Mr. Crittenden said, "I believe yet, a majority is still in favor of preserving the peace, if it can be done without dishonor. They favor the settling of the questions in dispute peaceably and honorably, to compromise by negotiations and arbitration, or some other mode known and recognized among nations as suitable and proper and honorable."
Mr. Webster had been too severely chastised by both friends and enemies for his part in the Ashburton Treaty, to make him anxious to be prominent in the discussion in the earlier weeks, but when he did speak he pointed out the very road which the Nation would travel in its way for peace, viz.: a compromise upon latitude forty-nine.
Webster said, "In my opinion it is not the judgment of this country, nor the judgment of the Senate, that the Government of the United States should run the hazard of a war for Oregon by renouncing, as no longer fit for consideration, the proposition of adjustment made by this Government thirty years ago and repeated in the face of the world." His great speech, which extended through the sessions of two days, was a masterly defense and explanation of the Ashburton-Webster Treaty, which was signed three years before.
No American statesman of the time had so full and complete a knowledge of the questions at issue as had Webster. He had canvassed every one of them in all their bearings with the shrewdest English diplomats and had nothing to learn. His great speech can be marked as the turning point in the discussion, and the friends of peace took fresh courage.
The first and ablest aid Mr. Webster received was from Calhoun, then second to none in his influence. In his speech he said, "What has transpired here and in England within the last three months must, I think, show that the public opinion in both countries is coming to a conclusion that this controversy ought to be settled, and is not very diverse in the one country or the other, as to the general basis of such settlement. That basis is the offer made by the United States to England in 1826."
It may here be observed that President Monroe offered to compromise on forty-nine degrees. President Adams did the same in 1826, while President Tyler, in the year of Whitman's visit (1843), again offered the same compromise, and England had rejected each and all. She expected a much larger slice.
Gen. Cass followed Calhoun in a fiery war speech, which called out the applause of the multitude, in which he claimed that the United States owned the territory up to the Russian line of 54 degrees 40 minutes and he "Would press the claim at the peril of war."
Dayton and other Senators asked that present conditions be maintained, and that "The people of the United States meet Great Britain by a practical adoption of her own doctrine, that the title of the country should pass to those who occupied it."
This latter view was the pioneer view of the situation, and which was so fully believed as to cause the memorable ride of Whitman in mid-winter from Oregon to Washington. The resolution of notice to the English Government, as we have seen, passed the House Feb. 9, 1846, and came to a vote and passed the Senate April 23d, by 42 to 10. It, however, contained two important amendments to the House resolution, both suggestive of compromise. And as the President was allowed "At his discretion to serve the notice," the act was shorn of much of its warlike meaning.
When it is remembered that the President's message and recommendations were made on the 2d of December, 1845, and the question had absorbed the attention of Congress until April 23, 1846, before final action, it can be marked as one of the most memorable discussions that has ever occurred in our Halls of National Legislation.