This is the account given by Mr. Harmon of New Caledonia, and given of it by him at the exact moment that we were purchasing the Spanish title to it! Of this Spanish title, of which the Spaniards never heard, the narrator seems to have been as profoundly ignorant as the Spaniards were themselves; and made his description of New Caledonia as of a British possession, without any more reference to an adverse title than if he had been speaking of Canada. So much for the written description: now let us look at the map, and see how it stands there. Here is a map—a 54° 40' map—which will show us the features of the country, and the names of the settlements upon it. Here is Frazer's River, running from 55° to 49° and here is a line of British posts upon it, from Fort McLeod, at its head, to Fort Langley, at its mouth, and from Thompson's Fork, on one side, to Stuart's Fork on the other. And here are clusters of British names, imposed by the British, visible every where—Forts George, St. James, Simpson, Thompson, Frazer, McLeod, Langley, and others: rivers and lakes with the same names, and others: and here is Deserter's Creek, so named by Mackenzie, because his guide deserted him there in July, 1793; and here is an Indian village which he named Friendly, because the people were the most friendly to strangers that he had ever seen; and here another called Rascals' village, so named by Mackenzie fifty-three years ago, because its inhabitants were the most rascally Indians he had ever seen; and here is the representation of that famous boundary line 54° 40', which is supposed to be the exact boundary of American territorial rights in that quarter, and which happens to include the whole of New Caledonia, except McLeod's fort, and the whole of Stuart's lake, and a spring, which is left to the British, while we take the branch which flows from it. This line takes all in—river, lakes, forts, villages. See how it goes! Starting at the sea, it gives us, by a quarter of an inch on the map, Fort Simpson, so named after the British Governor Simpson, and founded by the Hudson Bay Company. Upon what principle we take this British fort I know not—except it be on the assumption that our sacred right and title being adjusted to a minute, by the aid of these 40 minutes, so appositely determined by the Emperor Paul's charter to a fur company in 1799, to be on this straight line, the bad example of even a slight deviation from it at the start should not be allowed even to spare a British fort away up at Point McIntyre, in Chatham Sound. On this principle we can understand the inclusion, by a quarter of an inch on the map, of this remote and isolated British post. The cutting in two of Stuart's lake, which the line does as it runs, is quite intelligible: it must be on the principle stated in one of the fifty-four-forty papers, that Great Britain should not have one drop of our water; therefore we divide the lake, each taking their own share of its drops. The fate of the two forts, McLeod and St. James, so near each other and so far off from us, united all their lives, and now so unexpectedly divided from each other by this line, is less comprehensible; and I cannot account for the difference of their fates, unless it is upon the law of the day of judgment, when, of two men in the field, one shall be taken and the other left, and no man be able to tell the reason why. All the rest of the inclusions of British establishments which the line makes, from head to mouth of Frazer's River, are intelligible enough: they turn upon the principle of all or none!—upon the principle that every acre and every inch, every grain of sand, drop of water, and blade of grass in all Oregon, up to fifty-four forty, is ours! and have it we will.
This is the country which geography and history five-and-twenty years ago called New Caledonia, and treated as a British possession; and it is the country which an organized party among ourselves of the present day call "the whole of Oregon or none," and every inch of which they say belongs to us. Well, let us proceed a little further with the documents of 1823, and see what the men of that day—President Monroe and his cabinet—the men who made the treaty with Spain by which we became the masters of this large domain: let us proceed a little further, and see what they thought of our title up to fifty-four forty. I read from the same document of 1823:
Mr. Adams to Mr. Middleton, July, 22, 1823.
"The right of the United States, from the forty-second to the forty-ninth parallel of latitude on the Pacific Ocean we consider as unquestionable, being founded, first, on the acquisition by the treaty of 22d February, 1819, of all the rights of Spain; second, by the discovery of the Columbia River, first from the sea at its mouth, and then by land, by Lewis and Clarke; and, third, by the settlement at its mouth in 1811. This territory is to the United States of an importance which no possession in North America can be of to any European nation, not only as it is but the continuity of their possessions from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, but as it offers their inhabitants the means of establishing hereafter water communications from the one to the other."
From 42° to 49° is here laid down by Mr. Monroe and his cabinet as the extent of our unquestionable title, and on these boundaries they were ready to settle the question. Five other despatches the same year from Mr. Adams to Mr. Rush, our minister in London, offer the same thing. They all claim the valley of the Columbia River, and nothing more. They claim the land drained by its waters, and no more; but as the Columbia had a northern prong, drawing water just under the mountains from as far north as 51°—yes! 51—not 54-40, they offered to cut off the head of that prong, and take the line of 49, which included all that was worth having of the waters of the Columbia, and left out, but barely left out, Frazer's River—coming within three miles of it at its mouth.
On Friday, Mr. President, I read one passage from the documents of 1823, to let you see that fifty-four forty (for that is the true reading of fifty-five) had been offered to Great Britain for her northern boundary: to-day I read you six PASSAGES from the same documents, to show the same thing. And let me remark once more—the remark will bear eternal repetition—these offers were made by the men who had acquired the Spanish title to Oregon! and who must be presumed to know as much about it as those whose acquaintance with Oregon dates from the epoch of the Baltimore convention—whose love for it dates from the era of its promulgation as a party watchword—whose knowledge of it extends to the luminous pages of Mr. Greenhow's horn-book!
Six times Mr. Monroe and his cabinet renounced Frazer's River and its valley, and left it to the British! They did so on the intelligible principle that the British had discovered it, and settled it, and were in the actual possession of it when we got the Spanish claim; which claim Spain never made! Upon this principle, New Caledonia was left to the British in 1823. Upon what principle is it claimed now?
This is what Mr. Monroe and his cabinet thought of our title to the whole of Oregon or none, in the year 1823. They took neither branch of this proposition. They did not go for all or none, but for some! They took some, and left some; and they divided by a line right in itself, and convenient in itself, and mutually suitable to each party. That President and his cabinet carry their "unquestionable right" to Oregon as far as 49°, and no further. This is exactly what was done six years before. Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush offered the same line, as being a continuation of the line of Utrecht (describing it by that name in their despatch of October 20th, 1818), and as covering the valley of the Columbia River, to which they alleged our title to be indisputable. Mr. Jefferson had offered the same line in 1807. All these offers leave Frazer's River and its valley to the British, because they discovered and settled it. All these offers hold on to the Columbia River and its valley, because we discovered and settled it; and all these offers let the principle of contiguity or continuity work equally on the British as on the American side of the line of Utrecht.
This is what the statesmen did who made the acquisition of the Spanish claim to Oregon in 1819. In four years afterwards they had freely offered all north of 49 to Great Britain; and no one ever thought of arraigning them for it. Most of these statesmen have gone through fiery trials since, and been fiercely assailed on all the deeds of their lives; but I never heard of one of them being called to account, much less lose an election, for the part he acted in offering 49 to Great Britain in 1823, or at any other time. For my part, I thought they were right then, and I think so now; I was senator then, as I am now. I thought with them that New Caledonia belonged to the British; and thinking so still, and acting upon the first half of the great maxim—Ask nothing but what is right—I shall not ask them for it, much less fight them for it now.