NOTE ON THE OREGON QUESTION.

Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his “History of our own Times,” passes very lightly over the Oregon controversy, leaving his readers to infer that the only element of danger was the popularity which any President would have gained by forcing England into a war. Nearly the whole of his “history” of this question is condensed into the following sentences: “The joint occupancy was renewed for an indefinite time; but in 1843 the President of the United States somewhat peremptorily called for a final settlement of the boundary. The question was eagerly taken up by excitable politicians in the American House of Representatives. For more than two years the Oregon question became a party cry in America. With a large proportion of the American public, including, of course, nearly all citizens of Irish birth or extraction, any President would have been popular beyond measure who had forced a war on England. Calmer and wiser counsels prevailed, however, on both sides. Lord Aberdeen, our foreign secretary, was especially moderate and conciliatory. He offered a compromise which was at last accepted.”

A true understanding of any past controversy between England and the United States is of importance in the future, not only that justice may be done to individual statesmen, but that the methods by which war has been averted and mutual respect and good feeling have been preserved, may have a salutary influence in all time to come. This is the chief value of the history of such international controversies. The truth is, that in this Oregon matter there were undoubtedly popular tendencies in this country, which, if they had been yielded to, might have enabled any President to force a war upon England, if he had been disposed to have one. But it is not true that there was anything precipitate or peremptory in the call for a final settlement of the boundary, or that the American Government was disposed at any time to go further in compliance with the popular demand than it was bound to go, by a proper regard for the rights of the country and the interests of the settlers in the national domain, who looked to it for protection. Moreover there was at one time quite as great a probability that a war on this question of Oregon would find backers in England, as there was that it would be popular in America. There were interests and passions in both countries that had strong tendencies to provoke a war: and the war would have occurred at a time when, to repeat the words of Mr. Webster, it “would have kindled flames that would have burned over the whole globe.”

When the President’s message of December, 1845, communicating to Congress the correspondence down to that period reached England, the British press became excessively violent and even abusive. Worse things could not have been said of any government or people than were said of the American nation and their rulers; and it is just as true, historically, that a war would have been popular in England, as it was that it would have been popular in America. In the House of Commons there were by no means wanting strong proofs of an unnecessary excitement.

In estimating the causes which produced the real peril of a war, it would not be just to overlook the loose, not to say careless, manner, in which the negotiation was at first conducted by and through the British minister in Washington. His rejection of Mr. Buchanan’s offer of the 49th parallel, without a reference to his own government, made in terms that were not well considered—that were in fact scarcely respectful—put it out of the power of the President to do anything but to reassert the American claim, and to leave the British government to renew the negotiation by other steps, or to take the consequences of a termination of the joint occupancy. It is not to be questioned that Lord Aberdeen’s subsequent course became moderate and conciliatory. But in the earlier stages of this business, Sir Robert Peel’s ministry had on hand a most serious domestic question. To borrow the pithy words of Mr. McCarthy himself, used in reference to that question: “Peel came into office in 1841 to maintain the corn laws, and in 1843 he repealed them.” It was in fact with Peel one long struggle between his former connections and the new opinions forced upon him by the circumstances in which he was placed; and although, in dealing with the relations between England and this country, in the earlier part of his ministry, there were manifested great care, prudence, and conciliation, it is quite certain that in the later controversy about Oregon, which had not been settled by the treaty of 1842, the British foreign office did not act at first with the same attentive circumspection, and was not represented at Washington with anything like the same ability and wisdom, as it was in the time of Lord Ashburton’s special mission. And how was it that public opinion and official persons in England were brought to a sense of the peril in which both nations stood in 1845–6? So far as salutary influences could be exerted on this side of the Atlantic and be felt in either country, great merit is due to two of our statesmen, Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Webster; the one having the duty of conducting the negotiation to a peaceful issue; the other the duty of watching it, and of using all his influence at home and abroad to produce caution, moderation, and a just sense of the responsibility that would rest upon those in either country who should unnecessarily lead the two nations into a war.

To Mr. Buchanan the praise is due, that he conducted the negotiation throughout with skill and firmness, with entire good temper, and without any wish to gain for the President or himself the cheap popularity that might have followed their propitiation of the war spirit among their countrymen. Mr. Webster’s admonitions, uttered with his accustomed solemnity, both on the popular platform and in the Senate, were addressed alike to both governments and both nations; but they were chiefly designed to affect opinion and feeling in England, and this design was, in a considerable degree, accomplished.

CHAPTER XXI.
1845–1848.

ORIGIN OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO—EFFORTS OF MR. POLK’S ADMINISTRATION TO PREVENT IT.

The administration of President Polk inherited the Texas question from the preceding administration of President Tyler. The mode in which it was finally proposed to bring the republic of Texas into the American Union has been already described. When Mr. Polk became President of the United States, Texas had been for nine years practically an independent power, with a form of government modelled on that of the United States, with the exception of the fact that Texas consisted of a single State. The emigration which had flowed into it from the south-western region of the United States had made it a slaveholding country. From the time when its independence was acknowledged by the American Government, the question whether it should remain a separate nation, or be absorbed into the American Union, became a very serious one. The leading men who had gone thither, had made the revolution which claimed to have expelled, and had practically expelled, the Mexican power; and together with the great bulk of the inhabitants, they looked upon the United States as their mother country. There were great difficulties attending either of the two courses that remained open for the American Government. On the one hand, if Texas should be left as a separate nationality, to continue her war with Mexico, which still lingered after the battle of San Jacinto, that war was quite certain to end in efforts of the Texans to invade and conquer Mexico. This would have been resisted by England, and with her aid Mexico would in turn have invaded Texas. The power of England once introduced into Mexico, she would in all probability have shared the fate of India. On the other hand, the introduction of Texas into the American Union was proposed at a time when the “Abolitionists” of the North had long been pressing forward the immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery everywhere, by what they regarded as “moral means,” without any consideration for the feelings or apprehensions of the Southern people. To make a large addition to the area of slavery by the annexation of Texas, a slaveholding State, was regarded in the South as a necessary means of strengthening the political power of that section against the control of the General Government, which, it was feared, might eventually be obtained by a sectional combination of the Northern States on questions relating to the whole subject of slavery. It was a hazardous mode of meeting the dangers arising from the Northern anti-slavery agitation, because it placed the people of the South in the attitude of seeking a preponderance of political power upon a sectional issue, at a time when the people of the North were not seeking to obtain such a sectional preponderance, and when there was only an apprehension that they might do so. But at the time when President Polk succeeded to the management of this delicate matter, it was believed by him and by many of his most considerate Southern supporters, that the repose of both North and South could be, and required to be, secured by an arrangement with the executive government of Texas, before her admission into the Union, fixing the northern boundary of slavery at the Missouri compromise line of 36° 30´ north latitude, by extending that line westward. North of that line and west of Missouri, it was believed that negro labor could not be valuable, and that the negro could not encounter the climate. These were the views entertained by Mr. Buchanan when he accepted the position of Secretary of State; and he had reason to know that they were the views of Mr. Polk before his election. To Mr. Buchanan the Missouri compromise line recommended itself as a practicable mode of giving effect to the principle of equality among the States in regard to the common territories of the United States.

The precise attitude of the Texas negotiation, and the relations of the United States with Mexico, at the time when Mr. Buchanan took charge of the State Department, must now be stated, together with some reference to the previous history of the project of annexation. The first formal overture of annexation came from the government of Texas, in the time of President Van Buren, after the independence of Texas had been recognized by the United States. Mr. Van Buren declined the proposal, because he considered it inexpedient to open the constitutional questions involved, and because of our friendly relations with Mexico under existing treaties of amity and commerce. The secret treaty of annexation negotiated by Mr. Upshur under President Tyler was rejected by the Senate. Mr. Calhoun’s plan for bringing Texas into the Union as a State, through the action of Congress, was arranged by him with the government of Texas, after he became Secretary of State in March, 1844, and in the following December this plan and the correspondence with the executive government of Texas were submitted to Congress by President Tyler at the opening of the session. The motive was fully disclosed. It was plainly made known that the American executive believed that the British government was about to interpose to cause the people of Texas to abolish slavery in their country. This it was considered would leave the Southwestern States of this Union on what Mr. Calhoun described as the “exposed frontier” of a free state, into which their slaves would be induced to escape, and from which the foreign and the American abolitionists would be able to operate upon slavery in the domains of those States.[[97]]