Review (_continued_).--Triumph of the Democratic Party.--Impending
Troubles with Mexico.--Position of Parties.--Struggle for the
Equality of Free and Slave States.--Character of the Southern
Leaders.--Their Efforts to control the Government.--Conservative
Course of Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy.--Reluctant to engage in
War with Mexico.--The Oregon Question, 54 deg., 40', or 49 deg..--Critical
Relations with the British Government.--Treaty of 1846.--Character
of the Adjustment.--Our Probable Loss by Unwise Policy of the
Democratic Party.
The annexation of Texas being accomplished, the next step was looked
for with absorbing interest. In the spring of 1845 the Democratic
party stood victor. Its policy had been approved by the people,
its administration was in power. But success had brought heavy
responsibilities, and imposed upon the statesmanship of Mr. Polk
the severest of tasks. Texas came to us with undefined boundaries,
and with a state of war at that moment existing between herself
and Mexico. We had annexed a province that had indeed maintained
a revolt for years against the central government of a neighboring
republic; but its independence had never been conceded, the hope
of its subjugation had never been abandoned. When Congress passed
the joint resolution of annexation, the Mexican minister entered
a formal protest against the proceeding, demanded his passports,
and left the United States. By this course, Mexico placed herself
in an unfriendly, though not necessarily hostile, attitude. The
general apprehension however was that we should drift into war,
and the first message of Mr. Polk aroused the country to the
impending danger. He devoted a large space to the Texas question,
informing Congress that "Mexico had been marshaling and organizing
armies, issuing proclamations, and avowing the intention to make
war on the United States, either by open declaration, or by invading
Texas." He had therefore "deemed it proper, as a precautionary
measure, to order a strong squadron to the coast of Mexico, and to
concentrate an efficient military force on the western frontier of
Texas." Every one could see what this condition of affairs portended,
and there was at once great excitement throughout the country. In
the North, the belief of a large majority of the people was that
the administration intended to precipitate war, not merely to coerce
Mexico into the acknowledgment of the Rio Grande as the boundary
of Texas, but also to acquire further territory for the purpose of
creating additional slave States. As soon as this impression, or
suspicion, got abroad, the effect was an anti-slavery revival which
enlisted the feelings and influenced the political action of many
who had never sympathized with the Abolitionists, and of many who
had steadily opposed them.
These men came from both the old political parties, but the larger
number from the Whigs. Indeed, during almost the entire period of
the anti-slavery agitation by the Abolitionists, there had existed
a body of men in the Whig ranks who were profoundly impressed with
the evils of slavery, and who yet thought they could be more
influential in checking its progress by remaining in their old
party, and, in many sections of the country, maintaining their
control of it. Of these men, John Quincy Adams stood undeniably
at the head; and with him were associated, in and out of Congress,
Mr. Seward, Mr. Benjamin F. Wade, Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Giddings, Mr.
Thaddeus Stevens, besides a large number of able and resolute men
of less public distinction, but of equal earnestness, in all parts
of the North. Subsequent events have led men to forget that Millard
Fillmore, then a representative from New York, was one of Mr.
Adams's early co-laborers in the anti-slavery cause, and that in
the important debate on the admission of Arkansas, with a constitution
making slavery perpetual, Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts led the
radical free sentiment of New England. A large number of distinguished
Democrats in the North also entertained the strongest anti-slavery
convictions, and were determined, at the risk of separating from
their party associates, to resist the spread of slavery into free
territory. Among the most conspicuous of these were Salmon P.
Chase, John P. Hale, Hannibal Hamlin, Preston King, John M. Niles,
David Wilmot, David K. Cartter, and John Wentworth. They had many
co-laborers and a band of determined and courageous followers.
They were especially strong in the State of New York, and, under
the name of Barnburners, wrought changes which affected the political
history of the entire country.
The two great parties on the eve of the Mexican war were thus
somewhat similarly situated. In the South all the members of both
were, by the supposed necessity of their situation, upholders of
slavery, though the Democrats were on this question more aggressive,
more truculent, and more menacing, than the Whigs. The Southern
Whigs, under the lead of Mr. Clay, had been taught that slavery
was an evil, to be removed in some practicable way at some distant
period, but not to be interfered with, in the States where it
existed, by outside influence or force. The Democrats, under the
head of Mr. Calhoun, defended the institution of slavery as right
in itself, as scripturally authorized, as essential in the economy
of labor, and as a blessing to both races. In the North both
parties were divided on the question; each had its anti-slavery
wing and its pro-slavery wing, with many local names to distinguish
them. Between the two a relentless controversy began,--a controversy
marked as much by epithet as by argument, and conducted with such
exasperation of feeling as clearly foreshadowed a break of existing
party lines, and the formation of new associations, through which,
in the phrase of that day, "men who thought alike could act
together."
THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY.
This being the condition of the two great parties which divided
the country, it was evident that the acquisition of territory from
Mexico must lead to an agitation of the slavery question, of which
no man could measure the extent, or foresee the consequences. It
was the old Missouri struggle renewed, with more numerous combatants,
a stronger influence of the press, a mightier enginery of public
opinion. It arose as suddenly as the agitation of 1820, but gave
indications of deeper feeling and more prolonged controversy. The
able and ambitious men who had come into power at the South were
wielding the whole force of the national administration, and they
wielded it with commanding ability and unflinching energy. The
Free-soil sentiment which so largely pervaded the ranks of the
Northern Democracy had no representative in the cabinet, and a man
of pronounced anti-slavery views was as severely proscribed in
Washington as a Roundhead was in London after the coronation of
Charles II.
The policy of maintaining an equality of slave States with free
States was to be pursued, as it had already been from the foundation
of the government, with unceasing vigilance and untiring energy.
The balancing of forces between the new States added to the Union
had been so skillfully arranged, that for a long period two States
were admitted at nearly the same time,--one from the South, and
one from the North. Thus Kentucky and Vermont, Tennessee and Ohio,
Mississippi and Indiana, Alabama and Illinois, Missouri and Maine,
Arkansas and Michigan, Florida and Iowa, came into the Union in
pairs, not indeed at precisely the same moment in every case, but
always with reference each to the other in the order named. On
the admission of Florida and Iowa, Colonel Benton remarked that
"it seemed strange that two territories so different in age, so
distant from each other, so antagonistic in natural features and
political institutions, should ripen into States at the same time,
and come into the Union by a single Act; but these very antagonisms
--that is, the antagonistic provisions on the subject of slavery--
made the conjunction, and gave to the two young States an inseparable
admission." During the entire period from the formation of the
Federal Government to the inauguration of Mr. Polk, the only
variation from this twin birth of States--the one free, the other
slave--was in the case of Louisiana, which was admitted in 1812,
with no corresponding State from the North. Of the original Thirteen
States, seven had become free, and six maintained slavery. Of the
fifteen that were added to the Union, prior to the annexation of
Texas, eight were slave, and seven were free; so that, when Mr.
Polk took the oath of office, the Union consisted of twenty-eight
States, equally divided between slave-holding and free. So nice
an adjustment had certainly required constant watchfulness and the
closest calculation of political forces. It was in pursuit of this
adjustment that the admission of Louisiana was secured, as an
evident compensation for the loss which had accrued to the slave-
holding interest in the unequal though voluntary partition of the
Old Thirteen between North and South.
The more rapid growth of the free States in population made the
contest for the House of Representatives, or for a majority in the
Electoral college, utterly hopeless to the South; but the constitutional
equality of all the States in the Senate enabled the slave interest
to defeat any hostile legislation, and to defeat also any nominations
by the President of men who were offensive to the South by reason
of their anti-slavery character. The courts of the United States,
both supreme and district, throughout the Union, including the
clerks and the marshals who summoned the juries and served the
processes, were therefore filled with men acceptable to the South.
Cabinets were constituted in the same way. Representatives of the
government in foreign countries were necessarily taken from the
class approved by the same power. Mr. Webster, speaking in his
most conservative tone in the famous speech of March 7, 1850,
declared that, from the formation of the Union to that hour, the
South had monopolized three-fourths of the places of honor and
emolument under the Federal Government. It was an accepted fact
that the class interest of slavery, by holding a tie in the Senate,
could defeat any measure or any nomination to which its leaders
might be opposed; and thus, banded together by an absolutely cohesive
political force, they could and did dictate terms. A tie-vote
cannot carry measures, but it can always defeat them; and any
combination of votes that possesses the negative power will in the
end, if it can be firmly held, direct and control the positive
action of the body to which it belongs. A strong minority, so
disciplined that it cannot be divided, will, in the hands of
competent leaders, annoy, distract, and often defeat, the majority
of a parliamentary body. Much more can one absolute half of a
legislative assembly, compactly united, succeed in dividing and
controlling the other half, which has no class interest to consolidate
it, and no tyrannical public opinion behind it, decreeing political
death to any member who doubts or halts in his devotion to one
supreme idea.
THE POLITICAL LEADERS OF THE SOUTH.
With one-half of the Senate under the control of the slave-holding
States, and with the Constitution declaring that no amendment to
it should ever destroy the equality of the States in the Senate,
the Southern leaders occupied a commanding position. Those leaders
constituted a remarkable body of men. Having before them the
example of Jefferson, of Madison, and of George Mason in Virginia,
of Nathaniel Macon in North Carolina, and of the Pinckneys and
Rutledges in South Carolina, they gave deep study to the science
of government. They were admirably trained as debaters, and they
became highly skilled in the management of parliamentary bodies.
As a rule, they were liberally educated, many of them graduates of
Northern colleges, a still larger number taking their degrees at
Transylvania in Kentucky, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and at
Mr. Jefferson's peculiar but admirable institution in Virginia.
Their secluded life on the plantation gave them leisure for reading
and reflection. They took pride in their libraries, pursued the
law so far as it increased their equipment for a public career,
and devoted themselves to political affairs with an absorbing
ambition. Their domestic relations imparted manners that were
haughty and sometimes offensive; they were quick to take affront,
and they not infrequently brought needless personal disputation
into the discussion of public questions; but they were, almost
without exception, men of high integrity, and they were especially
and jealously careful of the public money. Too often ruinously
lavish in their personal expenditures, they believed in an economical
government, and, throughout the long period of their domination,
they guarded the Treasury with rigid and unceasing vigilance against
every attempt at extravagance, and against every form of corruption.
Looking into the future, the Southern men took alarm lest the
equality of their section should be lost in the Senate, and their
long control of the Federal Government ended. Even with Texas
added to the Union, this equality was barely maintained, for
Wisconsin was already seeking admission; and the clause in the
articles of annexation providing that four new States might be
carved out of the territory of Texas whenever she asked it, gave
no promise of speedy help to the South. Its operation would, in
any event, be distant, and subject to contingencies which could
not be accurately measured. There was not another foot of territory
south of 36 deg. 30', save that which was devoted to the Indians by
solemn compact, from which another slave State could be formed.
North of 36 deg. 30' the Missouri Compromise had dedicated the entire
country to freedom. In extent it was, to the Southern view,
alarmingly great, including at least a million square miles of
territory. Except along its river boundaries it was little known.
Its value was underrated, and a large portion of it was designated
on our maps as the Great American Desert. At the time Texas was
annexed, and for several years afterwards, not a single foot of
that vast area was organized under any form of civil government.
Had the Southern statesmen foreseen the immense wealth, population,
and value of this imperial domain in the five great States and four
Territories into which it is to-day divided, they would have
abandoned the struggle for equality. But the most that was hoped,
even in the North, within any near period, was one State north of
Iowa, one west of Missouri, and one from the Oregon country. The
remainder, in the popular judgment, was divided among mountain
gorges, the arid plains of the middle, and the uninviting region
in the north, which the French _voyaguers_ had classed under the
comprehensive and significant title of _mauvaises terres_. With
only three States anticipated from the great area of the north-west,
it was the evident expectation of the Southern men who then had
control of the government, that, if war with Mexico should ensue,
the result would inevitably be the acquisition of sufficient
territory to form slave States south of the line of the Missouri
Compromise as rapidly as free States could be formed north of it;
and that in this way the ancient equality between North and South
could be maintained.
OUR RELATIONS WITH MEXICO.
But the scheme of war did not develop as rapidly as was desired by
the hot advocates of territorial expansion. A show of negotiation
for peace was kept up by dispatching Mr. John Slidell as minister
to Mexico upon the hint that that government might be willing to
renew diplomatic relations. When Mr. Slidell reached the city of
Mexico he found a violent contest raging over the Presidency of
the republic, the principal issue being between the war and anti-
war parties. Mr. Slidell was not received. The Mexican Government
declared, with somewhat of reason and consistency, that they had
been willing to listen to a special envoy who would treat singly
and promptly of the grave questions between the two republics, but
they would not accept a minister plenipotentiary who would sit down
near their government in a leisurely manner, as if friendly relations
existed, and select his own time for negotiation,--urging or
postponing, threatening or temporizing, as the pressure of political
interests in the United States might suggest. Mr. Slidell returned
home; but still the conflict of arms, though so imminent, was not
immediately precipitated. Mr. Polk's cautious and somewhat timid
course represented the resultant between the aggressive Democrat
of the South who was for war regardless of consequences, and the
Free-soil Democrat of the North who was for peace regardless of
consequences; the one feeling sure that war would strengthen the
institution of slavery, the other confident that peace would favor
the growth of freedom. As not infrequently happens in the evolution
of human events, each was mistaken in the final issue. The war,
undertaken for the extension of slavery, led in the end to its
destruction.
The leading influence in Mr. Polk's cabinet was divided between
Mr. Buchanan, secretary of State, and Mr. Marcy, secretary of War.
Both were men of conservative minds, of acute judgment in political
affairs of long experience in public life; and each was ambitious
for the succession to the Presidency. Neither could afford to
disregard the dominant opinion of the Southern Democracy; still
less could either countenance a reckless policy, which might
seriously embarrass our foreign affairs, and precipitate a dangerous
crisis in our relations with England. These eminent statesmen
quickly perceived that the long-standing issue touching our north-
western boundary, commonly known as the Oregon question, was
surrounded with embarrassments which, by mismanagement, might
rapidly develop into perils of great magnitude in connection with
the impending war with Mexico.
The Oregon question, which now became associated, if not complicated,
with the Texas question, originated many years before. By our
treaty with Spain in 1819, the southern boundary of our possessions
on the Pacific had been accurately defined. Our northern boundary
was still unadjusted, and had been matter of dispute with Great
Britain ever since we acquired the country. By the treaty of Oct.
20, 1818, the 49th parallel of north latitude was established as
the boundary between the United States and British America, from
the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains, as the Rocky Mountains
were then termed. In the same treaty it was agreed that any country
claimed by either the United States or Great Britain westward of
the Stony Mountains should, with its harbors, bays, and rivers, be
open for the term of ten years to the vessels, citizens, and subjects
of either power. This agreement was entered into solely for the
purpose of preventing disputes pending final settlement, and was
not to be construed to the prejudice of either party. This was
the beginning of the joint occupancy of the Oregon country, England
having with prompt and characteristic enterprise forced her way
across the continent after she had acquired Canada in 1763.
Stimulated by certain alleged discoveries of her navigators on the
north-west coast, Great Britain urged and maintained her title to
a frontage on the Pacific, and made a bold claim to sovereignty,
as far south as the mouth of the Columbia River, nearly, indeed,
to the northern border of California.
OUR CLAIM TO THE OREGON COUNTRY.
Nothing had been done towards an adjustment during the ten years
of joint occupancy, and when the term was about to expire, the
arrangement was renewed by special convention in 1827, for an
indefinite period,--each power reserving the right to terminate
the convention by giving twelve-months' notice to the other. The
President, John Quincy Adams, made the briefest possible reference
to the subject in his message to Congress, December, 1827; speaking
of it as a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims
of Great Britain and the United States to territory westward of
the Rocky Mountains. For many years thereafter, the subject, though
languidly pursued in our diplomatic correspondence, was not alluded
to in a President's message, or discussed in Congress. The
contracting parties rested content with the power to join issue
and try titles at any time by simply giving the required notice.
The subject was also overshadowed by more urgent disputes between
Great Britain and the United States, especially that relating to
the North-eastern boundary, and that touching the suppression of
the African slave-trade. The latter involved the old question of
the right of search. The two governments came to an agreement on
these differences in 1842 by the negotiation of the convention
known as the Ashburton Treaty. In transmitting the treaty to
Congress, President Tyler made, for the first time since the
agreement for a joint occupancy was renewed in 1827, a specific
reference to the Oregon question. He informed Congress, that the
territory of the United States commonly called the Oregon country
was beginning to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and
that "the tide of our population, having reclaimed from the wilderness
the more contiguous regions, was preparing to flow over those vast
districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean;" that Great Britain "laid claim to a portion of the country
and that the question could not be well included in the recent
treaty without postponing other more pressing matters." He
significantly added, that though the difficulty might not for
several years involve the peace of the two countries, yet he should
urge upon Great Britain the importance of its early settlement.
As this paragraph was undoubtedly suggested and probably written
by Mr. Webster, it attracted wide attention on both sides of the
Atlantic; and from that moment, in varying degrees of interest and
urgency, the Oregon question became an active political issue.
Before the next annual meeting of Congress, Mr. Upshur had succeeded
Mr. Webster in the State department; and the message of the President
took still more advanced ground respecting Oregon. For political
reasons, there was an obvious desire to keep the action of the
government on this issue well abreast of its aggressive movements
in the matter of acquiring Texas. Emboldened by Mr. Webster's
position of the preceding year, Mr. Upshur, with younger blood,
and with more reason for a demonstrative course, was evidently
disposed to force the discussion of the question with the British
Government. Under his influence and advice, President Tyler
declared, in his message of December, 1843, that "after the most
rigid, and, as far as practicable, unbiased, examination of the
subject, the United States have always contended that their rights
appertain to the entire region of country lying on the Pacific,
and embraced between latitude 42 deg. and 54 deg. 40'." Mr. Edward Everett,
at that time our minister in London, was instructed to present
these views to the British Government.
Before the President could send another annual message to Congress,
Mr. Calhoun had been for several months at the head of the State
Department, engaged in promoting, with singular skill and ability,
his scheme for the annexation of Texas. With his quick perception,
he discerned that if the policy apparently indicated by Mr. Webster
and aggressively pursued by Mr. Upshur, on the Oregon question,
should be followed, and that issue sharply pressed upon Great
Britain, complications of a most embarrassing nature might arise,
involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for
acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr.
Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington,
conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question;
and at the very moment when the Democratic National Convention
which nominated Mr. Polk was declaring our title to the whole of
Oregon as far as 54 deg. 40' to be "clear and unquestionable," the
Democratic secretary of State was proposing to Her Majesty's
representative to settle the entire controversy by the adoption of
the 49th parallel as the boundary!
The negotiation was very nearly completed, and was suspended only
by some dispute in regard to the right of navigating the Columbia
River. It is not improbable that Mr. Calhoun, after disclosing to
the British Government his willingness to accept the 49th parallel
as our northern boundary, was anxious to have the negotiation
temporarily postponed. If the treaty had been concluded at that
time, it would have seriously interfered with the success of Mr.
Polk's candidacy by destroying the prestige of the "Fifty-four
forties," as Colonel Benton termed them. In Mr. Polk's election,
Mr. Calhoun was deeply and indeed doubly interested; first, because
of his earnest desire to defeat Mr. Clay, with whom he was at swords'
points on all public issues; and again, because, having assumed
the responsibility of defeating the nomination of Mr. Van Buren,
he was naturally desirous that his judgment should be vindicated
by the election of the candidate whom his Southern friends had put
forward. Urgently solicitous for the annexation of Texas, those
friends were indifferent to the fate of the Oregon question, though
willing that it should be made a leading issue in the North, where
it was presented with popular effect. The patriotic spirit of the
country was appealed to, and to a considerable extent aroused and
inflamed by the ardent and energetic declaration of our title to
the whole of Oregon. "Fifty-four forty or fight" became a Democratic
watchword; and the Whigs who attempted to argue against the
extravagance or inexpediency of the claim continually lost ground,
and were branded as cowards who were awed into silence by the fear
of British power. All the prejudice against the British Government
which had descended from the Revolution and from the war of 1812
was successfully evoked by the Democratic party, and they gained
immeasurably by keeping an issue before the people which many of
their leaders knew would be abandoned when the pressure of actual
negotiation should be felt by our government.
PRESIDENT POLK ON THE OREGON QUESTION.
Mr. Polk, however, in his Inaugural address, carefully re-examined
the position respecting Oregon which his party had taken in the
national canvass, and quoted part of the phrase used in the platform
put forth by the convention which nominated him. The issue had
been made so broadly, that it must be squarely met, and finally
adjusted. The Democrats in their eagerness had left no road for
honorable retreat, and had cut themselves off from the resources
and convenient postponements of diplomacy. Dangerous as it was to
the new administration to confront the issue, it would have been
still more dangerous to attempt to avoid it. The decisive step,
in the policy to which the administration was committed, was to
give formal notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of
the Oregon country under the treaty of 1827 must cease. A certain
degree of moral strength was unexpectedly imparted to the Democratic
position by the fact that the venerable John Quincy Adams was
decidedly in favor of the notice, and ably supported, in a unique
and powerful speech in the House of Representatives, our title to
the country up to 54 deg. 40'. The first convention for joint occupancy
had been negotiated while Mr. Adams was secretary of State, and
the second while he was President; so that, in addition to the
weight of authority with which he always spoke, his words seemed
entitled to special confidence on a question with which he was
necessarily so familiar. His great influence brought many Whigs
to the support of the resolution; and on the 9th of February, 1846,
the House, by the large vote of 163 to 54, declared in favor of
giving the treaty notice to Great Britain.
The country at once became alarmed by the growing rumors that the
resolution of the House was a direct challenge to Great Britain
for a trial of strength as to the superior title to the Oregon
country, and it was soon apparent that the Senate would proceed
with more circumspection and conservatism. Events were rapidly
tending toward hostilities with Mexico, and the aggrandizement of
territory likely to result from a war with that country was not
viewed with a friendly eye, either by Great Britain or France.
Indeed, the annexation of Texas, which had been accomplished the
preceding year, was known to be distasteful to those governments.
They desired that Texas might remain an independent republic, under
more liberal trade relations than could be secured from the United
States with its steady policy of fostering and advancing its own
manufacturing interests. The directors of the administration saw
therefore more and more clearly that, if a war with Mexico were
impeding, it would be sheer madness to open a quarrel with Great
Britain, and force her into an alliance against us. Mr. Adams and
those who voted with him did not believe that the notice to the
British Government would provoke a war, but that firmness on our
part, in the negotiation which should ensue, would induce England
to yield her pretensions to any part of Oregon; to which Mr. Adams
maintained, with elaboration of argument and demonstration, she
had no shadow of right.
Mr. Adams was opposed to war with Mexico, and therefore did not
draw his conclusions from the premises laid down by those who were
charged with the policy of the administration. They naturally
argued that a war with Great Britain might end in our losing the
whole of Oregon, without acquiring any territory on our south-
western border. The bare possibility of such a result would defeat
the policy which they were seeking to uphold, and would at the same
time destroy their party. In short, it became apparent that what
might be termed the Texas policy of the administration, and what
might be termed the Oregon policy, could not both be carried out.
It required no prophet to foresee which would be maintained and
which would be abandoned. "Fifty-four forty or fight" had been a
good cry for the political campaign; but, when the fight was to be
with Great Britain, the issue became too serious to be settled by
such international law as is dispensed on the stump.
COMPROMISE ON THE OREGON QUESTION.
A very bitter controversy over the question began in the Senate as
soon as the House resolution was received. But from the outset it
was apparent that those who adhered to the 54 deg. 40' policy, on which
Mr. Polk had been elected, were in a small minority. That minority
was led by General Cass; but its most brilliant advocate in debate
was Edward A. Hannegan, Democratic senator from Indiana, who angrily
reproached his party for playing false to the pledges on which it
had won a victory over the greatest political leader of the country.
He measured the situation accurately, read with discrimination the
motives which underlay the change of policy on the part of the
administration and its Southern supporters, and stated the whole
case in a quick and curt reply to an interruption from a pro-slavery
senator,--"If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and
cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition. Its possession
would have been at once secured." The change in the Democratic
position was greatly aided by the attitude of the Whig senators,
who almost unanimously opposed the resolution of notice to Great
Britain, as passed by the House. Mr. Webster, for the first if
not the only time in his senatorial career, read a carefully prepared
speech, in which he did not argue the question of rightful boundary,
but urged that a settlement on the line of the 49th parallel would
be honorable to both countries, would avert hostile feeling, and
restore amity and harmony. Mr. Berrien of Georgia made an exhaustive
speech, inquiring into the rightfulness of title, and urged the
line of 49 deg.. Mr. Crittenden followed in the same vein, and in a
reply to Senator William Allen of Ohio, chairman of Foreign Affairs,
made a speech abounding in sarcasm and ridicule. The Whigs having
in the campaign taken no part in the boastful demand for 54 deg. 40',
were not subjected to the humiliation of retracing imprudent steps
and retracting unwise declarations.
Under the influences at work in the Senate, events developed rapidly.
The House resolution of notice was defeated; and the Senate passed
a substitute of a less aggressive type, in which the House, through
the instrumentality of a conference committee, substantially
concurred. The resolution as finally adopted authorized the
President "at his discretion" to give notice for the termination
of the treaty to Great Britain. The preamble further softened the
action of Congress by declaring that the notice was given in order
that "the attention of the governments of both countries may be
the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures
for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes
in regard to said territory."
The Southern Democrats in the House receded from their action, and
the modified resolution was carried by nearly as large a vote as
had been the previous one for decided and peremptory notice. In
short, the great mass of the Southern Democrats in both Houses
precipitately threw the Oregon issue aside. They had not failed
to perceive that the hesitation of the administration in forcing
an issue with Mexico was due to the apprehension of trouble with
Great Britain, and they made haste to promote schemes of territorial
acquisition in the South-West by withdrawing the pretensions so
imprudently put forth in regard to our claims in the North-West.
Only forty-six votes were given in the House against what was termed
a disgraceful surrender. These were almost entirely from Northern
Democrats, though a few Southern Democrats refused to recede.
Among those who thus remained firm were Andrew Johnson, Stephen A.
Douglas, Howell Cobb, Preston King, and Allen G. Thurman.
The passage of the modified and friendly resolution of notice
dispelled all danger of trouble with Great Britain, and restored
a sense of security in the United States. Immediately after its
adoption, Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, under direction of the
President, concluded a treaty with the British minister on the
basis discussed by Mr. Calhoun two years before. The 49th parallel
was agreed upon as the boundary between the two countries, with
certain concessions for a defined period, touching the rights of
the Hudson-bay Company, and the navigation of the Columbia River
by the British. This treaty was promptly confirmed by the Senate,
and the long controversy over the Oregon question was at rest. It
had created a deep and wide-spread excitement in the country, and
came very near precipitating hostilities with Great Britain. There
is no doubt whatever that the English Government would have gone
to war rather than surrender the territory north of the 49th
parallel. This fact had made the winter and early spring of 1846
one of profound anxiety to all the people of the United States,
and more especially to those who were interested in the large
mercantile marine which then sailed under the American flag.
UNWISE AGITATION OF THE QUESTION.
In simple truth, the country was not prepared to go to war with
Great Britain in support of "our clear and unquestionable title"
to the whole of Oregon. With her strong naval force on the Pacific,
and her military force in Australasia, Great Britain could more
readily and more easily take possession of the country in dispute
than could the United States. We had no way of reaching Oregon
except by doubling Cape Horn, and making a dangerous sea-voyage of
many thousand miles. We could communicate across the continent
only by the emigrant trail over rugged mountains and almost trackless
plains. Our railway system was in its infancy in 1846. New-York
City did not have a continuous road to Buffalo. Philadelphia was
not connected with Pittsburg. Baltimore's projected line to the
Ohio had only reached Cumberland, among the eastern foot-hills of
the Alleghanies. The entire Union had but five thousand miles of
railway. There was scarcely a spot on the globe, outside of the
United Kingdom, where we could not have fought England with greater
advantage than on the north-west coast of America at that time.
The war-cry of the Presidential campaign of 1844 was, therefore,
in any event, absurd; and it proved to be mischievous. It is not
improbable, that, if the Oregon question had been allowed to rest
for the time under the provisions of the treaty of 1827, the whole
country would ultimately have fallen into our hands, and the American
flag might to-day be waving over British Columbia. The course of
events and the lapse of time were working steadily to our advantage.
In 1826 Great Britain declined to accept the 49th parallel, but
demanded the Columbia River as the boundary. Twenty years afterwards
she accepted the line previously rejected. American settlers had
forced her back. With the sweep of our emigration and civilization
to the Pacific coast two years after the treaty of 1846, when gold
was discovered in California, the tendency would have been still
more strongly in our favor. Time, as Mr. Calhoun said, "would have
effected every thing for us" if we could only have been patient
and peaceful.
Taking the question, however, as it stood in 1846, the settlement
must, upon full consideration and review, be adjudged honorable to
both countries. Wise statesmen of that day felt, as wise statesmen
of subsequent years have more and more realized, that a war between
Great Britain and the United States would not only be a terrible
calamity to both nations, but that it would stay the progress of
civilization throughout the world. Future generations would hold
the governing power in both countries guilty of a crime if war
should ever be permitted except upon the failure of every other
arbitrament. The harmless laugh of one political party at the
expense of the other forty years ago, the somewhat awkward receding
from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of
the nation, have passed into oblivion. But a striking and useful
lesson would be lost if it should be forgotten that the country
was brought to the verge of war by the proclamation of a policy
which could not be, and was not intended to be, enforced. It was
originated as a cry to catch votes; and except with the ignorant,
and the few whose judgment was carried away by enthusiasm, it was
from the first thoroughly insincere. If the punishment could have
fallen only upon those who raised the cry, perfect justice would
have been done. But the entire country suffered, and probably
endured a serious and permanent loss, from the false step taken by
men who claimed what they could not defend and did not mean to
defend.
The Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, gained much credit for his
conduct of the Oregon question, both diplomatically and politically.
His correspondence with Mr. Pakenham, the British minister at
Washington, was conspicuously able. It strengthened Mr. Buchanan
at home, and gave him an enviable reputation in Europe. His
political management of the question was especially adroit. His
party was in sore trouble over the issue, and naturally looked to
him for relief and escape. To extricate the Administration from
the embarrassment caused by its ill-timed and boastful pretensions
to the line of 54 deg. 40' was a difficult and delicate task. To
accomplish it, Mr. Buchanan had recourse to the original and long
disused habit of asking the Senate's advice in advance of negotiating
the treaty, instead of taking the ordinary but at that time perilous
responsibility of first negotiating the treaty, and then submitting
it to the Senate for approval. As a leading Northern Democrat,
with an established reputation and a promising future, Mr. Buchanan
was instinctively reluctant to take the lead in surrendering the
position which his party had so defiantly maintained during the
canvass for the Presidency in 1844, and which he had, as Secretary
of State, re-affirmed in a diplomatic paper of marked ability.
When the necessity came to retreat, Mr. Buchanan was anxious that
the duty of publicly lowering the colors should not be left to him.
His device, therefore, shifted the burden from his own shoulders,
and placed it on the broader ones of the Senate.
Political management could not have been more clever. It saved
Mr. Buchanan in large degree from the opprobrium visited on so many
leading Democrats for their precipitate retreat on the Oregon
question, and commended him at the same time to a class of Democrats
who had never before been his supporters. General Cass, in order
to save himself as a senator from the responsibility of surrendering
our claim to 54 deg. 40', assumed a very warlike attitude, erroneously
supposing that popularity might be gained by the advocacy of a
rupture with England. Mr. Buchanan was wiser. He held the middle
course. He had ably sustained our claim to the whole of Oregon,
and now, in the interest of peace, gracefully yielded to a compromise
which the Senate, after mature deliberation, had advised. His
course saved the administration, not indeed from a mortifying
position, but from a continually increasing embarrassment which
seemed to force upon the country the cruel alternatives of war or
dishonor.
THE PRESIDENT AND MR. BUCHANAN.
Mr. Polk was, from some cause, incapable of judging Mr. Buchanan
generously. He seems to have regarded his Secretary of State as
always willing to save himself at the expense of others. He did
not fail to perceive that Mr. Buchanan had come out of the Oregon
trouble with more credit, at least with less loss, than any other
man prominently identified with its agitation and settlement. This
was not pleasing to the President. He had evidently not concealed
his distrust from the outset, and had cumbered his offer of a
cabinet position with conditions which seemed derogatory to the
dignity of Mr. Buchanan,--conditions which a man of spirit might
well have resented. He informed Mr. Buchanan that, as he should
"take no part himself between gentlemen of the Democratic party
who might become aspirants to the Presidency," he desired that "no
member of the cabinet should do so." He indeed expressed himself
to Mr. Buchanan in a manner so peremptory as to be offensive:
"Should any member of my cabinet become a candidate for the Presidency
or Vice-Presidency of the United States, it will be expected on
the happening of such an event that he will retire from the cabinet."
Remembering that Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams had each
been nominated for the Presidency while holding the position of
Secretary of State in the cabinet of his predecessor, Mr. Polk was
attaching a new and degrading condition to the incumbency of that
office.
Mr. Polk did not stop with one exaction. Addressing Mr. Buchanan
as if he were about to become a department clerk, he informed him
that he disapproved "the practice which has sometimes prevailed of
cabinet officers absenting themselves for long periods from the
seat of government," and practically demanded a pledge that Mr.
Buchanan would remain at his post, and be punctual in the discharge
of his official duties. In reading Mr. Polk's letter, the inference
seems natural that he felt under some pressing obligation to tender
to Mr. Buchanan the appointment of secretary of State, but desired
to accompany it with conditions which would subordinate him in the
general conduct of the administration. With a spirit of docility,
if not humility, altogether incomprehensible, Mr. Buchanan "accepted
the position cheerfully and cordially _on the terms on which the
offer was made._"
It is not surprising that, after agreeing to enter Mr. Polk's
cabinet on these conditions, Mr. Buchanan had abundant reason to
complain afterwards that the President did not treat him with
"delicacy and confidence." On several occasions he was on the
point of resigning his position. He was especially aggrieved that
the President refused to nominate him to the Supreme Bench in 1846
as the successor of Henry Baldwin. In view of Mr. Buchanan's
career, both before and after that time, it seems strange that he
should have desired the position. It seems stranger still that
Mr. Polk, after refusing to appoint him, should have nominated
George W. Woodward, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who was unacceptable
to Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Polk, however, appreciated the temperament
of Mr. Buchanan, and apparently knew how much he would endure
without resentment. While his presence in the cabinet was evidently
not a source of pleasure to the President, he realized that it
brought character, strength, and power to the administration. Mr.
Buchanan was an older man than Mr. Polk, was superior to him
intellectually, had seen a longer and more varied public service,
and enjoyed a higher personal standing throughout the country.
The timidity of Mr. Buchanan's nature made him the servant of the
administration when, with boldness, he might have been its master.
Had he chosen to tender his resignation in resentment of his
treatment by Mr. Polk, the administration would have been seriously
embarrassed. There was, at the time, no Northern Democrat of the
same rank to succeed him, except General Cass, and he was ineligible
by reason of his uncompromising attitude on the Oregon question.
Mr. Polk could not call a Southern man to the State Department so
long as Robert J. Walker was at the head of the Treasury. He could
not promote Mr. Marcy from the War Department without increasing
the discontent already dangerously developed in the ranks of the
New-York Democracy. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, held absolute control
of the situation had he chosen to assert himself. This he failed
to do, and continued to lend his aid to an administration whose
policy was destroying him in his own State, and whose patronage
was persistently used to promote the fortunes of his rivals and
his enemies.
Mr. Polk was by singular fortune placed at the head of one of the
most vigorous and important administrations in the history of the
government. He had not been trained in the higher duties of
statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty
responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by
the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly
sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain aptitude
for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above
reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke
of him as "respectable but never eminent."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
When first elected to the House of Representatives in 1824, Mr.
Polk was but twenty-nine years of age. He was re-elected continuously
for fourteen years. He was one of the most pronounced adherents
of Jackson, and joined in the extreme and unreasonable opposition
to the administration of John Quincy Adams. The period of his
service in the House was distinguished by partisanship of a more
bigoted and vindictive type than prevailed at any other time in
the history of that body. He was Speaker during the last Congress
of Jackson's Presidency and during the first under the administration
of Van Buren. When the Whig members forced an inquiry in to the
conduct of Samuel Swartwout, the defaulting collector of customs
for the port of New York,--a case which figured prominently in the
exciting Presidential canvass of 1840,--they would not trust Mr.
Polk with the duty of naming the committee of investigation. The
House itself exercised the power of appointment, to the great
disparagement of the Speaker.
When Mr. Polk closed his service in the Chair, at the end of the
Twenty-fifth Congress, no Whig member could be found who was willing
to move the customary resolution of thanks,--an act of courtesy
which derives its chief grace by coming from a political opponent.
When the resolution was presented by a Democratic Representative
from the South, it was opposed in debate by prominent Whig members.
Henry A. Wise, who five years later supported Mr. Polk for the
Presidency, desired to have the resolution peremptorily ruled out
on a point of order. Sergeant S. Prentiss, the incomparably
brilliant member from Mississippi, attacked it most violently.
His impassioned invective did not stop short of personal indignity
and insult to Mr. Polk. He denied with emphatic iteration that
the Speaker had been "impartial." On the contrary he had been "the
tool of the Executive, the tool of his party." He analyzed Mr.
Polk's course in the appointment of committees, and with much detail
labored to prove his narrowness, his unfairness, his injustice as
a presiding officer. For one, he said, he was "not wiling to give
to Mr. Polk a certificate of good behaviour, to aid him in his
canvass for the governorship of Tennessee, for which he is known
to be a candidate." He believed "this vote of thanks was to be
used as so much capital, on which to do political business," and
he declared with much vehemence that he "was not disposed to furnish
it."
The opprobrious language of Prentiss did not wound Mr. Polk so
seriously as did the vote of the House on the resolution of thanks.
The Whigs, as a party, resisted its adoption. The Democrats could
not even bring the House to a vote upon the resolution without the
use of the _previous question_, and this, as a witty observer
remarked, was about as humiliating as to be compelled to call the
_previous question_ on resolutions of respect for a deceased member.
When the demand was made for "the main question to be put," the
Whigs, apparently eager to force the issue to the bitter end, called
for the _ayes_ and _noes_. John Quincy Adams, who headed the roll,
led off in the negative, and was sustained by such able and
conservative members as John Bell from Mr. Polk's own State, McKennan
of Pennsylvania, Evans of Maine, Corwin of Ohio, Menifee from the
Ashland district in Kentucky, and William Cost Johnson of Maryland.
The vote stood 92 to 75. Mr. Polk had been chosen Speaker by a
majority of thirteen. The Whigs had thus practically consolidated
their party against a vote of courtesy to the presiding officer of
the House.
Mr. Polk's situation was in the highest degree embarrassing, but
he behaved with admirable coolness and self-possession. He returned
his thanks to the "majority of the House," which had adopted the
resolution, significantly emphasizing the word "majority." He said
he regarded the vote just given "as of infinitely more value than
the common, matter-of-course, customary resolution which, in the
courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies, is passed at
the close of their deliberations." His reference "to the courtesy
usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies" was made, as an eye-
witness relates, with "telling accent, and with a manner that was
very disconcerting to the Whigs." His address was scrupulously
confined to "the majority of the House," and to the end Mr. Polk
exhibited, as was said at the time, "a magnificent contempt for
the insulting discourtesy of the Whigs."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
The incident was made very prominent in the ensuing canvass in
Tennessee, where Mr. Polk won a signal victory, and was installed
as governor. The Democrats treated the action of the House as a
deliberate insult, not merely to the Speaker, but to his State,
and not only to his State, but to the venerable ex-president, whose
residence at the Hermitage, in the judgment of his devoted followers,
made Tennessee illustrious and almost sacred ground. Jackson
himself was roused to intense indignation, and, though beyond
threescore and ten, was active and unceasing in his efforts to
insure a victory to Mr. Polk. The contest, though local in its
essential character, attracted observation and interest far beyond
the borders of the State.
The political importance of Mr. Polk was enhanced by the proscriptive
course of his opponents in the House of Representatives. The
refusal to join in the resolution of thanks operated in a manner
quite contrary to the expectations of the Whigs, and was indeed
effectively turned against them. The generous instincts of the
people condemned an attempt to destroy the honorable fame of a
public man by what they considered to be an act of spiteful
persecution. It was the opinion of John Bell, who of all men had
the best opportunity for impartial judgment in the premises, that
the vote of himself and his fellow Whigs on the resolution was an
indirect but potential cause of Mr. Polk's nomination and election
to the Presidency. It gave him prominence as a friend of Jackson,
and made him available as a candidate against Van Buren for the
Democratic nomination. The opponents of the latter instinctively
knew that it would be dangerous to defeat him with any one who did
not stand well with Van Buren's powerful patron. The events of
1839 and 1844 in the life of Mr. Polk have therefore an interesting
relation to each other.