It is good evidence of the confidence placed in Douglas by his colleagues that, when territorial questions of more than ordinary importance were pending, he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Territories.[[208]] If there was one division of legislative work in which he showed both capacity and talent, it was in the organization of our Western domain and in its preparation for statehood. The vision which dazzled his imagination was that of an ocean-bound republic; to that manifest destiny he had dedicated his talents, not by any self-conscious surrender, but by the irresistible sweep of his imagination, always impressed by things in the large and reinforced by contact with actual Western conditions. Finance, the tariff, and similar public questions of a technical nature, he was content to leave to others; but those which directly concerned the making of a continental republic he mastered with almost jealous eagerness. He had now attained a position, which, for fourteen years, was conceded to be indisputably his, for no sooner had he entered the Senate than he was made chairman of a similar committee. His career must be measured by the wisdom of his statesmanship in the peculiar problems which he was called upon to solve concerning the public domain. In this sphere he laid claim to expert judgment; from him, therefore, much was required; but it was the fate of nearly every territorial question to be bound up more or less intimately with the slavery question. Upon this delicate problem was Douglas also able to bring expert testimony to bear? Time only could tell. Meantime, the House Committee on Territories had urgent business on hand.
Texas was now knocking at the door of the Union, and awaited only a formal invitation to become one of the family of States, as the chairman was wont to say cheerily. Ten days after the opening of the session Douglas reported from his committee a joint resolution for the admission of Texas, "on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever."[[209]] There was a certain pleonasm about this phrasing that revealed the hand of the chairman: the simple statement must be reinforced both for legal security and for rhetorical effect. Six days later, after but a single speech, the resolution went to a third reading and was passed by a large majority.[[210]] Voted upon with equal dispatch by the Senate, and approved by the President, the joint resolution became law, December 29, 1845.
While the belligerent spirit of Congress had abated somewhat since the last session, no such change had passed over the gentleman from Illinois. No sooner had the Texas resolution been dispatched than he brought in a bill to protect American settlers in Oregon, while the joint treaty of occupation continued. He now acquiesced, it is true, in the more temperate course of first giving Great Britain twelve months' notice before terminating this treaty; but he was just as averse as ever to compromise and arbitration. "For one," said he, "I never will be satisfied with the valley of the Columbia, nor with 49°, nor with 54° 40'; nor will I be, while Great Britain shall hold possession of one acre on the northwest coast of America. And, Sir, I never will agree to any arrangement that shall recognize her right to one inch of soil upon the northwest coast; and for this simple reason: Great Britain never did own, she never did have a valid title to one inch of the country."[[211]] He moved that the question of title should not be left to arbitration.[[212]] His countrymen, he felt sure, would never trust their interests to European arbitrators, prejudiced as they inevitably would be by their monarchical environment.[[213]] This feeling was, indeed, shared by the President and his cabinet advisers.
With somewhat staggering frankness, Douglas laid bare his inmost motive for unflinching opposition to Great Britain. The value of Oregon was not to be measured by the extent of its seacoast nor by the quality of its soil. "The great point at issue between us and Great Britain is for the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, for the trade of China and Japan, of the East Indies, and for the maritime ascendency on all these waters." Oregon held a strategic position on the Pacific, controlling the overland route between the Atlantic and the Orient. If this country were yielded to Great Britain—"this power which holds control over all the balance of the globe,"—it would make her maritime ascendency complete.[[214]]
Stripped of its rhetorical garb, Douglas's speech of January 27, 1846, must be acknowledged to have a substratum of good sense and the elements of a true prophecy. When it is recalled that recent developments in the Orient have indeed made the mastery of the Pacific one of the momentous questions of the immediate future, that the United States did not then possess either California or Alaska, and that Oregon included the only available harbors on the coast,—the pleas of Douglas, which rang false in the ears of his own generation, sound prophetic in ours. Yet all that he said was vitiated by a fallacy which a glance at a map of the Northwest will expose. The line of 49° eventually gave to the United States Puget Sound with its ample harbors.
Perhaps it was the same uncompromising spirit that prompted Douglas's constituents in far away Illinois to seize the moment to endorse his course in Congress. Early in January, nineteen delegates, defying the inclemency of the season, met in convention at Rushville, and renominated Douglas for Congress by acclamation.[[215]] History maintains an impenetrable silence regarding these faithful nineteen; it is enough to know that Douglas had no opposition to encounter in his own bailiwick.
When the joint resolution to terminate the treaty of occupation came to a vote, the intransigeants endeavored to substitute a declaration to the effect that Oregon was no longer a subject for negotiation or compromise. It was a silly proposition, in view of the circumstances, yet it mustered ten supporters. Among those who passed between the tellers, with cries of "54° 40' forever," amid the laughter of the House, were Stephen A. Douglas and four of his Illinois colleagues.[[216]] Against the substitute, one hundred and forty-six votes were recorded,—an emphatic rebuke, if only the ten had chosen so to regard it.
While the House resolution was under consideration in the Senate, it was noised abroad that President Polk still considered himself free to compromise with Great Britain on the line of 49°. Consternation fell upon the Ultras. In the words of Senator Hannegan, they had believed the President committed to 54° 40' in as strong language as that which makes up the Holy Book. As rumor passed into certainty, the feelings of Douglas can be imagined, but not described. He had committed himself, and,—so far as in him lay,—his party, to the line of 54° 40', in full confidence that Polk, party man that he was, would stubbornly contest every inch of that territory. He had called on the dogs of war in dauntless fashion, and now to find "the standard-bearer of Democracy," "Young Hickory," and many of his party, disposed to compromise on 49°,—it was all too exasperating for words. In contrast to the soberer counsels that now prevailed, his impetuous advocacy of the whole of Oregon seemed decidedly boyish. It was greatly to his credit, however, that, while smarting under the humiliation of the moment, he imposed restraint upon his temper and indulged in no bitter language.
Some weeks later, Douglas intimated that some of his party associates had proved false to the professions of the Baltimore platform. No Democrat, he thought, could consistently accept part of Oregon instead of the whole. "Does the gentleman," asked Seddon, drawing him out for the edification of the House, "hold that the Democratic party is pledged to 54° 40'?" Douglas replied emphatically that he thought the party was thus solemnly pledged. "Does the gentleman," persisted his interrogator, "understand the President to have violated the Democratic creed in offering to compromise on 49°?" Douglas replied that he did understand Mr. Polk in his inaugural address "as standing up erect to the pledge of the Baltimore Convention." And if ever negotiations were again opened in violation of that pledge, "sooner let his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth than he would defend that party which should yield one inch of Oregon."[[217]] Evidently he had made up his mind to maintain his ground. Perhaps he had faint hopes that the administration would not compromise our claims. He still clung tenaciously to his bill for extending governmental protection over American citizens in Oregon and for encouraging emigration to the Pacific coast; and in the end he had the empty satisfaction of seeing it pass the House.[[218]]
Meantime a war-cloud had been gathering in the Southwest. On May 11th, President Polk announced that war existed by act of Mexico. From this moment an amicable settlement with Great Britain was assured. The most bellicose spirit in Congress dared not offer to prosecute two wars at the same time. The warlike roar of the fifty-four forty men subsided into a murmur of mild disapprobation. Yet Douglas was not among those who sulked in their tents. To the surprise of his colleagues, he accepted the situation, and he was among the first to defend the President's course in the Mexico imbroglio.