"Quite right, sir," said Mr. Tyler grimly. "As though there could be any hope for us save in our own conduct of our own affairs, without any interference from any foreign power!"
I knew it was John Calhoun speaking these words, not Mr. Tyler. I saw Mr. Calhoun's keen, cold eyes fixed closely upon the face of his president. The consternation created by the latter's words was plainly visible.
"Of course, this conversation is entirely irregular—I mean to say, wholly unofficial, your Excellency?" hesitated Pakenham. "It takes no part in our records?"
"Assuredly not," said Mr. Tyler. "I only hope the question may never come to a matter of record at all. Once our country knows that dictation has been attempted with us, even by England herself, the North will join the South in resentment. Even now, in restiveness at the fancied attitude of England toward Mexico, the West raises the demand that we shall end the joint occupancy of Oregon with Great Britain. Do you perchance know the watchword which is now on the popular tongue west of the Alleghanies? It bids fair to become an American Marseillaise."
"I must confess my ignorance," rejoined Mr. Pakenham.
"Our backwoodsmen have invented a phrase which runs Fifty-four Forty or Fight!"
"I beg pardon, I am sure, your Excellency?"
"It means that if we conclude to terminate the very unsatisfactory muddle along the Columbia River—a stream which our mariners first explored, as we contend—and if we conclude to dispute with England as well regarding our delimitations on the Southwest, where she has even less right to speak, then we shall contend for all that territory, not only up to the Columbia, but north to the Russian line, the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes! We claim that we once bought Texas clear to the Rio Grande, from Napoleon, although the foolish treaty with Spain in 1819 clouded our title—in the belief of our Whig friends, who do not desire more slave territory. Even the Whigs think that we own Oregon by virtue of first navigation of the Columbia. Both Whigs and Democrats now demand Oregon north to fifty-four degrees, forty minutes. The alternative? My Lord Aberdeen surely makes no deliberate bid to hear it!"
"Or fight!" exclaimed Pakenham. "God bless my soul! Fight us?"
Mr. Tyler flushed. "Such things have been," said he with dignity.