The spirit of '76 and 1812 seemed to have suddenly been aroused throughout the Nation. People did not stop to ask, who has done it, or how it all happened; but no intelligent or thoughtful student of history can doubt how it all happened, or who was its author. It was also easy to see that it was to be no forty-eight year campaign before the question must be adjudicated.
The Hon. Elwood Evans, in a speech in 1871, well said: "The arrival of Dr. Whitman in 1843 was opportune. The President was satisfied the territory was worth preserving." He continues: "If the offer had been made in the Ashburton Treaty of the forty-ninth parallel to the Columbia River and thence down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, it would have been accepted, but the visit of Whitman committed the President against any such settlement."
The offer was not made by English diplomats, because they intended to have a much larger slice. Captain Johnny Grant and the English Hudson Bay officials made their greatest blunder in allowing Whitman to make his perilous Winter ride. They were not prepared for the sudden change in American sentiment. In any enthusiasm for our hero, we would not willingly make any exaggerated claim for his services. Prior to the arrival of Whitman, President Tyler had shown thoughtful interest in the Oregon question, and in his message in 1842 he said: "In advance of the acquirement of individual rights to those lands, sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two Governments to settle their respective claims."
Fifteen days before the arrival of Whitman, Senator Linn, always a firm friend of Oregon, in a resolution called for information, "Why Oregon was not included in the Ashburton-Webster Treaty." This resolution passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House. Neither the President, Senators, or Congressmen had the data upon which to base clear, intelligent action, and Whitman's arrival just when Congress was closing up its business gave no opportunity for the wider discussion which would have followed then and there. It was, however, another evidence of timeliness, which we wish to keep well to the front in all of Whitman's work.
All can see how fortunate it was that the Oregon boundary question was not included in the Ashburton Treaty in 1842, and that it had waited for later adjudication. During the summer of 1843 the people of the entire country had heard of the great overland emigration to Oregon, and on the 8th day of January, 1844, Congress was notified that the Whitman immigration to Oregon was a grand success, and upon the very day of the arrival of this news, a resolution was offered in the Senate which called for the instructions to our Minister in England, and all correspondence upon the subject. But the conservative Senate was not quite ready for such a move, and the resolution was defeated by a close vote. But two days after a similar resolution was passed by the House.
Urged to do so by Whitman, the Lees, Lovejoy, Spalding, Eells and others, scores of intelligent emigrants flooded their Congressmen with letters giving glowing descriptions of the beauty of the country, the fertility of the land, and the mildness and healthfulness of the climate. Even Senator Winthrop, who at one time declared that "Neither the West nor the country at large had any real interest in retaining Oregon; that we would not be straitened for elbow room in the West for a thousand years," was aroused to something of enthusiasm, and said in his place in the Senate: "For myself, certainly, I believe that we have a good title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude up to fifty-four, forty."
Senator Benton had long since materially changed his views from those he held when he had said that "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as the convenient, natural and everlasting boundary." Fremont, not Whitman, had converted him. Benton was aggressive and intelligent. In the discussion of 1844, he said: "Let the emigrants go on and carry their rifles. We want thirty thousand rifles in the valley of the Oregon. The war, if it come, will not be topical; it will not be confined to Oregon, but will embrace the possessions of the two powers throughout the Globe."
In the discussion, which took a wide turn, many of the eminent statesmen at that time took a part. Prominent among them was Calhoun, Linn, Benton, Choate, Berrien and Rives. Many of them tried the most persuasive words of peace, yet no one who reads the speeches and the proceedings, but will perceive the wonderful changes in public sentiment during a single year. The year 1844 ended with the struggle growing every day more intense. The English people had awakened to the fact that they had to meet the issue and there would not be any repetition of the old dallying with the Maine boundary. They sent to this country Minister Packenham as Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate the treaty. Mr. Buchanan acted for the United States.
It was talk and counter-talk. Buchanan was one of the leading spirits in the demand for fifty-four forty, and his position was well understood both by the people of the United States and by England. President Tyler, in his final message, earnestly recommended the extension of the United States laws over the Territory of Oregon.
In this connection it will be remembered that Dr. Whitman, only a few months before the great massacre, in which he and his noble wife lost their lives, rode all the way to Oregon City to urge Judge Thornton to go to Washington and beg, on the part of the people of Oregon, for a "Provisional Government." Judge Thornton believed in Dr. Whitman's wisdom, and when the doctor declared that which seemed to be a prophecy, "Unless this is done, nothing will save even my mission from murder," the Judge said, "If Governor Abernethy will furnish me a letter to the President, I will go." The Governor promptly furnished the required letter and Judge Thornton resigned his position as Supreme Judge. All know of the fatal events at the Whitman Mission in less than two months after Judge Thornton's departure.