AMERICA-THE MEXICAN WAR AND SLAVERY 1845-1861

John Brown On His Way To Execution

AMERICA

Great Crises In Our History Told by Its Makers A LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES Volume VII The Mexican War And Slavery 1845-1861 ISSUED BY

AMERICANIZATION DEPARTMENT VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE

UNITED STATES CHICAGO, U. S. A.

WAR CLOUDS OVER OREGON

By Thomas H. Benton.

THE Oregon boundary dispute, in 1846, came near resulting in a war between Great Britain and the United States. Benton, from whose "Thirty Years' View" this account is taken, was a United States Senator from Missouri at the time and was an authority on western problems of legislation. In the debates on the Oregon question, he took a leading part against the "Fifty-four, forty or fight" advocates, and was spokesman for the Polk administration which was committed by the Democratic platform to demand "the whole of Oregon or none."

This demand, as Benton points out, was based upon ignorance of geography, there being no such line of latitude on the North American continent as 54 40'. The present boundary line of 49 to the channel between Vancouver and the mainland and thence through the Straits of San Juan de Fuca to the sea, was vigorously advocated by Benton throughout a stormy period.

TWO conventions (1818 and 1828) provided for the joint occupation of the countries respectively claimed by Great Britain and the United States on the north-west coast of America that of 1818 limiting the joint occupancy to ten years that of 1828 extending it indefinitely until either of the two powers should give notice to the other of a desire to terminate it. Such agreements are often made when it is found difficult to agree upon the duration of any particular privilege, or duty. They are seductive to the negotiators because they postpone an inconvenient question: they are consolatory to each party, because each says to itself it can get rid of the obligation when it pleases a consolation always delusive to one of the parties : for the one that has the advantage always resists the notice, and long baffles it, and often through menaces causes it to be considered an unfriendly proceeding. On the other hand, the party to whom it is disadvantageous often sees danger in change ; and if the notice is to be given in a legislative body, there will always be a large per centum of easy temperaments who are desirous of avoiding questions, putting off difficulties, and suffering the evils they have in preference of flying to those they know not: and in this way these temporary agreements, to be terminated on the notice of either party, generally continue longer than either party dreamed of when they were made. So it was with this Oregon joint occupancy. The first was for ten years : not being able to agree upon ten years more, the usual delusive resource was fallen upon: and, under the second joint occupation had already continued in operation fourteen years. Western Members of Congress now took up the subject, and moved the Senate to advise the government to give the notice. Mr. Semple, Senator from Illinois, proposed the motion : it was debated many days resisted by many speakers : and finally defeated. It was first resisted as discourteous to Great Britain then as offensive to her then as cause of war on her side finally, as actual war on our side and even as a conspiracy to make war.

Upon all this talk of war the commercial interest became seriously alarmed, and looked upon the delivery of the notice as the signal for a disastrous depression in our foreign trade. In a word, the general uneasiness became so great that there was no chance for doing what we had a right to do, what the safety of our territory required us to do, and without the right to do which the convention of 1828 could not have been concluded.

This was a pretermitted subject in the general negotiations which led to the Ashburton treaty: it was now taken up as a question for separate settlement. The British government moved in it, Mr. Henry S. Fox, the British Minister in Washington, being instructed to propose the negotiation. This was done in November, 1842, and Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State under Mr. Tyler, immediately replied, accepting the proposal, and declaring it to be the desire of his government to have this territorial question immediately settled. But the movement stopped there. Nothing further took place between Mr. Webster and Fox, and the question slumbered till 1844, when Mr. (since Sir) Richard Pakenham, arrived in the United States as British Minister, and renewed the proposition for opening the negotiation to Mr. Upshur, then Secretary of State. This was February 24th, 1844. Mr. Upshur replied promptly, that is to say, on the 26th of the same month, accepting the proposal, and naming an early day for receiving Mr. Pakenham to begin the negotiation. Before that day came he had perished in the disastrous explosion of the great gun on board the Princeton man-of-war. The subject again slumbered six months, and at the end of that time, July 22d, was again brought to the notice of the American government by a note from the British minister to Mr. Calhoun, successor to Mr. Upshur in the Department of State. Referring to the note received from Mr. Upshur the day before his death, he said :

"The lamented death of Mr. Upshur, which occurred within a few days after the date of that note, the interval which took place between that event and the appointment of a successor, and the urgency and importance of various matters which offered themselves to your attention immediately after your accession to office, sufficiently explain why it has not hitherto been in the power of your government, sir, to attend to the important matters to which I refer. But, the session of Congress having been brought to a close, and the present being the season of the year when the least possible business is usually transacted. it occurs to me that you may now feel at leisure to proceed to the consideration of that subject. At all events it becomes my duty to recall it to your recollection, and to repeat the earnest desire of Her Majesty's government, that a question, on which so much interest is felt in both countries, should be disposed of at the earliest moment consistent with the convenience of the government of the United States."