Why Did the United States Dicker with England for Half a Century, before Asserting her Rights to Oregon? The Answer—American Statesmen had no Appreciation of Oregon, and Determinedly Opposed Expansion.
It is no pleasure for an American to call in question and criticise the wisdom and statesmanship of the men of the first half of the nineteenth century. But history is made of stubborn facts.
From 1792, the time of discovery of the Columbia River, up to 1845, the United States government never, by an official act in any way aided Oregon, or attempted to control it. Time and time again some statesman in Congress offered a resolution, or framed an act looking to that end, and upon several occasions one branch of Congress permitted the act to pass, simply to avoid discussion, knowing that it would fall dead in the other house. Thus, year by year our statesmen went on such record, as for their credit and wisdom it would be well if it could be obliterated from the records. They were men, brave and true; they had guided the nation to an honorable place among the nations of the earth, but they were, after all, willing to stand still, and let well enough alone. They regarded their territory as already vaster and larger than would ever be peopled. The readers can best understand the canny sentiment of the period by a few quotations from speeches made in Congress from time to time when the Oregon question was brought before them. Senator Winthrop of Massachusetts, in one of his great speeches, said:
"What do we want with Oregon? We will not need elbow room for a thousand years."
Another senator, second to none in influence, Benton of Missouri, in a speech, while in Congress in 1825, said:
"The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as a convenient, natural, and everlasting boundary. Along this ridge the western limits of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled god Terminus should be erected upon its highest peak, never to be thrown down."
In justice to Benton, we may observe he later on was convinced of the unwisdom of the sentiment, and became, with his co-worker, Senator Linn of Missouri, an ardent friend of Oregon. But his colleague, Senator Winthrop of Massachusetts, as late as 1846, when the Oregon treaty was before the Senate, and when the question had reached almost a war stage, repeated the words of Benton's speech of 1825, and commended it for its wisdom and statesmanship.
General Jackson, who was a power in the nation's counsels in that day, in a letter to President Monroe, concisely stated his opinion in these words:
"It should be our policy to concentrate our population, and confine our frontier to proper limits, until our country in those limits is filled with a dense population. It is denseness of population that gives strength and security to our frontier."
That was a diplomatic and conservative opinion, which doubtless reflected the sentiment of the multitude. The Calhouns, the Websters, the Daytons, and a host of others were more pronounced, and less diplomatic. They pointedly hated the very name of Oregon, and did not propose to endanger the nation's safety or defile its garments by making it a part of the Union.