Mr. Benton made a brief deduction of our title to the Columbia to the 49th parallel under the treaty of Utrecht, and rapidly traced the various British attempts to encroach upon that line, the whole of which, though earnestly made and perseveringly continued, failed to follow that great line from the Lake of the Woods to the shores of the Pacific. He thus made this deduction of title:
"Louisiana was acquired in 1803. In the very instant of signing the treaty which brought us that province, another treaty was signed in London (without a knowledge of what was done in Paris), fixing, among other things, the line from the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi. This treaty, signed by Mr. Rufus King and Lord Hawkesbury, was rejected by Mr. Jefferson, without reference to the Senate, on account of the fifth article (which related to the line between the Lake of the Woods and the head of the Mississippi), for fear it might compromise the northern boundary of Louisiana and the line of 49 degrees. In this negotiation of 1803, the British made no attempt on the line of the 49th degree, because it was not then known to them that we had acquired Louisiana; but Mr. Jefferson, having a knowledge of this acquisition, was determined that nothing should be done to compromise our rights, or to unsettle the boundaries established under the treaty of Utrecht.
"Another treaty was negotiated with Great Britain in 1807, between Messrs. Monroe and William Pinckney on one side, and Lords Holland and Auckland on the other. The English were now fully possessed of the fact that we had acquired Louisiana, and become a party to the line of 49 degrees; and they set themselves openly to work to destroy that line. The correspondence of the ministers shows the pertinacity of these attempts; and the instructions of Mr. Adams, in 1818 (when Secretary of State, under Mr. Monroe), to Messrs. Rush and Gallatin, then in London, charged with negotiating a convention on points left unsettled at Ghent, condense the history of the mutual propositions then made. Finally, an article was agreed upon, in which the British succeeded in mutilating the line, and stopping it at the Rocky Mountains. This treaty of 1807 shared the fate of that of 1803, but for a different reason. It was rejected by Mr. Jefferson, without reference to the Senate, because it did not contain an explicit renunciation of the pretension of impressment!
"At Ghent the attempt was renewed: the arrest of the line at the Rocky Mountains was agreed upon, but the British coupled with their proposition a demand for the free navigation of the Mississippi, and access to it through the territories of the United States; and this demand occasioned the whole article to be omitted. The Ghent treaty was signed without any stipulation on the subject of the line along the 49th degree, and that point became a principal object of the ministers charged with completing at London, in 1818, the subjects unfinished at Ghent in 1814. Thus the British were again foiled; but, true to their design, they persevered and accomplished it in the convention signed at London in 1818. That convention arrested the line at the mountains, and opened the Columbia to the joint occupation of the British; and, being ratified by the United States, it has become binding and obligatory on the country. But it is a point not to be overlooked, or undervalued, in this case, that it was in the year 1818 that this arrestation of the line took place; that up to that period it was in full force in all its extent, and, consequently, in full force to the Pacific Ocean; and a complete bar (leaving out all other barriers) to any British acquisition, by discovery, south of 49 degrees in North America."
The President in his message had said that "informal conferences" had taken place between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton on the subject of the Columbia, but he had not communicated them. Mr. Benton obtained a call of the Senate for them: the President answered it was incompatible with the public interest to make them public. That was a strange answer, seeing that all claims by either party, and all negotiations on the subjects between them, whether concluded or not, and whether successful or not should be communicated.
"The President, in his message recommending the peace treaty, informs us that the Columbia was the subject of "informal conferences" between the negotiators of that treaty; but that it could not then be included among the subjects of formal negotiation. This was an ominous annunciation, and should have opened the eyes of the President to a great danger. If the peace mission, which came here to settle every thing, and which had so much to gain in the Maine boundary and the African alliance;—if this mission could not agree with us about the Columbia, what mission ever can? To an inquiry from the Senate to know the nature and extent of these "informal conferences" between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, and to learn the reason why the Columbia question could not have been included among the subjects of formal negotiation—to these inquiries, the President answers, that it is incompatible with the public interest to communicate these things. This is a strange answer, and most unexpected. We have no political secrets in our country, neither among ourselves nor with foreigners. On this subject of the Columbia, especially, we have no secrets. Every thing in relation to it has been published. All the conferences heretofore have been made public. The protocols, the minutes, the conversations, on both sides, have all been published. The British have published their claim, such as it is: we have published ours. The public documents are full of them, and there can be nothing in the question itself to require secrecy. The negotiator, and not the subject, may require secrecy. Propositions may have been made, and listened to, which no previous administration would tolerate, and which it may be deemed prudent to conceal until it has taken the form of a stipulation, and the cry of war can be raised to ravish its ratification from us. All previous administrations, while claiming the whole valley of the Columbia, have refused to admit a particle of British claim south of 49 degrees. Mr. Adams, under Mr. Monroe, peremptorily refused to submit any such claim even to arbitration. The Maine boundary, settled by the treaty of 1783, had been submitted to arbitration; but this boundary of 49 was refused. And now, if, after all this, any proposition has been made by our government to give up the north bank of the river, I, for one, shall not fail to brand such a proposition with the name of treason."
This paragraph was not without point, and even inuendo. The north bank of the Columbia with equal rights of navigation in the river, and to the harbor at its mouth, had been the object of the British from the time that the fur-trader, and explorer, Sir Alexander McKenzie, had shown that there was no river and harbor suitable to commerce and settlement north of that stream. They had openly proposed it in negotiations: they had even gone so far as to tell our commissioners of 1818, that no treaty of boundaries could be made unless that river became the line, and its waters and the harbor at the mouth made common to both nations—a declaration which should have utterly forbid the idea of a joint occupation, as such occupation was admitting an equality of title and laying a foundation for a division of the territory. This cherished idea of dividing by the river had pervaded every British negotiation since 1818. It was no secret: the British begged it: we refused it. Lord Ashburton, there is reason to know, brought out the same proposition. In his first diplomatic note he stated that he came prepared to settle all the questions of difference between the two countries; and this affair of the Columbia was too large, and of too long standing, and of too much previous negotiation to have been overlooked. It was not overlooked. The President says that there were conferences about it, qualified as informal: which is evidence there would have been formal negotiation if the informal had promised success. The informal did not so promise; and the reason was, that the two senators from Missouri being sounded on the subject of a conventional divisional line, repulsed the suggestion with an earnestness which put an end to it; and this knowledge of a proposition for a conventional line induced the indignant language which those two senators used on the subject in all their speeches. If they had yielded, the valley of the Columbia would have been divided; for that is the way the whole Ashburton treaty was made. Senators were sounded by the American negotiator, each on the point which lay nearest to him; and whatever they agreed to was put into the treaty. Thus the cases of the liberated slaves at Nassau and Bermuda were given up—the leading southern senators agreeing to it beforehand, and voting for the treaty afterwards. The writer of this View had this fact from Mr. Bagby, who refused to go with them, and voted against the ratification of the treaty.
"This pretension to the Columbia is an encroachment upon our rights and possession. It is a continuation of the encroachments which Great Britain systematically practises upon us. Diplomacy and audacity carry her through, and gain her position after position upon our borders. It is in vain that the treaty of 1783 gave us a safe military frontier. We have been losing it ever since the late war, and are still losing it. The commission under the treaty of Ghent took from us the islands of Grand Menan, Campo Bello, and Indian Island, on the coast of Maine, and which command the bays of Fundy and Passamaquoddy. Those islands belonged to us by the treaty of peace, and by the laws of God and nature; for they are on our coast, and within wading distance of it. Can we not wade to these islands? [Looking at senator Williams, who answered, 'We can wade to one of them.'] Yes, wade to it! And yet the British worked them out of us; and now can wade to us, and command our land, as well as our water. By these acquisitions, and those of the late treaty, the Bay of Fundy will become a great naval station to overawe and scourge our whole coast, from Maine to Florida. Under the same commission of the Ghent treaty, she got from us the island of Boisblanc, in the mouth of the Detroit River, and which commands that river and the entrance into Lake Erie. It was ours under the treaty of 1783; it was taken from us by diplomacy. And now an American ship must pass between the mouths of two sets of British batteries—one on Boisblanc; the other directly opposite, at Malden; and the two batteries within three or four hundred yards of each other. Am I right as to the distance? [Looking at Senator Woodbridge, who answered, 'The distance is three hundred yards.'] Then comes the late treaty, which takes from us (for I will say nothing of what the award gave up beyond the St. John) the mountain frontier, 3,000 feet in height, 150 miles long, approaching Quebec and the St. Lawrence, and, in the language of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, 'commanding all their communications, and commanding and overawing Quebec itself.' This we have given up; and, in doing so, have given up our military advantages in that quarter, and placed them in the hands of Great Britain, to be used against ourselves in future wars. The boundary between the Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods has been altered by the late treaty, and subjected us to another encroachment, and to the loss of a military advantage, which Great Britain gains. To say nothing about Pigeon River as being or not being the 'long lake' of the treaty of 1783; to say nothing of that, there are yet two routes commencing in that stream—one bearing far to the south, and forming the large island called 'Hunter's.' By the old boundary the line went the northern route; by the new, it goes to the south; giving to the British a large scope of our territory (which is of no great value), but giving them, also, the exclusive possession of the old route, the best route, and the one commanding the Indians, which is of great importance. The encroachment now attempted upon the Columbia, is but a continuation of this system of encroachments which is kept up against us, and which, until 1818, labored even to get the navigation of the Mississippi, by laboring to make the line from the Lake of the Woods reach its head spring. If Great Britain had succeeded in getting this line to touch the Mississippi, she was then to claim the navigation of the river, under the law of nations, contrary to her doctrine in the case of the people of Maine and the river St. John. The line of the 49th parallel of north latitude is another instance of her encroaching policy; it has been mutilated by the persevering efforts of British diplomacy; and the breaking of that line was immediately followed by the most daring of all her encroachments—that of the Columbia River."
The strength of the bill was tested by a motion to strike out the land-donation clause, which failed by a vote of 24 to 22. The bill was then passed by the same vote—the yeas and nays being:
"Yeas.—Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clayton, Fulton, Henderson, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mangum, Merrick, Phelps, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Smith of Indiana, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, White, Wilcox, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, Young."
"Nays.—Messrs. Archer, Bagby, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Calhoun, Choate, Conrad, Crafts, Dayton, Evans, Graham, Huntington, McDuffie, Miller, Porter, Rives, Simmons, Sprague, Tallmadge, Woodbridge."
The bill went to the House, where it remained unacted upon during the session; but the effect intended by it was fully produced. The vote of the Senate was sufficient encouragement to the enterprising people of the West. Emigration increased. An American settlement grew up at the mouth of the Columbia. Conventional agreements among themselves answered the purpose of laws. A colony was planted—had planted itself—and did not intend to retire from its position—and did not. It remained and grew; and that colony of self-impulsion, without the aid of government, and in spite of all its blunders, saved the Territory of Oregon to the United States: one of the many events which show how little the wisdom of government has to do with great events which fix the fate of countries.
Connected with this emigration, and auxiliary to it, was the first expedition of Lieutenant Frémont to the Rocky Mountains, and undertaken and completed in the summer of 1842—upon its outside view the conception of the government, but in fact conceived without its knowledge, and executed upon solicited orders, of which the design was unknown. Lieutenant Frémont was a young officer, appointed in the topographical corps from the class of citizens by President Jackson upon the recommendation of Mr. Poinsett, Secretary at War. He did not enter the army through the gate of West Point, and was considered an intrusive officer by the graduates of that institution. Having, before his appointment, assisted for two years the learned astronomer, Mr. Nicollet, in his great survey of the country between the Missouri and Mississippi, his mind was trained to such labor; and instead of hunting comfortable berths about the towns and villages, he solicited employment in the vast regions beyond the Mississippi. Col. Abert, the chief of the corps, gave him an order to go to the frontier beyond the Mississippi. That order did not come up to his views. After receiving it he carried it back, and got it altered, and the Rocky Mountains inserted as an object of his exploration, and the South Pass in those mountains named as a particular point to be examined, and its position fixed by him. It was through this Pass that the Oregon emigration crossed the mountains, and the exploration of Lieutenant Frémont had the double effect of fixing an important point in the line of the emigrants' travel, and giving them encouragement from the apparent interest which the government took in their enterprise. At the same time the government, that is, the executive administration, knew nothing about it. The design was conceived by the young lieutenant: the order for its execution was obtained, upon solicitation, from his immediate chief—importing, of course, to be done by his order, but an order which had its conception elsewhere.