understood that the two governments were in communication on the subject
of the Oregon Territory. It was this understanding more than anything
else that led to the suppression of the Oregon bill in the Committee on
Foreign Relations. No proposal had as yet been made in official form,
but it is now known that the President and his secretary had a definite
policy in mind, and that while desirous of checking any measures in
congress which might hinder the negotiations which they aimed to bring
about, they felt obliged to conceal the nature of their policy with the
utmost care, for fear of arousing opposition in congress and the
country. As it was, there was no little dissatisfaction in congress with
the treaty which had just been negotiated by Webster and Lord Ashburton.
Like most treaties on boundary lines, this treaty was a settlement by
compromise. Many citizens from the section affected by the new boundary
line, and enemies of the administration from all sections, were prompt
to say that the secretary had yielded too much—that he had allowed the
United States to be overreached in the negotiations. The friends of
Oregon took alarm. They thought they saw in the omission of the Oregon
boundary from the treaty an occasion for another compromise, in which
there should be a surrender of territory justly claimed by the United
States. That this fear was widespread in the states of the Mississippi
Valley appears from the resolutions of state legislatures presented to
congress early in the following session. In more than one set of these
resolutions it was manifest, through plain statement or through
implication, that apprehensions for Oregon had been awakened by the
terms of settlement of the boundary line of Maine. There was reason for
uneasiness in the well known leaning of Mr. Webster toward certain
commercial advantages to be got by treaty from Great Britain, and his
low estimate of the value of the Oregon Territory to the United States.
We now know that for this and for other reasons the prevalent
apprehensions of the time in regard to the Oregon Territory were not
groundless. The evidence is now at hand that the President and his
secretary did contemplate a treaty with England which would involve a
surrender of territory on the North Pacific Coast such as no
administration hitherto had been willing for a moment to consider. The
compensation, however, for the territory surrendered was not, as was
then surmised, to be found wholly, if at all, on the Atlantic Coast.
It will be remembered that the Oregon Question was not the only question
that agitated the country at this time. There was the Texas question,
well nigh as old as that of Oregon, lately become pressing through
events in Texas itself, and through the growing importunity of the
Southern States. Then, too, there was the California question,—not a
question of as widespread and popular interest as either of the others,
but one which for a decade or more had been of growing interest to a
narrow but intelligent circle. There was a popular demand for the
assertion and maintenance of our rights in Oregon; there had come to be
a popular demand for the annexation to the union, or the reannexation,
as some chose to put it, of Texas; while as far back as the second
administration of President Jackson there had been a desire on the part
of farseeing statesmen to secure from Mexico the cession to the United
States of so much of California as to include the bay of San Francisco.
England was interested in Texas, was even thought by many in the United
States to be contemplating making it a colony; England had influence
with Mexico, her capitalists having loaned the Mexican government to the
amount of $50,000,000 on security of lands in New Mexico, California,
and other of her possessions; and England was urgent in all negotiations
on the Oregon boundary that she be allowed free navigation of the
Columbia, if not that that river be her southern boundary. In the United
States, the slave states were desirous of Texas; the Western States
pressed for the Oregon Territory at least to the forty-ninth parallel,
while there was a growing desire in commercial centers in the North
Atlantic States to have in American possession what was then regarded as
the only ample and safe harbor on the North Pacific Coast south of the
Straits of Fuca. Out of these various interests in England and America,
President Tyler and Mr. Webster, his Secretary of State, shaped the
policy of the administration. It is not likely that the President and
his secretary were in entire accord on the details of the policy; but
both alike were desirous that the administration should be signalized by
a settlement through negotiation of the questions then pressing upon the
country. In its earlier and more comprehensive form, the policy of the
administration included all the questions that have been mentioned.
These it sought to settle by a comprehension of them all in a tripartite
treaty between the United States, Mexico and Great Britain, whereby it
was hoped to secure from Mexico the recognition of the independence of
Texas, and the cession to the United States of her possessions on the
Pacific down to the thirty-sixth parallel. In compensation for her good
offices in these matters, the United States was to yield to Great
Britain all claim to the Oregon Territory down to the line of the
Columbia River. It was thought that the large acquisition thus secured
of territory south of the forty-second parallel would compensate for the
loss of Oregon north of the Columbia, while the northern and southern
sections would be reconciled to the treaty by the large acquisition it
secured north and south, respectively, of parallel thirty-six.
The plan of the administration included a special mission to England, on
which it was expected Mr. Webster should be sent, that he might be the
better able to negotiate the treaty; and, failing this, a mission to
China, to which Mr. Everett, then Minister to England, should be
transferred, thus still accomplishing the desired end by allowing Mr.
Webster to take his place in London. The mission to England failed in
committee; the mission to China passed in congress, but failed to carry
Mr. Webster to England, through Mr. Everett’s unwillingness to accept
the China mission. With his failure to reach England at this time, Mr.
Webster’s hope of being able to effect a settlement of the questions
pending between the two governments died; this having been his main
reason for remaining in President Tyler’s cabinet, his resignation
shortly followed. And thus, with Mr. Webster’s resignation from the
cabinet, passed forever all danger of a settlement of the Oregon
boundary on a line below the forty-ninth parallel.
There were causes operating to produce this result which do not appear
in this narrative. Even if the mission to England had succeeded, and Mr.
Webster had effected the tripartite treaty as he desired, it is doubtful
if it would have been accepted by the senate. Events were occurring
contemporaneously with the movement of these measures that rendered it
probable that the treaty, if made, would have failed of confirmation.
Certain it is that the early spring of that year found the President
less disposed to press for the settlement of the Oregon boundary
contemplated in this scheme, and with less reason to expect the approval
of congress or the country in any such settlement. Events had been
rapidly making such a settlement impossible. A notable one, the great
emigration of 1843, has already been mentioned. There were others
precedent to this.
Some years previous, the Rev. Jason Lee, while on a visit to the United
States, had visited Washington, and made a strong representation of the
need of a representative of the United States in Oregon. As a late
response to this plea, in the spring of 1842, the government had sent a
sub-agent to look after the interests of the Indians in Oregon. The
appointment fell upon Dr. Elijah White, who himself had been a member of
the Willamette mission. Doctor White had at once set out for Oregon, in
May of that year, and was accompanied by a colony of more than one
hundred persons, assembled largely through his influence, the first real
colony of American families, aside from the missions, to enter the
Oregon Territory. By the end of the winter of 1843, the government was
in possession of Doctor White’s report of the safe arrival in Oregon of
himself, and this colony; of the satisfaction of the colonists with what
they found there; and of the favorable condition and prospects of the
settlers already there. Some of the colonists themselves had written to
newspapers at their old homes giving good accounts of the new land, and
urging their friends to join them there. And these letters, wherever
found, were copied by all the great newspapers, north and south,
because, as their editors sometimes apologetically added, “every one was
eager to hear the latest news from the Oregon country.” About the same
time with the arrival of the report of the government’s own agent, there
appeared in Washington, fresh from his winter ride from Oregon, Dr.
Marcus Whitman, of the Walla Walla mission. In repeated interviews with
the President, and members of his cabinet, as well as with members of
congress, Doctor Whitman presented earnestly the practicability of large
companies of emigrants with their cattle and wagons reaching Oregon
through the mountains, and urged the government to encourage such
caravans by making the way thither as easy and safe as possible. What
was thus said in the ears of government, and through the public press,
was talked by many voices in crowded assemblies, at village stores, and
at firesides throughout the country, from the frontiers of Missouri to
the coast of Massachusetts, and from Portland, Maine, to New Orleans.
The people were thus already aroused, even before the failure in
congress of the administration’s plans for the settlement of the
boundary question. The country of the Oregon had been made to appear
inviting for seekers for new homes in all parts of the land, and
colonization of it by the direct route through the Rocky Mountains
practicable to the nation at large, so that the state of the public mind
at this time boded ill to any plan of settlement that proposed a
surrender of any part of the territory to which the United States was
believed to have a well grounded claim. The time for bargaining away any
part of the Oregon Territory, south of the forty-ninth parallel and the
Straits of Fuca, had now fully passed. No one was quicker to see and
appreciate the changed conditions of the question, than was the
President himself. Naturally desirous that his administration should
have the honor of settling this long pending question, he continued,
through his succeeding secretaries, to endeavor to bring the
negotiations to a successful conclusion; but henceforth his proposals
were based upon a return to the former position of the government on the
line of the forty-ninth parallel. After a proposal of the line of the
Columbia our government was at a disadvantage in renewing proposals
based upon the more northern line, while the changed temper of congress
and the country obliged to a firmer standing to the old position, once
it was resumed. The President’s best efforts, however, to bring
negotiations to a happy issue failed, and his administration closed with
the question still pending. The negotiations of this time show a zealous
purpose on the part of the President to effect a settlement, but show no
real progress toward that end. The same may be said of the measures in
congress of this period. Discussion of the question had been resumed in
the house, and went on in the senate, but since negotiations on the part
of the government with a view to a speedy settlement were almost
continuously pending, congress was induced to refrain from any action
that might thwart or trammel the government in its efforts.
It has already been pointed out in this paper that the correspondence
between the two governments precedent to the convention of 1818, pointed
to the line of the forty-ninth parallel as the final position of our
government in this question. In subsequent negotiations between the
United States and Great Britain, this line came to be regarded as in
some sort traditional with our government, and as such became
increasingly influential in shaping the proposals of succeeding
administrations. We have just seen how under pressure of considerations
external to the Oregon Question the administration of Mr. Tyler had been
momentarily in danger of yielding this our traditional line for one to
the south, on the Columbia. We have now to see how under pressure of
another sort the government under the administration of Mr. Polk came
near abandoning this traditional position for a line farther to the
north.
In 1824, in a treaty between the United States and Russia, the line of
54° and 40′ was fixed as the limit of the claim of the United States
northward as against Russia, and of Russia’s claim southward as against
the United States. This line was thenceforth considered as the northern
limit of the Oregon Territory. In the course of negotiations with Great
Britain it had been mentioned as the northern limit of our claim, but
the claim of the United States to this line had never been pressed by
the government. In the same paragraph in which the claim had been
mentioned by our government, it had been abandoned for the lower line of
the forty-ninth parallel. In the year 1842, however, after the treaty of
that year had been concluded and made public, in the reaction caused by
what was regarded as a surrender of rights and just claims on the part
of our government, a disposition was manifested in some sections of the
country, particularly in the west, to recur to the extreme northern
line, and to press our claim to the Oregon Territory fully up to that
limit. This disposition found expression in some of the resolutions of
the state legislatures which were presented to congress at its next
session. Later, it found more distinct and emphatic expression in
resolutions adopted by public meetings and local conventions in various
parts of the country held for the purpose of promoting the occupation
and settlement of the Oregon Territory. The agitation thus carried on in
the latter part of 1842, and the earlier months of 1843, culminated in a
convention held in Cincinnati in July of the latter year. This
convention from its size and representative character had somewhat of
national importance. The circular calling the convention issued from
Cincinnati under date of May 23, was sent to representative men far and
wide over the union, and was given publicity by the leading journals of
the day. In this circular the object of the convention was formally
stated to be, “to urge upon congress the immediate occupation of the
Oregon Territory by the arms and laws of the republic, and to adopt such
measures as may seem most conducive to its immediate and effective
occupation, whether the government acts or not in the matter.” It will
be proposed, the circular continues, “to base the action of the
convention on Mr. Monroe’s declaration of 1823, ‘that the American
continents are not to be considered subject to colonization by any
European powers.’” The convention in a session of three days discussed
thoroughly the various aspects of the subject on which it came together,
and concluded by adopting a declaration of principles which was signed
by the chairman, Col. R. M. Johnson, and ninety other delegates,
representing six states of the Mississippi Valley. The first of the
principles adopted defined clearly what the convention understood by the
Oregon Territory which it was sought to occupy and settle, asserting, as
it did, the right of the United States from the line of latitude 42° to
that of 54° and 40′. Among letters read in the convention from prominent
men unable to be present was one from Mr. Cass, in which he declared
that no one would be present who would concur more heartily with the
convention in the measures that might be adopted than should he; he
would take and hold possession of the territory of the Pacific Coast,
come what might. It is not difficult to see in the utterance of the
Cincinnati convention, when taken in connection with the political
weight of the convention itself, the origin of that party war-cry which
was to make the presidential campaign of the following year so
celebrated in our history. Here was a constituency united in a solemn
pledge, which could not well be ignored in the estimate of political
forces. It was an influence to be bid for, and what more natural than
that it should be bid for, as it was bid for, by the party seeking a
means of reconciling northern and western voters to its more distinctly
southern policy of the annexation of Texas?
On becoming President, Mr. Polk seems not to have felt himself bound by
the extreme statement of his party’s position on the Oregon Question.
The tone of his inaugural is rather more conservative upon this subject
than might have been expected from the circumstances of his election.
His position, as stated in this paper, was sufficiently advanced,
however, to alarm the British government. In a letter of April 3,
addressed to Packenham, British Minister at Washington, Lord Aberdeen
said: “The inaugural speech of President Polk has impressed a very
serious character on our actual relations with the United States, and
the manner in which he has referred to the Oregon Question, so different
from the language of his predecessor, leaves little reason to hope for
any favorable result of the existing negotiation.” And yet Mr. Polk,
shortly after entering upon office, took up the negotiation as he found
it then pending, and made an honest effort to effect a settlement upon
the compromise line of his predecessors. In explanation of his course,
in his annual message to congress, December following, he said: “Though
entertaining the settled conviction that the British pretensions of
title could not be maintained to any portion of the Oregon Territory,
upon any principle of public law recognized by nations, yet, in
deference to what had been done by my predecessors, and especially in
consideration that propositions of compromise had been thrice made by
two preceding administrations to adjust the question on the parallel of
the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and in two of them yielding the free
navigation of the Columbia, and that the pending negotiations had been
commenced on the basis of compromise, I deemed it my duty not abruptly
to break it off. In consideration, too, that under the conventions of
1818 and 1827 the citizens and subjects of the two powers held a joint
occupancy of the country, I was induced to make another effort to settle
this long pending controversy in the spirit of moderation which had
given birth to the renewed discussion.”
In the letter above referred to, Lord Aberdeen, notwithstanding his
fears, directed Mr. Packenham to submit again to the new Secretary of
State the proposal for arbitration which he had submitted to his
predecessor, if conditions for such a proposal seemed favorable. On Mr.
Packenham’s informing Mr. Buchanan, the new Secretary of State, of his
instructions to this effect, Mr. Buchanan expressed the hope that a
satisfactory settlement of the question might yet be effected through
negotiation. In accordance with this expressed hope, Mr. Buchanan, a few
days later, submitted a proposal of the line of the forty-ninth parallel
extended through to the Pacific, offering to Great Britain any port or
ports on Vancouver’s Island she might choose. This proposal was rejected
by Mr. Packenham, without first submitting it to his government, in a
paper in which, after declaring the proposal offered less than was
offered by the United States in 1826, he concluded: “The undersigned
trusts that the American Plenipotentiary will be prepared to offer some
other proposal for the settlement of the Oregon Question more consistent
with fairness and equity, and with the reasonable expectations of the
British government.” This paper was presented on July 29; on August 30
Mr. Buchanan presented to Mr. Packenham a carefully prepared paper, in
which, after reviewing the position in which the President found himself
in reference to the question on coming into office, and setting forth
the motives which had actuated him in making the present proposal in
spite of his personal views on the subject, he called the British
Minister’s attention to the fact that the President’s proposal had been
rejected by him in terms not over courteous, without even a reference of
it to his government, and concluded: “Under such circumstances, I am
instructed by the President to say that he owes it to his own country,
and to a just appreciation of her title to the Oregon Territory, to
withdraw this proposition to the British government, which was made
under his direction; and it is hereby accordingly withdrawn.”
We have it on the authority of Mr. Polk’s diary that the concluding
paragraph is of the President’s own wording; that Mr. Buchanan urged the
President so to couch his answer as to encourage the British government
to make an offer on their part; that this the President positively
declined to do, saying that if the British government wished to make an
offer they must do so on their own responsibility. It was a matter of
regret on the part of Lord Aberdeen, on hearing of the matter, that this
proposition of our government had not been referred by Mr. Packenham to
his government. Later, Mr. Packenham, on receipt of a communication from
Lord Aberdeen, approached Mr. Buchanan with a view of getting from the
President encouragement to present another proposition on behalf of
Great Britain. This, though repeatedly urged to do so by Mr. Buchanan,
the President firmly refused to give. And thus the question stood at the
convening of congress in December.
The President’s message had, on the question of the Oregon Territory,
been prepared with special care. The several paragraphs bearing on this
subject were read and discussed in cabinet, and amended, until they
embodied the President’s policy in its maturest form. Again Mr. Polk was
besought by the Secretary of State to soften the tone of his message on
this point, but he refused, preferring, as he said, “his own bold
stand.” After reviewing briefly the history of negotiations on the
question under his predecessors, and noting that these had uniformly
been maintained on the part of the United States on the compromise line
of the forty-ninth parallel; and after stating somewhat particularly the
reasons that had induced him to take up the negotiations as he found
them pending on his entrance to office, and to continue them on the same
line in spite of his own personal convictions that the United States had
a just claim to the whole of the Oregon Territory, the President
proceeded to recommend to the favorable consideration of congress five
measures, all of which he thought clearly within the right of the United
States under the terms of the convention of joint occupancy. The first
and capital one of these recommendations was, that congress authorize
the President to terminate the convention of joint occupancy by giving
the British government the required notice. In accordance with this
recommendation a resolution to that effect was promptly introduced in
congress, and thereupon the Oregon Question was thought by all to have
assumed a grave aspect. Many men within congress, and without, some of
them Mr. Polk’s best friends and advisors, felt that while the measure
was clearly within the terms of the convention it was neither wise nor
safe at that time to adopt it. To every representation, however, of this
view of the case made to the President, he returned the uniform answer
that in his judgment the notice should be given.
The Secretary of State was not alone in his alarm at the President’s
bold stand on this question. He, with others, finding themselves unable
to induce the President to change his attitude on this point, and
finding that in the present mood of congress the resolution of notice
was likely to pass, used every endeavor to induce him to consent to a
renewal of the proposition for compromise on the line of the forty-ninth
parallel, or to invite such a proposal from the British government.