These are my recollections from the most free and unreserved intercourse with President Polk, and my recollection now is that I have seen letters from General Jackson to President Polk confirming substantially the above statement.
General Jackson was known to have strong feelings—warm towards his friends, bitter towards his enemies—and in the exciting canvasses for the Presidency may have used, and even written, harsh expressions about many prominent friends of his own, founded upon perversions and misrepresentations of their conduct by those toadies with whom he was beset, and often deceived by them as to the conduct and expressions of leading and prominent men in the Democratic party, and by none of them so often as by —— and ——, who never deserved his confidence or merited the favors bestowed on them.
The General, however, never hesitated to do justice to any man when the truth was ascertained as to his conduct.
From the whole of my intercourse with General Jackson and Mr. Polk, after the second election of General Jackson, I never had reason to suppose that he ever had any unkind feelings toward Mr. Buchanan. On the contrary, Mr. Buchanan was considered in the Senate one among his most active and confidential friends, as President Polk was in the House of Representatives.
Mr. Polk, or Buchanan, could neither be used nor controlled by such men as —— and ——, and hence their hostility to them after the second election of General Jackson, which was manifested in various ways which I could specify.
I am, very respectfully, your friend,
E. Johnson.
CHAPTER XX.
1845–1846.
THE OREGON CONTROVERSY—DANGER OF A WAR WITH ENGLAND—NEGOTIATION FOR A SETTLEMENT OF THE BOUNDARY—PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.
Among the subjects involved in the foreign relations of the country, when Mr. Buchanan became Secretary of State, and which demanded his immediate attention, one of the most important and critical was the title to the territory of Oregon, that had long been in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. The northern boundary of this region of country, which should have separated British America west of the Rocky Mountains from the dominion of the United States, had not been settled by the treaty negotiated at Washington between the two powers in 1842, because Lord Ashburton had no instructions to deal with it. As far back as the administration of President Monroe, an extension of the 49th parallel of latitude to the Pacific, as the boundary, was offered by the United States to England, but it was declined. The British claim was founded on the assertion that the title of the United States, which was derived through the Louisiana and Florida treaties, was not exclusive as to any part of the territory; and since it was for the interest of the Hudson Bay Company to follow the Columbia River to the ocean, and since the English asserted an actual and previous occupation as well as the Americans, it became desirable for England to have a right of joint occupation established, until the boundary between the two national possessions should be finally settled. A convention was entered into in 1827, establishing such a joint occupation until notice of its termination should be given by either of the two powers. This concession on the part of the United States, made in the interest of peace, left an open question between the two governments, both claiming the whole territory. But what was “the whole” of Oregon? On the American side of the controversy, the region claimed extended to a line that would be marked by the parallel of 54° 40′ north latitude. This would have carried the American title on the Pacific coast far above the Strait of Fuca and Vancouver’s Island, and would have made an irregular boundary, not coinciding in latitude with the northern boundary of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. On the other hand, the claim of England brought her down to the mouth of the Columbia River, which has its source nearly at the 50th parallel, and flows in a circuitous course of about eight hundred miles, first to the south, and then to the west, until it reaches the Pacific. The joint occupation agreed upon in 1827, had become inconvenient, and indeed dangerous for both nations. A very uneasy feeling sprang up in our Western States and among the settlers who were pushing into this territory, and who looked to the United States for titles to the land, and for the protection due from the sovereign power. Popular opinion about our right was not likely to be founded in intelligent investigation, but it was sure to find its way into the political action of the Democratic party. The political body which nominated Mr. Polk as its candidate for the Presidency, proclaimed our title to be “clear and unquestionable.” Mr. Polk considered himself as elected under an imperative popular instruction to assert this claim, and in his inaugural address he put it forth in very strong terms as extending to the parallel of 54° 40′. This was the attitude of the matter when Mr. Buchanan became Secretary of State.