The navigation of the Columbia is conceded, not to British subjects generally, but to the Hudson’s Bay Company and those trading with it. To this concession there is no express limitation of time; but it was believed by the Senate, that under the true construction of the projet this grant will expire on the 30th May, 1859, the date of the termination of the existing license to that Company, to trade with the Indians, etc., on the North-west Coast of America.

I need not enumerate the other less important particulars.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

James Buchanan.

While in December 1845 many political friends and opponents in all parts of the country were reading with approbation the correspondence on the Oregon question, so far as it had been published, an approbation which appears from a great multitude of private letters addressed to Mr. Buchanan, he thus wrote confidentially to Mr. McLane:

“I should this day [December 13th] have been on the bench of the Supreme Court, had it not been for the critical state of our foreign relations. I very much desired the position, because it would have enabled me to spend the remainder of my days in peace. I have now been on the stormy deep nearly a quarter of a century. Besides, I sincerely wished, if possible, to prevent my name being even mentioned in connection with the next Presidency.”

The vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States was occasioned by the death of Mr. Justice Baldwin. According to an invariable custom the appointment should be made from the Pennsylvania circuit. There were persons who desired, not without a mixture of motives, that Mr. Buchanan might receive it; for his transfer to the bench would, it was assumed, bring into the Department of State a gentleman whose friends were exceedingly anxious to have him in that position. Others wished Buchanan to be out of the cabinet, without much reference to the question of who was to be his successor. There came about a kind of intrigue, to produce a public belief that he was to be appointed a judge, in order that it might be considered as a foregone conclusion and appear to be called for by the general voice. Some of Mr. Buchanan’s friends, of both political parties, believing that he had eminent qualifications for the judicial office, urged him to accept the offer, if it should be made to him; others, who had just as strong convictions that he would be a great acquisition to the bench, were not willing to have him retire from political life, and were earnestly opposed to his leaving the Department of State at that time. The great body of the discreet friends of the administration took the same view. The matter was kept open for a long time, and meanwhile Mr. Buchanan, uncertain of his own future, had to go on and manage the foreign relations of the country, in which, besides the Oregon question, the state of things consequent upon the proposed annexation of Texas and the other difficulties with Mexico, of which I shall treat hereafter, became extremely perplexing. That he would have preferred the safe retirement of the bench to anything that political office could give him, and that he would have renounced all further connection with politics if he had received this appointment, cannot be doubted. Having had occasion thus far to estimate the qualities of his mind and character, I may here express the opinion, that he would have been a highly useful and distinguished judge. If this change in the course of his life had taken place, he would never have become President of the United States, and his biography, if written, would have been only that of a man who had been very eminent in political life to the age of forty-six, and had then passed the remainder of his days in the tranquillity of a judicial career, giving more or less proof of the versatility of his powers. He believed that it would be a gain of happiness to escape from the stormy conflicts of the political sphere. But public men can rarely do more than “rough-hew their ends;” to entirely “shape” them is not given to mortals. The following interesting letters from his friend King give, by reflex, all that can now be known concerning his feelings in regard to this disappointment:[[91]]

[HON. WM. R. KING TO MR. BUCHANAN.]

Paris, January 25, 1846.

Dear Buchanan:—