The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society (Vol. I, No. 3)

by Oregon Historical Society

American colonists in Oregon at that moment were not indeed sufficiently numerous to promise a speedy fulfillment of this prophesy. All told, they scarcely numbered five hundred, men, women, and children, and included not more than two score American families. They were enough, however, to test the excellence of the land, and enough of them had entered through the gateway of the mountains to prove that the country was accessible to men and women who were serious in their purpose of reaching it. Then, too, at the moment when Mr. Calhoun was speaking, at various centers throughout the union and on the frontiers of Missouri, a colony was organizing of men and women of the best stuff of which new states are made, setting their faces toward the new land with the full purpose of making it their home. This colony, nearly double in its numbers the total American population then in Oregon, before the year ended, successfully passed the barrier of the mountains, and with its whole great caravan safely reached the valley of the Columbia. Thus, sooner perhaps, and with a stronger and bolder movement than Mr. Calhoun himself had expected when he spoke, the onward movement of population began to make good the words of his prophesy.

When, in February, 1843, the senate bill failed in the house, it was understood that the two governments were in communication on the subject of the Oregon Territory. It was this understanding more than anything else that led to the suppression of the Oregon bill in the Committee on Foreign Relations. No proposal had as yet been made in official form, but it is now known that the President and his secretary had a definite policy in mind, and that while desirous of checking any measures in congress which might hinder the negotiations which they aimed to bring about, they felt obliged to conceal the nature of their policy with the utmost care, for fear of arousing opposition in congress and the country. As it was, there was no little dissatisfaction in congress with the treaty which had just been negotiated by Webster and Lord Ashburton. Like most treaties on boundary lines, this treaty was a settlement by compromise. Many citizens from the section affected by the new boundary line, and enemies of the administration from all sections, were prompt to say that the secretary had yielded too much—that he had allowed the United States to be overreached in the negotiations. The friends of Oregon took alarm. They thought they saw in the omission of the Oregon boundary from the treaty an occasion for another compromise, in which there should be a surrender of territory justly claimed by the United States. That this fear was widespread in the states of the Mississippi Valley appears from the resolutions of state legislatures presented to congress early in the following session. In more than one set of these resolutions it was manifest, through plain statement or through implication, that apprehensions for Oregon had been awakened by the terms of settlement of the boundary line of Maine. There was reason for uneasiness in the well known leaning of Mr. Webster toward certain commercial advantages to be got by treaty from Great Britain, and his low estimate of the value of the Oregon Territory to the United States. We now know that for this and for other reasons the prevalent apprehensions of the time in regard to the Oregon Territory were not groundless. The evidence is now at hand that the President and his secretary did contemplate a treaty with England which would involve a surrender of territory on the North Pacific Coast such as no administration hitherto had been willing for a moment to consider. The compensation, however, for the territory surrendered was not, as was then surmised, to be found wholly, if at all, on the Atlantic Coast.

It will be remembered that the Oregon Question was not the only question that agitated the country at this time. There was the Texas question, well nigh as old as that of Oregon, lately become pressing through events in Texas itself, and through the growing importunity of the Southern States. Then, too, there was the California question,—not a question of as widespread and popular interest as either of the others, but one which for a decade or more had been of growing interest to a narrow but intelligent circle. There was a popular demand for the assertion and maintenance of our rights in Oregon; there had come to be a popular demand for the annexation to the union, or the reannexation, as some chose to put it, of Texas; while as far back as the second administration of President Jackson there had been a desire on the part of farseeing statesmen to secure from Mexico the cession to the United States of so much of California as to include the bay of San Francisco. England was interested in Texas, was even thought by many in the United States to be contemplating making it a colony; England had influence with Mexico, her capitalists having loaned the Mexican government to the amount of $50,000,000 on security of lands in New Mexico, California, and other of her possessions; and England was urgent in all negotiations on the Oregon boundary that she be allowed free navigation of the Columbia, if not that that river be her southern boundary. In the United States, the slave states were desirous of Texas; the Western States pressed for the Oregon Territory at least to the forty-ninth parallel, while there was a growing desire in commercial centers in the North Atlantic States to have in American possession what was then regarded as the only ample and safe harbor on the North Pacific Coast south of the Straits of Fuca. Out of these various interests in England and America, President Tyler and Mr. Webster, his Secretary of State, shaped the policy of the administration. It is not likely that the President and his secretary were in entire accord on the details of the policy; but both alike were desirous that the administration should be signalized by a settlement through negotiation of the questions then pressing upon the country. In its earlier and more comprehensive form, the policy of the administration included all the questions that have been mentioned. These it sought to settle by a comprehension of them all in a tripartite treaty between the United States, Mexico and Great Britain, whereby it was hoped to secure from Mexico the recognition of the independence of Texas, and the cession to the United States of her possessions on the Pacific down to the thirty-sixth parallel. In compensation for her good offices in these matters, the United States was to yield to Great Britain all claim to the Oregon Territory down to the line of the Columbia River. It was thought that the large acquisition thus secured of territory south of the forty-second parallel would compensate for the loss of Oregon north of the Columbia, while the northern and southern sections would be reconciled to the treaty by the large acquisition it secured north and south, respectively, of parallel thirty-six.

The plan of the administration included a special mission to England, on which it was expected Mr. Webster should be sent, that he might be the better able to negotiate the treaty; and, failing this, a mission to China, to which Mr. Everett, then Minister to England, should be transferred, thus still accomplishing the desired end by allowing Mr. Webster to take his place in London. The mission to England failed in committee; the mission to China passed in congress, but failed to carry Mr. Webster to England, through Mr. Everett’s unwillingness to accept the China mission. With his failure to reach England at this time, Mr. Webster’s hope of being able to effect a settlement of the questions pending between the two governments died; this having been his main reason for remaining in President Tyler’s cabinet, his resignation shortly followed. And thus, with Mr. Webster’s resignation from the cabinet, passed forever all danger of a settlement of the Oregon boundary on a line below the forty-ninth parallel.

There were causes operating to produce this result which do not appear in this narrative. Even if the mission to England had succeeded, and Mr. Webster had effected the tripartite treaty as he desired, it is doubtful if it would have been accepted by the senate. Events were occurring contemporaneously with the movement of these measures that rendered it probable that the treaty, if made, would have failed of confirmation. Certain it is that the early spring of that year found the President less disposed to press for the settlement of the Oregon boundary contemplated in this scheme, and with less reason to expect the approval of congress or the country in any such settlement. Events had been rapidly making such a settlement impossible. A notable one, the great emigration of 1843, has already been mentioned. There were others precedent to this.

Some years previous, the Rev. Jason Lee, while on a visit to the United States, had visited Washington, and made a strong representation of the need of a representative of the United States in Oregon. As a late response to this plea, in the spring of 1842, the government had sent a sub-agent to look after the interests of the Indians in Oregon. The appointment fell upon Dr. Elijah White, who himself had been a member of the Willamette mission. Doctor White had at once set out for Oregon, in May of that year, and was accompanied by a colony of more than one hundred persons, assembled largely through his influence, the first real colony of American families, aside from the missions, to enter the Oregon Territory. By the end of the winter of 1843, the government was in possession of Doctor White’s report of the safe arrival in Oregon of himself, and this colony; of the satisfaction of the colonists with what they found there; and of the favorable condition and prospects of the settlers already there. Some of the colonists themselves had written to newspapers at their old homes giving good accounts of the new land, and urging their friends to join them there. And these letters, wherever found, were copied by all the great newspapers, north and south, because, as their editors sometimes apologetically added, “every one was eager to hear the latest news from the Oregon country.” About the same time with the arrival of the report of the government’s own agent, there appeared in Washington, fresh from his winter ride from Oregon, Dr. Marcus Whitman, of the Walla Walla mission. In repeated interviews with the President, and members of his cabinet, as well as with members of congress, Doctor Whitman presented earnestly the practicability of large companies of emigrants with their cattle and wagons reaching Oregon through the mountains, and urged the government to encourage such caravans by making the way thither as easy and safe as possible. What was thus said in the ears of government, and through the public press, was talked by many voices in crowded assemblies, at village stores, and at firesides throughout the country, from the frontiers of Missouri to the coast of Massachusetts, and from Portland, Maine, to New Orleans. The people were thus already aroused, even before the failure in congress of the administration’s plans for the settlement of the boundary question. The country of the Oregon had been made to appear inviting for seekers for new homes in all parts of the land, and colonization of it by the direct route through the Rocky Mountains practicable to the nation at large, so that the state of the public mind at this time boded ill to any plan of settlement that proposed a surrender of any part of the territory to which the United States was believed to have a well grounded claim. The time for bargaining away any part of the Oregon Territory, south of the forty-ninth parallel and the Straits of Fuca, had now fully passed. No one was quicker to see and appreciate the changed conditions of the question, than was the President himself. Naturally desirous that his administration should have the honor of settling this long pending question, he continued, through his succeeding secretaries, to endeavor to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion; but henceforth his proposals were based upon a return to the former position of the government on the line of the forty-ninth parallel. After a proposal of the line of the Columbia our government was at a disadvantage in renewing proposals based upon the more northern line, while the changed temper of congress and the country obliged to a firmer standing to the old position, once it was resumed. The President’s best efforts, however, to bring negotiations to a happy issue failed, and his administration closed with the question still pending. The negotiations of this time show a zealous purpose on the part of the President to effect a settlement, but show no real progress toward that end. The same may be said of the measures in congress of this period. Discussion of the question had been resumed in the house, and went on in the senate, but since negotiations on the part of the government with a view to a speedy settlement were almost continuously pending, congress was induced to refrain from any action that might thwart or trammel the government in its efforts.

It has already been pointed out in this paper that the correspondence between the two governments precedent to the convention of 1818, pointed to the line of the forty-ninth parallel as the final position of our government in this question. In subsequent negotiations between the United States and Great Britain, this line came to be regarded as in some sort traditional with our government, and as such became increasingly influential in shaping the proposals of succeeding administrations. We have just seen how under pressure of considerations external to the Oregon Question the administration of Mr. Tyler had been momentarily in danger of yielding this our traditional line for one to the south, on the Columbia. We have now to see how under pressure of another sort the government under the administration of Mr. Polk came near abandoning this traditional position for a line farther to the north.

In 1824, in a treaty between the United States and Russia, the line of 54° and 40′ was fixed as the limit of the claim of the United States northward as against Russia, and of Russia’s claim southward as against the United States. This line was thenceforth considered as the northern limit of the Oregon Territory. In the course of negotiations with Great Britain it had been mentioned as the northern limit of our claim, but the claim of the United States to this line had never been pressed by the government. In the same paragraph in which the claim had been mentioned by our government, it had been abandoned for the lower line of the forty-ninth parallel. In the year 1842, however, after the treaty of that year had been concluded and made public, in the reaction caused by what was regarded as a surrender of rights and just claims on the part of our government, a disposition was manifested in some sections of the country, particularly in the west, to recur to the extreme northern line, and to press our claim to the Oregon Territory fully up to that limit. This disposition found expression in some of the resolutions of the state legislatures which were presented to congress at its next session. Later, it found more distinct and emphatic expression in resolutions adopted by public meetings and local conventions in various parts of the country held for the purpose of promoting the occupation and settlement of the Oregon Territory. The agitation thus carried on in the latter part of 1842, and the earlier months of 1843, culminated in a convention held in Cincinnati in July of the latter year. This convention from its size and representative character had somewhat of national importance. The circular calling the convention issued from Cincinnati under date of May 23, was sent to representative men far and wide over the union, and was given publicity by the leading journals of the day. In this circular the object of the convention was formally stated to be, “to urge upon congress the immediate occupation of the Oregon Territory by the arms and laws of the republic, and to adopt such measures as may seem most conducive to its immediate and effective occupation, whether the government acts or not in the matter.” It will be proposed, the circular continues, “to base the action of the convention on Mr. Monroe’s declaration of 1823, ‘that the American continents are not to be considered subject to colonization by any European powers.’” The convention in a session of three days discussed thoroughly the various aspects of the subject on which it came together, and concluded by adopting a declaration of principles which was signed by the chairman, Col. R. M. Johnson, and ninety other delegates, representing six states of the Mississippi Valley. The first of the principles adopted defined clearly what the convention understood by the Oregon Territory which it was sought to occupy and settle, asserting, as it did, the right of the United States from the line of latitude 42° to that of 54° and 40′. Among letters read in the convention from prominent men unable to be present was one from Mr. Cass, in which he declared that no one would be present who would concur more heartily with the convention in the measures that might be adopted than should he; he would take and hold possession of the territory of the Pacific Coast, come what might. It is not difficult to see in the utterance of the Cincinnati convention, when taken in connection with the political weight of the convention itself, the origin of that party war-cry which was to make the presidential campaign of the following year so celebrated in our history. Here was a constituency united in a solemn pledge, which could not well be ignored in the estimate of political forces. It was an influence to be bid for, and what more natural than that it should be bid for, as it was bid for, by the party seeking a means of reconciling northern and western voters to its more distinctly southern policy of the annexation of Texas?

On becoming President, Mr. Polk seems not to have felt himself bound by the extreme statement of his party’s position on the Oregon Question. The tone of his inaugural is rather more conservative upon this subject than might have been expected from the circumstances of his election. His position, as stated in this paper, was sufficiently advanced, however, to alarm the British government. In a letter of April 3, addressed to Packenham, British Minister at Washington, Lord Aberdeen said: “The inaugural speech of President Polk has impressed a very serious character on our actual relations with the United States, and the manner in which he has referred to the Oregon Question, so different from the language of his predecessor, leaves little reason to hope for any favorable result of the existing negotiation.” And yet Mr. Polk, shortly after entering upon office, took up the negotiation as he found it then pending, and made an honest effort to effect a settlement upon the compromise line of his predecessors. In explanation of his course, in his annual message to congress, December following, he said: “Though entertaining the settled conviction that the British pretensions of title could not be maintained to any portion of the Oregon Territory, upon any principle of public law recognized by nations, yet, in deference to what had been done by my predecessors, and especially in consideration that propositions of compromise had been thrice made by two preceding administrations to adjust the question on the parallel of the forty-ninth degree of latitude, and in two of them yielding the free navigation of the Columbia, and that the pending negotiations had been commenced on the basis of compromise, I deemed it my duty not abruptly to break it off. In consideration, too, that under the conventions of 1818 and 1827 the citizens and subjects of the two powers held a joint occupancy of the country, I was induced to make another effort to settle this long pending controversy in the spirit of moderation which had given birth to the renewed discussion.”

In the letter above referred to, Lord Aberdeen, notwithstanding his fears, directed Mr. Packenham to submit again to the new Secretary of State the proposal for arbitration which he had submitted to his predecessor, if conditions for such a proposal seemed favorable. On Mr. Packenham’s informing Mr. Buchanan, the new Secretary of State, of his instructions to this effect, Mr. Buchanan expressed the hope that a satisfactory settlement of the question might yet be effected through negotiation. In accordance with this expressed hope, Mr. Buchanan, a few days later, submitted a proposal of the line of the forty-ninth parallel extended through to the Pacific, offering to Great Britain any port or ports on Vancouver’s Island she might choose. This proposal was rejected by Mr. Packenham, without first submitting it to his government, in a paper in which, after declaring the proposal offered less than was offered by the United States in 1826, he concluded: “The undersigned trusts that the American Plenipotentiary will be prepared to offer some other proposal for the settlement of the Oregon Question more consistent with fairness and equity, and with the reasonable expectations of the British government.” This paper was presented on July 29; on August 30 Mr. Buchanan presented to Mr. Packenham a carefully prepared paper, in which, after reviewing the position in which the President found himself in reference to the question on coming into office, and setting forth the motives which had actuated him in making the present proposal in spite of his personal views on the subject, he called the British Minister’s attention to the fact that the President’s proposal had been rejected by him in terms not over courteous, without even a reference of it to his government, and concluded: “Under such circumstances, I am instructed by the President to say that he owes it to his own country, and to a just appreciation of her title to the Oregon Territory, to withdraw this proposition to the British government, which was made under his direction; and it is hereby accordingly withdrawn.”