocean. No attempt was made to recover it
during the war; and, at Ghent, after some efforts on the part of
the British commissioners, to set up a title to it, its restitution
was stipulated under the general clause which provided for the
restoration of all places captured by either party. But it was not
restored. An empty ceremony was gone through to satisfy the words of
the treaty, and to leave the place in the hands of the British. An
American agent, Mr. John Baptist Prevost, was sent to Valparaiso,
to go in a British sloop of war (the Blossom) to receive the place,
to sign a receipt for it, and leave it in the hands of the British.
This was in the autumn of the year 1818; and coincident with that
nominal restitution was the conclusion of a convention in London
between the United States and British government, for the joint
occupation of the Columbia for ten years--Mr. Gallatin and Mr.
Rush the American negotiators--if those can be called negotiators
who are tied down to particular instructions. The joint occupancy
was provided for, and in these words: "That any country claimed by
either party on the northwest coast of America, together with its
harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within
the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years, to the
subjects, citizens, and vessels of the two powers; without prejudice
to any claim which either party might have to any part of the
country."--I was a practising lawyer at St. Louis, no way engaged in
politics, at the time this convention was published; but I no sooner
saw it than I saw its delusive nature--its one-sidedness--and the
whole disastrous consequences which were to result from it to the
United States; and immediately wrote and published articles against
it: of which the following is an extract:
"This is a specimen of the skill with which the diplomatic
art deposits the seeds of a new contestation in the assumed
settlement of an existing one,--and gives unequal privileges in
words of equality,--and breeds a serious question, to be ended
perhaps by war, where no question at all existed. Every word
of the article for this joint occupation is a deception and a
blunder--suggesting a belief for which there is no foundation,
granting privileges for which there is no equivalent, and
presenting ambiguities which require to be solved--peradventure
by the sword. It speaks as if there was a mutuality of countries
on the northwest coast to which the article was applicable,
and a mutuality of benefits to accrue to the citizens of both
governments by each occupying the country claimed by the other.
Not so the fact. There is but one country in question, and
that is our own;--and of this the British are to have equal
possession with ourselves, and we no possession of theirs. The
Columbia is ours; Frazer's River is a British possession to
which no American ever went, or ever will go. The convention
gives a joint right of occupying the ports and harbors, and of
navigating the rivers of each other. This would imply that each
government possessed in that quarter, ports, and harbors, and
navigable rivers; and were about to bring them into hotch-potch
for mutual enjoyment. No such thing. There is but one port,
and that the mouth of the Columbia--but one river, and that
the Columbia itself: and both port and river our own. We give
the equal use of these to the British, and receive nothing in
return. The convention says that the "claim" of neither party
is to be prejudiced by the joint possession. This admits that
Great Britain has a claim--a thing never admitted before by
us, nor pretended by her. At Ghent she stated no claim, and
could state none. Her ministers merely asked for the river as
a boundary, as being the most convenient; and for the use of
the harbor at its mouth, as being necessary to their ships and
trade; but stated no claim. Our commissioners reported that they
(the British commissioners) endeavored 'to lay a nest-egg' for
a future pretension; which they failed to do at Ghent in 1815,
but succeeded in laying in London in 1818; and before the ten
years are out, a full grown fighting chicken will be hatched
of that egg. There is no mutuality in any thing. We furnish
the whole stake--country, river, harbor; and shall not even
maintain the joint use of our own. We shall be driven out of it,
and the British remain sole possessors. The fur trade is the
object. It will fare with our traders on the Columbia under this
convention as it fared with them on the Miami of the Lakes (and
on the lakes themselves), under the British treaties of '94 and
'96, which admitted British traders into our territories. Our
traders will be driven out; and that by the fair competition
of trade, even if there should be no foul play. The difference
between free and dutied goods, would work that result. The
British traders pay no duties: ours pay above an average of
fifty per centum. No trade can stand against such odds. But the
competition will not be fair. The savages will be incited to
kill and rob our traders, and they will be expelled by violence,
without waiting the slower, but equally certain process, of
expulsion by underselling. The result then is, that we admit
the British into our country, our river, and our harbor; and
we get no admittance into theirs, for they have none--Frazer's
River and New Caledonia being out of the question--that they
will become sole possessors of our river, our harbor, and our
country; and at the end of the ten years will have an admitted
'claim' to our property, and the actual possession of it."
Thus I wrote in the year 1818, when the joint occupation convention
of that year was promulgated. I wrote in advance; and long before
the ten years were out, it was all far more than verified. Our
traders were not only driven from the mouth of the Columbia River,
but from all its springs and branches;--not only from all the Valley
of the Columbia, but from the whole region of the Rocky Mountains
between 49 and 42 degrees;--not only from all this mountain region,
but from the upper waters of all our far distant rivers--the
Missouri, the Yellow Stone, the Big Horn, the North Platte; and
all their mountain tributaries. And, by authentic reports made to
our government, not less than five hundred of our citizens had
been killed, nor less than five hundred thousand dollars worth
of goods and furs robbed from them;--the British remaining the
undisturbed possessors of all the Valley of the Columbia, acting
as its masters, and building forts from the sea to the mountains.
This was the effect of the first joint occupation treaty, and every
body in the West saw its approaching termination with pleasure; but
the false step which the government had made induced another. They
had admitted a "claim" on the part of Great Britain, and given her
the sole, under the name of a joint, possession; and now to get
her out was the difficulty. It could not be done; and the United
States agreed to a further continued "joint" occupation (as it was
illusively called in the renewed convention), not for ten years
more, but "indefinitely," determinable on one year's notice from
either party to the other. The reason for this indefinite, and
injurious continuance, was set forth in the preamble to the renewed
convention (Mr. Gallatin now the sole United States negotiator);
and recited that the two governments "being desirous to prevent, as
far as possible, all hazard of misunderstanding, and with a view to
give further time for maturing measures which shall have for their
object a more definite settlement of the claims of each party to the
said territory;" did thereupon agree to renew the joint occupation
article of the convention of 1818, &c. Thus, we had, by our
diplomacy in 1818, and by the permitted non-execution of the Ghent
treaty in the delivery of the post and country, hatched a question
which threatened a "misunderstanding" between the two countries;
and for maturing measures for the settlement of which indefinite
time was required--and granted--Great Britain remaining, in the
mean time, sole occupant of the whole country. This was all that she
could ask, and all that we could grant, even if we actually intended
to give up the country.
I was a member of the Senate when this renewed convention was
sent in for ratification, and opposed it with all the zeal and
ability of which I was master: but in vain. The weight of the
administration, the indifference of many to a remote object, the
desire to put off a difficulty, and the delusive argument that we
could terminate it at any time--(a consolation so captivating to
gentle temperaments)--were too strong for reason and fact; and I was
left in a small minority on the question of ratification. But I did
not limit myself to opposition to the treaty. I proposed, as well as
opposed; and digested my opinions into three resolves; and had them
spread on the executive journal, and made part of our parliamentary
history for future reference.
The resolves were: 1. "That it is not expedient for the United
States and Great Britain to treat further in relation to their
claims on the northwest coast of America, on the basis of a joint
occupation by their respective citizens. 2. That it is expedient
that the joint-occupation article in the convention of 1818 be
allowed to expire upon its own limitation. 3. That it is expedient
for the government of the United States to continue to treat with
His Britannic Majesty in relation to said claims, on the basis of
a separation of interests, and the establishment of a permanent
boundary between their dominions westward of the Rocky Mountains, in
the shortest possible time." These resolves were not voted upon; but
the negative vote on the ratification of the convention showed what
the vote would have been if it had been taken. That negative vote
was--Messrs. Benton, Thomas W. Cobb of Georgia, Eaton of Tennessee,
Ellis of Mississippi, Johnson of Kentucky, Kane of Illinois, and
Rowan of Kentucky--in all 7. Eighteen years afterwards, and when
we had got to the cry of "inevitable war," I had the gratification
to see the whole Senate, all Congress, and all the United States,
occupy the same ground in relation to this joint occupation on which
only seven senators stood at the time the convention for it was
ratified.