Mr. Orlando Ficklin, of Illinois, not satisfied with the explanations made by the chairman on military affairs, returned to the charge of the one hundred resignations in one year; and said:
"He had listened to the apology or excuse rendered by the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, for the cadets who resigned in 1836. And what was that excuse? Why, forsooth, though they had been educated at the government expense, yet, because they could get better pay by embarking in other pursuits, they deserted the service of the country which had educated them, and prepared them for her service. He did not intend to detain the committee at present, but he must be permitted to say to those who were in favor of winding up the concern, that they ought not to vote an appropriation of a single dollar to that institution, unless the same bill contained a provision, in language as emphatic as it could be made, declaring that this odious, detestable, and aristocratic institution, shall be brought to a close. If it did not cost this government a single dollar, he would still be unwilling that it should be kept up. He was not willing that the door of promotion should be shut against the honest and deserving soldier, and that a few dandies and band-box heroes, educated at that institution, should enjoy the monopoly of all the offices. Mr. F. adverted to the present condition of the army. It was filled up, he said, by foreigners. Native Americans, to whom they should naturally look as the defenders of the country, were deterred from entering it. It would be well, he thought, to have a committee of investigation, that the secrets of the prison-house might be disclosed, and its abuses brought to light."
Mr. Black, of Georgia, proposed an amendment, compelling the cadets to serve ten years, and keeping up the number: upon which Mr. Hale remarked:
"The amendment of the gentleman from Georgia would seem to imply that there were not officers enough: whereas the truth was there were more than enough. The difficulty was, there were already too many. The Army Register showed a list already of seventy supernumeraries; and more were being turned out upon us every year. The gentleman from New York had made a most unhappy illustration of the necessity for educating cadets for the army, by comparing them with the midshipmen in the navy. What was the service rendered by midshipmen on board our national vessels? Absolutely none. They were of no sort of use; and precisely so was it with these cadets. He denied that General Washington ever recommended a military academy like the present institution; and, if he had done so, he would, instead of proclaiming it, have endeavored to shield his great name from such a reproach."
The movement ended as usual, in showing necessity for a reform, and in failing to get it.
[CHAPTER CXII.]
EMIGRATION TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER, AND FOUNDATION OF ITS SETTLEMENT BY AMERICAN CITIZENS: FREMONT'S FIRST EXPEDITION.
The great event of carrying the Anglo-Saxon race to the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and planting that race firmly on that sea, took place at this time, beginning in 1842, and largely increasing in 1843. It was not an act of the government, leading the people and protecting them; but, like all the other great emigrations and settlements of that race on our continent, it was the act of the people, going forward without government aid or countenance, establishing their possession, and compelling the government to follow with its shield, and spread it over them. So far as the action of the government was concerned, it operated to endanger our title to the Columbia, to prevent emigration, and to incur the loss of the country. The first great step in this unfortunate direction was the treaty of joint occupation, as it was called, of 1818; by which the British, under the fallacious idea of mutuality, where there was nothing mutual, were admitted to a delusive joint occupation, with ourselves, intended to be equal—but which quickly became exclusive on their part: and was obliged to become so, from the power and organization of their Hudson Bay Company, already flanking the country and ready to cross over and cover it. It is due to the memory of President Monroe, under whose administration this unfortunate treaty was made, to say that, since the publication of the first volume of this View, the author has been informed by General Jesup (who had the fact from Mr. Monroe himself at the time), that his instructions had not authorized this arrangement (which in fact the commissioners intimated in their correspondence), and only after much hesitation prevailed on himself to send it to the Senate. That treaty was for ten years, and the second false step was in its indefinite extension by another of 1828, until one or the other of the parties should give notice for its discontinuance—the most insidious and pernicious of all agreements, being so easy to be adopted, and so hard to be got rid of. The third great blunder was in not settling the Oregon question in the Ashburton negotiation, when we had a strong hold upon the British government in its earnest desire to induce us to withdraw our northeastern boundary from the neighborhood of Lower Canada, and to surrender a part of Maine for the road from Halifax to Quebec. The fourth step in this series of governmental blunders, was the recommendation of President Tyler to discountenance emigration to Oregon, by withholding land from the emigrants, until the two governments had settled the title—a contingency too remote to be counted upon within any given period, and which every year's delay would make more difficult. The title to the country being thus endangered by the acts of the government, the saving of it devolved upon the people—and they saved it. In 1842, incited by numerous newspaper publications, upwards of a thousand American emigrants went to the country, making their long pilgrimage overland from the frontiers of Missouri, with their wives and children, their flocks and herds, their implements of husbandry and weapons of defence—traversing the vast inclined plane to the base of the Rocky Mountains, crossing that barrier (deemed impassable by Europeans), and descending the wide slope which declines from the mountains to the Pacific. Six months would be consumed in this journey, filled with hardships, beset by dangers from savage hostility, and only to be prosecuted in caravans of strength and determination. The Burnets and Applegates from Missouri were among the first leaders, and in 1843, some two thousand more joined the first emigration. To check these bold adventurers was the object of the government: to encourage them, was the object of some Western members of Congress, on whom (in conjunction with the people) the task of saving the Columbia evidently devolved. These members were ready for their work, and promptly began. Early in the session, Mr. Linn, a senator from Missouri, introduced a bill for the purpose, of which these were the leading provisions:
"That the President of the United States is hereby authorized and required to cause to be erected, at suitable places and distances, a line of stockade and blockhouse forts, not exceeding five in number, from some point on the Missouri and Arkansas rivers into the best pass for entering the valley of the Oregon; and, also, at or near the mouth of the Columbia River.
"That provision hereafter shall be made by law to secure and grant six hundred and forty acres, or one section of land, to every white male inhabitant of the territory of Oregon, of the age of eighteen years and upward, who shall cultivate and use the same for five consecutive years; or to his heir or heirs-at-law, if such there be, in case of his decease. And to every such inhabitant or cultivator (being a married man) there shall be granted, in addition, one hundred and sixty acres to the wife of said husband, and the like quantity of one hundred and sixty acres to the father for each child under the age of eighteen years he may have, or which may be born within the five years aforesaid.
"That no sale, alienation, or contract of any kind, shall be valid, of such lands, before the patent is issued therefor; nor shall the same be liable to be taken in execution, or bound by any judgment, mortgage, or lien, of any kind, before the patent is so issued; and all pretended alienations or contracts for alienating such lands, made before the issuing of the patents, shall be null and void against the settler himself, his wife, or widow, or against his heirs-at-law, or against purchasers, after the issuing of the patent.
"That the President is hereby authorized and required to appoint two additional Indian agents, with a salary of two thousand dollars each, whose duty it shall be (under his direction and control) to superintend the interests of the United States with any or every Indian tribe west of any agency now established by law.
"That the sum of one hundred thousand dollars be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to carry into effect the provisions of this act.
"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the supreme court and district courts of the territory of Iowa, be, and the same is hereby, extended over that part of the Indian territories lying west of the present limits of the said territory of Iowa, and south of the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the boundary line between the United States and the Republic of Texas, not included within the limits of any State; and also, over the Indian territories comprising the Rocky Mountains and the country between them and the Pacific Ocean, south of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude, and north of the forty-second degree of north latitude; and justices of the peace may be appointed for the said territory, in the same manner and with the same powers as now provided by law in relation to the territory of Iowa: Provided, That any subject of the government of Great Britain, who shall have been arrested under the provisions of this act for any crime alleged to have been committed within the territory westward of the Stony or Rocky Mountains, while the same remains free and open to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the United States and of Great Britain, pursuant to stipulations between the two powers, shall be delivered up, on proof of his being such British subject, to the nearest or most convenient authorities having cognizance of such offence by the laws of Great Britain, for the purpose of being prosecuted and tried according to such laws.
"Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That one associate judge of the supreme court of the territory of Iowa, in addition to the number now authorized by law, may, in the discretion of the President, be appointed, to hold his office by the same tenure and for the same time, receive the same compensation, and possess all the powers and authority conferred by law upon the associate judges of the said territory; and one judicial district shall be organized by the said supreme court, in addition to the existing number, in reference to the jurisdiction conferred by this act; and a district court shall be held in the said district by the judge of the supreme court, at such times and places as the said court shall direct; and the said district court shall possess all the powers and authority vested in the present district courts of the said territory, and may, in like manner, appoint its own clerk.
"Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That any justice of the peace, appointed in and for the territories described in the second section of this act, shall have power to cause all offenders against the laws of the United States to be arrested by such persons as they shall appoint for that purpose, and to commit such offenders to safe custody for trial, in the same cases and in the manner provided by law in relation to the Territory of Iowa; and to cause the offenders so committed to be conveyed to the place appointed for the holding of a district court for the said Territory of Iowa, nearest and most convenient to the place of such commitment, there to be detained for trial, by such persons as shall be authorized for that purpose by any judge of the supreme court, or any justice of the peace of the said Territory; or where such offenders are British subjects, to cause them to be delivered to the nearest and most convenient British authorities, as hereinbefore provided; and the expenses of such commitment, removal, and detention, shall be paid in the same manner as provided by law in respect to the fees of the marshal of the said territory."