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 SPEECH 
 
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 !*'-« 
 
 MR. CHOATE, OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 THE QUESTION OF ANNULLING' 
 
 CONVENTION FOR THE COMMON OCCUPATION OP THE 
 TERRITORY OF OREGON; 
 
 AND 
 
 IN REPLY TO MR. BUCHANAN. 
 
 SBBtlTimBS 
 
 IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATE 
 
 Much 31. 1844. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 tBIirrKD IT OALIS AVD tlAT»«. 
 
 1844. 
 
 PROyi.NCiAL Ar:CI!iyESOFB.C. 
 
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 [The third article of the Convention between the United States and 
 Great Britain, signed October 20(h, 1818, is in these words: 
 
 " It i» igroed that uiy country that may be claimfd' by either party on the Northweat eoait of 
 America, weatward of the Stony|Mountaini, shall, together with iu barbora, baya, and creaka, 
 and the navigation of all rivcra within the aame, io free and open for the term of ten yeam from 
 the date of the lignaturo of the preaent Convention, to the vcaacls, citizen*, and mibjocta of the tw* 
 Powers ; it being well undcntood, that this agreement ia not to be ronitnicd to the prejudice of any 
 claim which either of the two high|[contracting ]iartics may have to any part cf the mid countiy, 
 nor shall it be taken to affect the clnima of any other Tower or State to any part of the aaid coun^ 
 try { the only object of tlie high contracting parties in that respect being to prevent disputoa and 
 differences among themselves." 
 
 The Convention between the same Governments, signed August 6th, 
 1827, is in these woids: 
 
 " AkT. 1. All tlic provisions of the thin) nrtiile of the Convention concluded between the United 
 Statea of Amarira and Ilia Majesty the King of tlio United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 on the 20th of October, 1818, shall bo, and they arc hereby, further indefinitely extended and 
 continued in force, iu tlic same manner as if ull the provisions of the ssid article were herein spe- 
 cifically recited. 
 
 '■ AaT. 8. It shall be competent, however, to either of tlic contracting parties, in case cither ahonld 
 think fit, at any time after the 20th of October, 1R38, on giving due notice of twelve months to 
 the other contracting party, to annul and abrogate this Convention ; and it shall, in such case, b« 
 accordingly entirely annulled and abrogatedi after the expiration of the said term of notice. 
 
 " Abt. 3. Nothing contained in this Convcation, or in the third article of the Convention of the 
 30th October, 1818, hereby rontinunl in forc^, shall be construed to impair or in any manner af- 
 fect the claims which either of the contracting parties may have to ai)y part of the country west- 
 ward of the Stony Mountains." 
 
 On the 8th of January, 1844, Mr. Semple, of Illinois, introduced into 
 the Senate of the United States the following resolution: 
 
 " Resolved, That the President of the United States he requested to give notice to the British Gov- 
 ernment that it is the desire of the Government of the United States to annul and abrogate the 
 provisions of the third article of the Convention concluded between the Government of the United 
 Statet of America and His Brit.mnic Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, on the 20th of Octolior, 1816, and indefinitely continued by the Convention between 
 the same parties, signed at London the Cth of August, 1897." 
 
 In opposilion to this resolution, Mr. Choate addressed the Senate on 
 the 22d of February, in reply to Mr. Atchison, of Missouri. The debate 
 was continued by Messrs. Hanneoan, Breese, and Buchanan in favor 
 of the resolution, and Messrs. Dattov, Miller, Archer, Crittcndkit,. 
 and Rites, against it ; after which, this speech was delivered.] 
 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Mr. President : 
 
 It is not my purpose to discuss this subject, at large, over again. I have 
 been once heard on it ; and, with you all, I have a very strong desire to 
 bring such a dangerous and unseasonable debate to a close. A few words 
 in explanation and aid of what I said before, seem, however, to have been 
 made necessary by the speeches of the advocates of the resolution. 
 
 I acknowledge an anxiety to define and restate plainly, briefly, and di- 
 rectly, the position which I actually assumed upon this business. With- 
 out supposing any intention to misrepresent, which can never exist here, 
 sure I am that no human being could form any tolerable conjecture of its 
 nature, limits, and grounds, from all the replies, solemn, fervid, and sar- 
 castic, that have been made to it. 
 
 Sir, my view of this matter was, and is, simply and exactly this : not 
 that we should now determine that we will never give the notice to annul 
 the Convention ; for who can say that we may not be required to give it 
 in six months ? but that we should not give the notice now. Whether we 
 shall ever give it, when and with what accompaniments of preparation, 
 and of auxiliary action we shall do so, I said were matters .very fit for a 
 committee to consider, or for events to be allowed to develop. Possibly 
 the course of events might render such notice forever unnecessary. There 
 was nothing in the past or the present to indicate the contrary with cer- 
 tainty. Let us await then, I suggested, the admonitions of events, as they 
 should be uttered from time to time ; keeping always a sharp lookout on 
 Oregon, which a noiseless and growing current of agricultural immigra- 
 tion was filling with hands and hearts the fittest to defend it. This was 
 my view ; that is to say, that the notice should not be given now. To- 
 wards that single point all that was urged was made to bear, and upon 
 that all was meant to tell. 
 
 And this view met the whole question before us. What is that ques-^ 
 tion ? Not whether the notice shall be given now or never given at M. 
 Not so. The alternative is not between now giving it, and never giving 
 it ; but between giving it now, and not giving it now. That is the single 
 point of difference. Senators upon the other side would annul the Cod' 
 vention to-day ; we would not annul it to-day ; and there we stop. The 
 duties of to-morrow we can better discern and better perform by the lights 
 of to-morrow. 
 
 It is palpable, Mr. President, upon this bare restatement of the ques- 
 tion, that R'uch which made the matter of the speech of the honorable 
 Senator from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Buchanan,) much perhaps which I said 
 
 * 
 
 1. 
 
myself, was not very immediately or decisively relevant ; certainly not 
 very necessary to a suitable detetmination of it. He may be right or ho 
 may be wrong in unfolding himself with so much emphasis against what 
 he is pleased to call a poetical and a self-deceiving theory of policy ; I 
 may have been right or may have been wrong in calculating so sanguine* 
 ly on the unassisted enterprise and the restless nature of my countrymen ; 
 1 may have been right or may have been wrong in supposing that those 
 mysterious tendencies and energies that have carried our people to the 
 eastern base of the Rocky Mountains would not die away there, as sum- 
 mer evening waves on the shore, but would carry them, with your aid or 
 without it, to the great sea ; the honorable Senator may or may not be 
 right in predicting that Great Britain will develop some new motive and 
 new form of resistance to our occupation of the Oregon, or that the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company will take up some new or some old habit of Indian 
 butcheries to keep us out; you may think what you will' on all this, and 
 yet you have not settled nor very closely approached the question, whether 
 the notice of abrogation shall now be given under the actual, special, tem- 
 porary, and passing circumstances of the case and the hour. 
 
 Returning to that, the only question, I stand as I stood, upon one single, 
 sufficient, and decisive reason against the notice ; and that is, that it may 
 by possibility produce an inauspicious eflfcct upon the negotiation just now 
 beginning or begun ; and therefore, as you have maintained this Conven- 
 tion for the peaceful and common occupation of the Oregon Territory for 
 eix-and-twenty years, under all administrations., in all aspects of facts, 
 steadily and with great unanimity of opinion, as a part of your entire Or- 
 egon policy ; as there is nothing whatever in the past or the present to 
 disclose any necessity for annulling it, or any ground of reasonable expec- 
 tation of benefit from doing so ; as it has operated and is operating well 
 for you to-day ; it ought not, on the eve of negotiation, to be abruptly and 
 capriciously. abrogated. Such an act may, by possibility, prevent a treaty. 
 It may diminish the chances of a treaty. It cannot help negotiation, and 
 it may embarrass and break it up. For this single reason, without another, 
 I opposed and oppose the resolution. 
 
 And what does the "honorable Senator from Pennsylvania say to this? 
 Why, that the Senator from Massachusetts has declared that we have 
 slept upon our rijchts for twenty-six years ; and that therefore, while we 
 are about it, we may as well have a little more sleep, a little more slum- 
 ber, and a little more folding of the hands to sleep ! 
 
 Now, sir, let me respectfully tell the honorable Senator that this is not 
 even a good caricature of my reasoning. It is quite idle, I>know, to com- 
 plain that an opponent does not restate the position which he assails in ex- 
 actly the terms in which it was propound'^d ; and yet I always thought it a 
 pleasing and honorable thing which I have heard said of an eminent deba- 
 ter in the British House of Commons, and also of a late accomplished 
 member of the American legal profession, that they would reannounce 
 the argument to which they were replying, better than its author had ex- 
 pressed it, before tHey proceeded to demolish it irreparably. But this, 
 sir, of the honorable Senator, tried by the rules of the noble art of logical 
 and Parliamentary caricature, is a bad one. I made no such assertion, 
 and deduced no such inference, i said not one word of our having slept 
 
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 y to this? 
 
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 But this, 
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 ing slept 
 
 6 
 
 on our rights six-and-twenly years, or six-and-twenty minutes — if by 
 sleeping on rights I am to understand the neglecting to assert and pro* 
 claim them. I was speaking of this Convention for common occupation, 
 and I said, and said only, and exactly, that upon this Convention you had 
 stood, all parties, all administrations, from 1818 to this hour, as apart of 
 your entire Oregon policy ; that you had done so with a knowledge of 
 every fact which is now urged as a reason of annulling it ; and that there* 
 fore to annul it now, when its practical operation is better for you than 
 ever before it waj>, and when a negotiation is just beginning, (to carry you 
 in good temper through which was one of the leading inducements to , 
 making and continuing it,) would be a capricious, unintelligible, and un* 
 wise proceeding. This is what I said. .With sleeping on your rights 1 
 never taunted you. Every body knows that we have not slept on them. 
 Every body knows that we have recorded them ; announced them to 
 Great Britain, and to the world ; urged them in every diplomatic conver- 
 sation we have had with that Government since we knew there was a Co- 
 lumbia river ; and that we made and renewed this very Convention with 
 an express protestation and provision that it should not impair or change 
 them. Sir, let me, the more completely to satisfy the honorable Senator 
 of his misapprehension of the remark to which he excepted, do so unu- 
 sual a thing as to read from the Congressional Globe a brief extract from 
 a speech which I had the honor to make in this place at the last session : 
 
 " Always this quc«tion of the Oregon has borne exactly the aarae relation to all our queitioni 
 with England that it bore liwt summer. Always it has been thought important enough to be discuiaed 
 with other subjects, and never has it licen quite matured for adjustment, and never thought quite 
 so important as to hinder the adjustment of other questions which were matured. How many treatiei 
 have you made with England — how mucli diplomatic conversation have you had with her since Captain 
 Gray discovered and named the Columbia river ? And yet, through the whole series — in 1807t 
 1614, 1816, 1318, and 1826— in the administrations of both tlie last Presidents, always there hat 
 been one course and one result with this subject. It has been treated of ; formal and informa 
 communications have been held on it ; it has been found to be unripe for settlement ; and it has 
 been found to be, or believed to be, not difficult enough, or not pressing enough, to delay or alter 
 the settlement of riper and more pressing elements of contention." 
 
 Sir, while I hold this book open, let me digress a momerit to correct 
 another misapprehension, into which the honorable Senator inadvertently 
 fell, n at all affecting, it is true, the immediate discussion. Eager as he 
 was to show that the American Government had never slept upon our 
 rights, because this seemed to controvert a position I had never taken, he 
 could not deny himself the pleasure of conjecturing that in 1842 the then 
 Secretary of State had proposed the parallel of 49° north as the bounda- 
 ry ; and this conjecture he founded wholly upon a sentence contained in 
 the speech from which I have just been reading. The sentence is this : 
 
 " I desired chiefly to assure the Senator and the Senate that the apprehension intimated by him, 
 that a disclosure of these informal communications would disgrace the American Secretary, by 
 ■howmg that he had offered a boundary line south of the parallel of forty-nine, is totally unfound. 
 ed. He would be glad to hear me say that I am authorized and desired to declare, that in no com. 
 munication, formal or informal, was such an offer made, and that none such was ever mediUtcd." 
 
 « ii^ 
 

 From this he inrers that the degree of 49 woa proposed. Certainljr, 
 sir, his inference is wholly groundless. The facts are these. The Sen- 
 ator from Missouri, (Mr. Pknton, ) whom the Senate, with a general and 
 sincere pleasure, have seen 'esume his seat this morning, had, at the last 
 session, made a speech, the .nain effort of which was to prove that Great 
 Britain had no color of title, at least south of 49°. He did not, certainly, 
 concede her title so far as 49°, but his argument was almost exclusively 
 directed to a vindication of the American title up to that parallel ; that 
 is, *o the whole valley of the Columbia liver. In the course of his re- 
 marks he observed that our Government had steadily refused to concede 
 a particle of right to Great Britain soutli of 49°, but that he feared that a 
 proposition had been made by the American negotiator of the treaty of 
 1842 to fall below that degree] and thereupon he used this language, 
 which I read from the Congressional Globe : " 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 shill not fail to brand such a proposition with 
 the name of treason." 
 
 The object of his denunciation, the Senate perceive, was a supposed 
 proposition to run a line south of 49°. Of any proposition to adopt 49° it- 
 self, or any higher parallel, he was not thinking, and did not speak. In- 
 tending to participate in that discussion, I addressed a note to the Secre- 
 tary of State, inquiring simply whether a proposition had been made to 
 take a line south of the 49tb degree .' The answer was immediate, and to 
 the precise question, that none such bad been made or meditated. Not 
 another syllable was said or written, and the writer of neither note, I may 
 venture to say, intended to ask or answer any thing but the precise ques- 
 tion, or had any other subject in his mind at all. * 1 well remember that 
 when this was announced, in the terms which the honorable Senator has 
 read, the Senator from Missouri audibly expressed his satisfaction. Surely 
 those terms, upoa this explanation, cannot be thought to afford the slight- 
 est evidence that this Government proposed the 49th degree for a bound- 
 ary, and I have been recently assured, and from high authority, that 
 such is not the fact. 
 
 Returning from this digression, sir, and taking leave, once and for all, 
 of the treaty of 1842, I may repeat that the assertion which I actually 
 made in debate the other day was only, that we have continued this Con- 
 vention as a means of enabling us, in one mode or another, to secure and 
 enforce those very rights in the Oregon Territory which we have always 
 asserted. We have kept up the Convention, not because we were asleep, 
 but because we were awake. All the reasons now urged by Senators for 
 abrogating it we have known perfectly well, and long ago. In 1818, we 
 made the Convention. In 1827, we renewed it. In 1829, in February, 
 just upon the accession of Gen. Jackson, that celebrated letter of Messrs. 
 Clark and Cass to the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Benton) was written, 
 from which is derived the fact, thrice repeated, I believe, by the honora- 
 ble Senator from Pennsylvania, that five hundred of our citizens, hunters, 
 traders, and trappers, have been murdered by Indians among and on each 
 side of the Rocky Mountains, and about the upper Missouri and Missis- 
 sippi, and perhaps by the instigation of British traders. That letter was 
 written then. This fact was made known to Congress and the country 
 
iertainljr, 
 The Sen- 
 neral and 
 it the last 
 hat Great 
 certainly, 
 clusively 
 lei; that 
 if his re- 
 concede 
 red that a 
 treaty of 
 anguage, 
 r all this, 
 (he north 
 'ion with 
 
 1 1 may 
 
 then; yet you did not abrogate the Convention. In 1838, the Hudson 
 Bay Company obtained a renewal of its charter for twenty years, the Brit* 
 isb Government reset ving, however, the right, as against the company, 
 of colonizing the territory embraced by the charter ; which is another of 
 the honorable Senator's reasons for abrogation. This was six years ago, 
 in Mr. Van Burcn's term, yet you did not abrogate it. In 1839, during 
 the same administration, elaborate reports were made to Congress from 
 the department for Indian Affairs, upon the precise subject on which the 
 Senator from Ohio (Mr. Allen) has called for and obtained information at 
 this session, to wit, the practice of the British Government and British 
 companies to make presents to Indians residing within our territory, and 
 their general Indian policy, its principles, and its workings. This whole 
 subject was fully laid open before you then, and yet you did not abrogate 
 the Convention. Ten years ago, just as well as to-day, you knew that 
 our hunters and trappers could not and did not contend successfully with 
 the Hudson Bay Company for the furs of the Oregon. Yet you did not 
 abrogate it. 
 
 So true it is, sir, that without a particle of evidence of one single new 
 reason against the Convention, without producing one single fact not per* 
 fectly well known for years. Senators now, now, just when, upon the 
 proofs which I htkve laid and shall lay before you, it is conclusively 
 evinced that the Convention is operating in your favor in the Oregon, far 
 more energetically and far more palpably than ever before, multiplying 
 your numbers, extending your influence ; now, too, just when for the first 
 time you are able to sit down to a negotiation on this single subject, dis- 
 embarrassed of all other elements of controversy, this well chosen mo- 
 ment is that which Senators seize on to take the first step towards abro- 
 gatior. I said the thing was incomprehensible and capricious, and I say 
 flo still. 
 
 So much in correction of the misapprehension of the honorable Senator. 
 
 Well, then, why would the honorable Senator give the notice of ab- 
 rogation i 
 
 Sir, he tells you why. It is to induce Great Britain to make a good 
 Oregon treaty. It is for the sake of influencing that Government to do 
 what it would not do without. If you do not give the notice, he will risk 
 his life that she will not give you a good treaty. If you do, she will, or 
 she may. This is his exact and exquisite reason. 
 
 ^ut, sir, when we, wondering and incredulous, ask how the notice is 
 to exert so desirable an influence upon Great Britain, the honorable Sen- 
 ator seems to me to become far less explicit than could be wished, or than 
 was to have been expected. What is the precise information which the 
 notice is to give her ? What is it to tell her that we mean to do ? The 
 honorable Senator does not say. I miss something here of his habitual di- 
 rectness and clearness of speech, and frankness of explanation. May I 
 not even complain of this ? True, we have no great difficulty in making 
 out the ominous and energetic meaning of the notice. We make .ut well 
 enough, upon the whole, that it is a declarp^'^n that unless within a year 
 Great Britain yields a satisfactory treaty, Wb mU at the end of that time 
 assert by force the exclusive occupation of the contested region. This 
 we see. But we have to make it out by argument and inference, and by 
 
fmx^mmm 
 
 putting this part of the speech of the honorable Senator with that part,, 
 and reasoning up from consequences to caujes. Sir, I complain of this. 
 Surely, surely in a matter of such transcendent importance, those who in- 
 fluence the public councils and hold the public fortunes in their hands,' 
 owe the country the utmost possible frankness and truthfulness of dealing. 
 This no'-:e, in thv opinion of all here, is to work a great chnnge in your 
 relations to one of the first Powers in the world ; it is to modify a pending 
 negotiation, on the course and issue of which many anxious hearts, many 
 vast and delicate interests, are suspended ; it may in its results leave you 
 in all things worse than it found you : it may give you, for peace, a sword. 
 Then, sir, you owe to the people the most unreserved declaration of your 
 opinion of its exact and entire meaning; of the exact extent and nature 
 of the information wh'' it conveys to Great Britain ; oi the degree, and 
 the way in which it commits you ; of how fur and in what direction it en- 
 gages your pride and honor to go, if it does not happen to produce the 
 treaty which you expect. Sir, this business of war and peace is the peo- 
 ple's business. All measures legislative in their nature, as you assume 
 this to be, at oil tending to endanger the state of peace, are for them to 
 judge on, from the beginning to the end. Yes, sir, this all is their busi- 
 ness. !( is the business of the farmer, preparing to scatter his seed with 
 tears, and looking forward to the harvest when he may come bearing hiS- 
 sheaves with joy, his happy household unsevered around him ; it is the 
 business of the planter; it is the business of the merchant in his count- 
 ing room, projecting the enterprises that bind the nations together by 
 a thousand ties ; it is tlic business of the fisherman on the deck of his 
 nigh night-foundered skiff; of the minister of the gospel, and of all 
 
 Sood men ; of the widowed mother with her sailor child, the only son of 
 is mother, and she a widow, the stay and staff of her declining age, 
 whom the stern call of a country in arms may summon to the deck on 
 which his father had fallen ; it is their business ! and if we deal fairly 
 and frankly with them, excellently well will they perform it ! 
 
 Nevertheless, sir, it must be admitted that Senators tell us enough to 
 enable us to interpret the whole language which the notice speaks to 
 Great Britain. It is exactly this : give us the Oregon by a treaty, or in a 
 year we will take it ourselves. For the honorable Senator informs us 
 that it is to apprize the British Government "that we at last are in earnest."' 
 In earnest, indeed ! Well, what may that mean ? Does not the Senator 
 himself insist upon it, that we have been continually asserting our rights, 
 by diplomacy and otherwise, for six-and-twenty years ; that we have never 
 slept upon them an hour; that, in and out of Congress, we have been 
 " earnestly agitating" the question, and " earnestly urging" an adjust- 
 ment of it ? When lie advises, therefore, to a new measure, which 
 shall admonish England that we ate indeed and at last in earnest, he- 
 means that it shall announce something more than continued assertion 
 of title on paper — more than the harmless and vain quart and tierce of 
 diplomatic conflict ; he means that it shall tell her we have talked' 
 enough, and written enough ; we now mean to act. I arrive at the same- 
 conclusion by an analysis of other portions of . the Senator's argument. 
 Great Britain, he says, will make no treaty while she retains /ossession- 
 and enjoyment, as now she does, of all she wants. She has the whole 
 
 Si 
 
 country 
 her case 
 longer 
 atatw n 
 if she d 
 clear, a 
 not hav 
 Then 
 us what 
 we will 
 Now 
 fluencii 
 vance 
 may ad 
 to be g 
 I loeopa 
 know V 
 and his 
 clumsil 
 thorefo 
 pated ( 
 delicac 
 two na 
 regret 
 precioi 
 our mc 
 this vii 
 sugges 
 worK « 
 sible 
 vised, 
 negoti 
 thinks 
 ish m 
 the pc 
 him. 
 in thi 
 nerve 
 usefo 
 lativt 
 minit 
 Di 
 Sena 
 
 isgi' 
 vent 
 twel 
 ofO 
 havi 
 nO'^l 
 tion 
 
*h«t part, 
 in of (bis. 
 )e who in- 
 eir handt,- 
 if dealing, 
 ge in your 
 a pending 
 irts. many 
 
 or in a 
 
 9 
 
 [country now ; and what more shouhi she desire, and how can she improve 
 her case by a tieaty } We must tell her, (hen, he urges, that she shall no 
 longer continue to have all or any thing (hat she desires ; that the existing 
 status must and shall be displaced ; (hat the possession is to change hands, 
 if she does not (rca( in a (welvemonlh. Cer(ainly, (his is reasonably 
 clear, after nil ; and I wonder only, that what is so palpably meant should 
 not have been more dirccdy said. 
 
 Then, sir, (he proposKion is, (o indiico an unwilling Government to give 
 us what we seek, by notice publicly communicated, that if it is not given 
 we will take it. 
 
 Now, sir, on one point we shall all agree ; and .<. '<', that this moile of in- 
 fluencing (he diplomacy of a foreign Governmeni, jy announcing in ad- 
 vance wnat shall be (he consequences of certi ' > .1e(erminations which it 
 may adopt, is a thing to be pretty dciicatelj handled, it is a piescription 
 to be given in minute quantities, very ; inuto quantities indeed. Ho- 
 I icEopalhic doses 1 think they should be. The p&tieni should scarcely 
 know what he takes ; and the matter should bo altogether between him 
 and his confidential physician. Skilfully administeied, it may do good ; 
 clumsilji done, it is many thousand times worse than nothing. I said, 
 thi?refore, on a former occasion that, since this matter of intimating antici- 
 pated consequences to a Government you treat with, is one of so muciv 
 delicacy'; since u blunder in regard to it might produce reMilts which 
 two nations, which the world, might have cause long and unavailingly to 
 regret ; since we hold in our hands, not sticks and straws, nor yet more 
 precious yet perishable things, as silver and gold, but the lives of men — 
 our more than material interests, our glory, our history; I thought thnt, in 
 this view, good sense and prudence prescribed that we should leave this- 
 suggetition of consequences to be employed in some way in which it might 
 worlc all the good ot which it is intrinsically capable, with as little as pos- 
 sible of the evil from which it can scarcely be kept wholly free. I ad- 
 vised, therefore, and now advise, that it be all in(rus(ed to the American 
 negotiator, the Secretary of State. Let him deal with it. Let him, ii he 
 thinks fit, according to (he courtesies of a firm diplomacy, enable the Brit- 
 ish minister to see the whole ground before him. Sir, we know from 
 the papers of this morning who is the American Secretary. We know 
 him. I am willing to commit this matter, and all else which is involved 
 in this negotiation of Oregon, to tha( rapid and decisive in(ellect, that iron 
 nerve, and energetic will, in his hands, this delicate suggestion may be 
 usefully administered. In ours, published as it is proposed to be by legis- 
 lative resolution to the world ; discharged as from a battery upon tlie new 
 minister as he comes ashore, how can it fail to be wholly mischievous ? 
 
 Disregarding al! such sublunary considerations as these, the honorable 
 Senator from Pennsylvania thinks it of no importance how this medicine 
 is given ; for England, says he, has no right to complain ; the very Con- 
 vention itself reserves the power to either party to annul it at will upon » 
 twelvemonths' notice ; and she has no right or title at all to the country 
 of Oregon. Why should she complain, then, of our giving a notice we 
 have a right to give, and of our driving her from a place where she ha» 
 no right to be ? Nay, he seemed to think, that when I intimated a sugges- 
 tion that the proceeding might, by giving offence, destroy one chance. 
 
r--' 
 
 10 
 
 were it but one in ten thousand of our chances for a treaty, I manifested 
 something like a sensitiveness for English honor and for the sake of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Now, sir, all this is well enough for the smartness of debate ; but it 
 does not touch, nor begin to touch, the difficulty. The question is not 
 whether Great Britain deserves to be threatened, or deserves to be whip- 
 ped, but whether the menace or the fulfilment will or will not diminish 
 your chances of obtaining a treaty ? It is a treaty which you say you de- 
 sire. It is a treaty which the Senator from Pennsylvania desires. It is a 
 treaty he is prescribing for. With this in view, is it wise or foolish to be- 
 gin by putting the other party into a passion ? Whether, would you ra- 
 ther treat with a good natured or an angry Government ? You say the 
 former, of course. Well, is not an unreasonable passion as bad to treat 
 with as a reasonable one } Will not a threat, felt to be deserved, or ac- 
 tually deserved, place the threatened party in as unpropitious a mood and 
 situation for sweet tempered, courteous, and rational diplomacy, as a 
 threat wholly- undeserved ? What is the operation of all menace .' Why, 
 it puts the object of it in a condition in which he cannot do what he would, 
 and what he feels to be right, lest he be subjected to the imputation of 
 acting from fear. The justice or injustice of the menace itself does not 
 help or hurt the matter. 
 
 It is of no sort of consequence, therefore, whether Great Britain has a 
 right to take offence or not. I mean that it is of no consequence to your 
 objects and your interests. It is of you, not of her, that I am thinking ; it 
 it for you, for our constituents, for our country, for our peace, our honor, 
 our fortunes, I am anxious, not hers ; and it is that you may acquire what 
 you seek and w-hat you deserve, that I counsel you not to lessen your 
 chances of a treaty by a menace — no, nor by any act or declaration which 
 may by reasonable possibility be so interpreted. I hope I may caution my 
 child not to rouse with his little whip a sleeping irritable animal, without 
 being told that I care much about the dog, and little about my son. For 
 your own objects, with a prudent and useful selfishness, avoid the appear- 
 ance of this thing. * 
 
 Sir, we must distinguish. If any t>ther conceivable purpose was ex- 
 pected to be served by this notice, than that of inducing Great Britain to 
 give us a treaty, you would not so much regard its possible effect on her 
 temper. You might give the notice for its other objects, and for its other 
 operation ; and you might say that you would not presume, or, in consi- 
 deration of other benefits, that you could afford to disregard, unreasonable 
 ill nature. But vou observe, that the honorable Senator from Pennsylva- 
 nia urges the notice as a mode, and an indispensable mode, of getting a 
 treaty. This is exactly and all the good it is to do. If it will not do 
 that, if it is not certain that it will do that, if it may do more harm than 
 good in that precise regard ; if, reasonably or not, it may by possibility be 
 misinterpreted, then, on the very principles upon which it is proposed, you 
 will refuse to burn your fingers with it. 
 
 But the honorable Senator agrees that we should not menace. If this 
 may probably and not wholly unreasonably be taken as a menace, then Ha 
 agrees it is not to be given: Well, is it not one ? Is it not certain that it 
 would be 80 taken ? 
 
 Sir, the Icai 
 
 Iber a reading 
 
 |ber,at the exti 
 
 as it was calle 
 
 j a New YorkJ 
 
 that as it may, 
 
 , already stated 
 
 ^i Government 
 
 I most deliberal 
 
 "I must ensue fr( 
 
 I This, sir, v 
 
 i speaking to ui 
 
 ' Minister to a 
 
 that debate, t 
 
 to shadow ou 
 
 popular outbr 
 
 obey. Not s 
 
 What conseq 
 
 ish '^arliame 
 
 corresponden 
 
 , ture of the ( 
 
 And here let 
 
 with a friend 
 
 Una, (Mr. ?R 
 
 My friend coi 
 
 time, these w 
 
 you to consid 
 
 fusal. Certa 
 
 say not an in 
 
 such languag 
 
 any reparatic 
 
 Now, sir. 
 
 Great Britai 
 
 territory fro 
 
 claims ; she 
 
 I deal of dipli 
 
 \, said have be 
 
 |; shifting, anoi 
 
 I by British s 
 
 gether, by F 
 
 of our minisi 
 
 jtiean to cole 
 
 jects, they v 
 
 In this sta 
 
 ment propofi 
 
 wrong, we s 
 
 munications 
 
 rnioister an 
 
 assures us ; 
 
 portance to 
 
 disquiet, thJ 
 
qVPlFT^Vim 
 
 mm 
 
 ^^ 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
 Sir, the learning of threats is not recondite nor difficult. I well remem- 
 ber a reading on the title, by the honorable Senator himself, in (his cham- 
 ber,at the extra session of 1841. It was in the debate on the Mcl^eod case, 
 as it was called. The British minister had demanded (hat per^n, then in 
 a New York jail, to be given up ; and he did it in these terms : " But be 
 that as it may, Her Majesty's Government formally demand, on the grounds 
 already stated, the immediate release of Mr. McLeoil ; and Her Majesty's 
 Government entreat the President of the United States to take into his 
 most deliberate consideration the serious nature of the consequences which 
 must ensue from a rejection of this demand." 
 
 This, sir, was not the language of the Parliament of Great Britain, 
 speaking to us in the hearing of the whole world. It was a letter from a 
 ' Minister to a Secretary ; and it was thought, by some who participated in 
 that debate, that it spoke apprehension more than menace ; that it meant 
 to shadow out beforehand a possible, uncontrollable, and unmanageable 
 popular outbreak, of Whig, Radical, and Tory, which Government must 
 obey. Not so the honorable Senator. He said : " What consequences ? 
 fVhat consequences ? After the denunciations wc had heard in the Brit- 
 ish 'Parliament, and all that had occurred in the course of the previous 
 correspondence, could any thing have been intended but the serious na- 
 ture of the consequences which must ensue from war with England.' 
 And here let roe put a case. I am so unfortunate as to have a difference 
 with a friend of mine. I will suppose it to be my friend from South Caro- 
 lina, ( Mr. Preston. ) I know, if you please, even that I am in the wrong. 
 My friend comes to me and deojands an explanation, adding, at the siime 
 time, these words : If you do not grant the reparation demanded, I entreat 
 you to consider the serious consequences which must ensue from your re- 
 fusal. Certain I am there is not a single member of this Senate, I might 
 say not an intelligent man in the civilized world, who would not consider 
 such language as a menace, which must be withdrawn or explained before 
 any reparation could be made." 
 
 Now, sir, try this case by such a standard and such an illustration. 
 Great Britain claims a right to the joint and common occupation of the 
 territory from 42° to 54° 40'. She is wholly in the wrong ; yet she 
 claims ; she has recorded and urged her claim ; we have had a great 
 deal of diplomatic conversation about the matter ; liifferent lines it is 
 said have been proposed, formally or info 'ly ; there is a sort of mixed, 
 shifting, anomalous possession, here for hunting, there for farming ; here 
 by British subjects, there by American ; and elsewhere, or mingled to- 
 gether, by French, half-breeds, and Indians. To some intimation or other 
 of our ministers in 1827 the British Government declated that it did not 
 mean to colonize ; but that if a forcible effort were made to expel her sub- 
 jects, they would be defended. 
 
 In this state of things precisely, we by the Executive organ of Govern- 
 ment propose to Great Britain to settle the whole by treaty. You are all 
 wrong, we said, but let us treat. Great Britain agrees to it. Informal com- 
 munications pass and repass for a year or two ; and at length a British 
 rninister arrives ; not a special minister, the Senator from Pennsylvania 
 assures us ; a general minister, but with no othei subject whatever of im- 
 portance to attend to than this. This alone of our British elements of 
 disquiet, this alone, or this mainly, is left. 
 
12 
 
 The negotiation is ready to begin. And let me say (hat alt this lias 
 proceeded thus far, with the fullest knowledge, and the most entire virtual 
 acquiescent of the National Legislature. You knew at the last session, 
 you have known from the first day of this, perfectly well, that the Gov- 
 ernments were negotiating on this subject. The President told us so. 
 The chairman of the Comuiittee on Foreign Affairs told you so. Yet you 
 did not interpose. You passed no resolution forbidding negotiation, or 
 sketching its course, or embodying an ultimatum. You have drawn no 
 red lines or black lines, within or without which diplomacy shall not come. 
 You have virtually consented that the whole subject of controversy be 
 treated on, reserving yourselves to your great constitutional duty of rati- 
 fying or refusing to ratify what negotiation shall propose to you. But 
 to negotiation you, the Legislature and the Executive, agree. To this the 
 Senator from Pennsylvania agrees. 
 
 Well, the negotiators are taking their seats at table ; the maps are un- 
 rolled ; (I hope there are no red lines this time, traced by king or sage ;) 
 the publicists are doubled down in dogs ears, and all is ready. In this 
 precise state of things, the Legislature, which in matters of pending and 
 legitimate negotiation has no more to do than the army or navy, puts its 
 head out of the window, and, in a voice audible all over the world, ejacu- 
 lates, *' God-speed your labors messielirs negotiators ;'treat away ; we are 
 all for a treaty ; we are deeply anxious to have a treaty ; we are pining 
 for peace ; but hark ye, of the British side of that tabic ; if you do not 
 give us the whole subject in dispute, or just as much of it as we desire to 
 have, we mean to take it by force and main strength, in twelve months 
 from this day." I say, sir, that looking to time, place, circumstance, to 
 the explanatory speeches and the whole case, this is the language. And 
 I say, further, it is menace ; and nothing but my sincere respect and regard 
 for Senators who propose and urge it prevents my saying, still further, that 
 it is the most indecent, indecorous, unintelligible proceeding the world of 
 civilization ever witnessed. 
 
 The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania in the course of his able and 
 plausible speech pressed me with some inconsistencies of my argument, 
 as he thought them. Certainly, as he construed and collated the arguments, 
 they wore a look of inconsistency ; and I felt, and feel, that they will re- 
 quire, before I have done, some effort to reconcile them. In the mean time, 
 will he allow me in turn to ask him whether he and his friends have not 
 fallen, in the warmth doubtless of discussion, into some pretty remarkable 
 inconsistencies themselves ? Sir, I have been exceedingly struck while 
 listening to gentlemen, and particularly so perhaps while listening to the 
 Senator from Pennsylvania, with the fact, that while the ends and objects 
 at which they aim are all so pacific, their speeches are strown and sown 
 thick, broadcast, with so much of (he food and nourishment of war. Their 
 ends and objects are peace ; a treaty of peace ; but their means and their 
 topics wear a certain incongruous grimness of aspect. The " bloom is on 
 the rye ;" but as you go near, you see bayonet points sparkling beneath ; 
 and are fired upon by a thousand men in ambush ! The end they aim at is 
 peace ; but the means of attaining it are an offensive and absurd threat. 
 Their ends and their objects are peace ; yet how full have they stuffed the 
 speeches we have been hearing with every single topic the best calculat- 
 
 A to blo\ 
 The hoiH 
 proud, pc 
 red line 
 on with 
 of title ; 
 our fault 
 ther, by 
 i- have hap 
 ;• for peac< 
 i him, a lil 
 ;j calculate 
 1. cial com 
 I theQue< 
 I masses a 
 -A 1 decl 
 } triotism 
 / they^hal 
 ^ in the s 
 
 him." 
 \ He woi 
 I people's 
 f admirec 
 turns ag 
 and put 
 of the ( 
 steel of 
 legacy t 
 friend, i 
 mob br( 
 
13 
 
 t all this W 
 intire virtual 
 
 last session, 
 
 lat the GoF- 
 told us so. 
 so. Yet you 
 gotiatioD, or 
 'e drawn no 
 
 1 not come, 
 ntroversy be 
 duty of rati- 
 you. But 
 
 To this the 
 
 naps are un- 
 
 ngor sage;) 
 
 idy. In this 
 
 pending and 
 
 avy, puts its 
 
 vorld, ejacu- 
 
 v^y ; we are 
 
 ' are pining 
 
 ' you do not 
 
 we desire to 
 
 ttlve months 
 
 imstance, to 
 
 wage. And 
 
 t and regard 
 
 further, that 
 
 the world of 
 
 his able and 
 V argument, 
 ' arguments, 
 hey will re- 
 mean time, 
 is have not 
 remarkable 
 truck while 
 !ning to the 
 and objects 
 1 and sown 
 »ar. Their 
 9 and their 
 bloom is on 
 g beneath; 
 ey aim at is 
 lurd threat, 
 stuffed the 
 St calculat- 
 
 ed to blow up the pa&sions of kindred races to the fever heat of battle ! 
 The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania is for peace, but England is 
 I proud, powerful and greedy ; England sends Lord Ashburton here with a 
 red line in his pocket, and a white lie in liis mouth ; England is pressing 
 on with giant tread to the occupation of Oregon, in which she has no color 
 of title ; the English press, high and low, is vilifying, day and night, not 
 our faults or vices, but all that wc love and all that we honor ! Nay, fur- 
 ther, by a most unhappy and remarkable mere lapse of tongue it must 
 have happened, for the honorable Senator never forgets to say that he is 
 for peace, he tells us, that while our cities love England, as 1 understand 
 him, a little too much, " not wisely, but too well" — (a remark by the way, 
 calculated, not intended^ to destroy altogether the influence of the commer- 
 cial community on a question of peace or war) — so well as to have toasted 
 the Queen and insulted the President — the great unsophisticated and honest 
 masses already hate England with a precious and ancient enmity. 
 
 I declare, sir, that while listening to Senators whose sincerity and pa- 
 triotism I cannot doubt, and to this conflict of topics and objects with which 
 they half bewilder mc, I was forcibly reminded of that consummate oration 
 in the streets of Rome, by one who " came to bury Ca:s^r, not to praise 
 him." He did not wish (o stir up any body to mutiny and rage — O, no ! 
 He would not have a finger lifted against the murderers of his and *'as 
 people's friend — not he ! Ho feared he wronged them — yet who haf not 
 admired the exquisite address and the irresistible eflcct with which he >?• 
 turns again and again to " sweet Cicsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths," 
 and puts a tongue in each ; to the familiar mantle, first worn on the evening 
 of the day his great friend overcame the Neivii, now pierced by the cursed 
 steel of Cassius, of the envious Oasca, of the well-beloved Brutus ; to his 
 legacy of drachmas, arbors, and orchards, to the people of Rome, whose 
 friend, whose benefactor, he shows to them, all marred by traitors — till ihe 
 mob break away from his words of more than fire, with — 
 
 " Wc will be revenged : — revenge : about ! 
 
 Seek — burn — fire — kill — slay ! — let not a traitor live." 
 
 Anthony was insincere : Senators are wholly sincere ; yet the contrast 
 between their pacific professions and that revelry of belligerent topics and 
 sentiments which rings and flashes in their speeches here, half suggests a 
 doubt to me, sometimes, whether they or I perfectly know what they mean 
 or what they desire. They promise to show you a garden, and you look 
 up to see nothing but a wall, " with dreadful faces thronged, and fieiy arms !" 
 They propose to teach you hov peace is to be preserved ; and they do it 
 so exquisitely that you go away lalf inclined to issue letters of marque and 
 reprisal to-morrow morning. 
 
 The argument runs somewhat thus, ( I do not pretend to use the exact 
 words of any one : ) " We are for peace — but flesh and blood can't stand 
 every thing ; wc are wholly for peace — but our emotions almost choke us to 
 death when wc think of their sending Lord Ashburton here with bis Aup^ 
 pressio vert, and allegatio falsi ; we are for peace by all manner of 
 means — yet see England laying her mortmain and dishonest grasp on the 
 Oregon, as she had before on the highland passes of Maine, enfolding 
 both to her rapacious breast — and bear it who can ! we want peace — but 
 hear that ribald and all-libelling press, that spares neither age, nor sex, 
 
 '7 
 
14 
 
 nor the secrets of the grare ! we want peace — not that we lore England 
 quite so much as the cities, whose treasures indeed, and whose interests, 
 we hope not all their affections, are more abroad than at home ; we would 
 have the Executive dispositions, if we cculd, as sweet and peace-making 
 as our own — but impartiality obliges us to remind him where, when, and 
 how, his health was not drunk, and the Queen's was ! we, public men, 
 are all for peace ; but how long we shall be able to rein in the great body 
 of the people, stung and maddened by the memory of so many wrongs, 
 Heaven only knows." So runs the argument. The proposition is peace ; 
 hut the audience rises and goes off with a sort of bewildered and unpleas- 
 ing sensafion, that if there were a thousand men in all America ss well 
 disposed as the orator, peace might be preserved ; but that, as the case 
 stands, it is just about hopeless ! I ascribe it altogether to their anxious 
 and tender concern for peace, that Senators have not a word to say about the 
 good she does, but only about the dangers she is in. They have the love 
 of compassion ; not the love of desire. Not a word about the countless 
 blessings she scatters from her golden urn ; but only " the pity of it, lago ! 
 the pity of it !" to think how soon the dissonant clangor of a thousand 
 brazen throats may chase that bloom from her cheek, 
 
 "And (Icnth's pale flag be quick advanced there." 
 
 Sir, no one here can say one thing, and mean another ; yet r.uch may be 
 meant, and nothing directly said. 
 
 ' "The dial spoke not, but pointed'full upon the stioke of murder." 
 
 Let me advert now, sir, to the manner in which another topic, on which 
 1 said something before, has been dealt with by the honorable Senator. I 
 suggested, that if you decide to give this notice, the Committee on Foreign 
 Relations ought at once to be directed to inquire whether any and what 
 measures are necessary now to be adopted in view of the expected an- 
 nulment of the Convention. And my reason was, that if, unhappily, we 
 should not have a treaty within the year, at the end of the year our claims 
 and those of the British Government must come into direct and forcible 
 collision on the contested territory. The grounds of that apprehension I 
 had the honor quite in detail to lay before you. 
 
 Well, what has been the answer to this } Why, O ! never ftar ; we 
 shall certainly have a treaty. Beyond that single and satisfactory ejacu- 
 lation no one goes an inch. 
 
 Now, Mr. President, this is very well. But as no gentleman k ^ 
 that we shall have a treaty, I press my original question : what is to come 
 to pass, where are we to be, what are we to do at the end of a year, 
 iirith the Convention annulled and no treaty concluded ? What is the 
 theory of Senators upon such an hypothesis ? Surely, it is no answer at 
 all to say we shall have a treaty. We know nothing at all about it; we 
 do not know, we cannot guess, whether we shall or shall not. Since, 
 then, you would have us assume the responsibility of our deserting our Bet- 
 tied and approved policy in this behalf, since you propose that at the end 
 of a year the Convention which has kept the peace of the countries and 
 slowly developed the probable destinies of Oregon for twenty-six years, 
 shall cease to exist, are you not bound to survey the matter on all sides, 
 and therefore to answer this question — where is Oregon, and where are 
 
 I the coun 
 
 no treat; 
 
 Sir, it 
 
 unaccom 
 
 tice is a 
 
 take it. 
 
 does not 
 
 concern 
 
 game, s 
 
 Northea 
 
 will opp 
 
 hers, yo 
 
 not ver 
 
 loftily si 
 
 the sett 
 
 by theii 
 
 will del 
 
 signed 
 
 Itho 
 
 quence 
 
 er Orej 
 
 on the 
 
 and wh 
 
 Is then 
 
 notice i 
 
 which 
 
 concen 
 
 talons, 
 
 Willy 
 
 then, i 
 
 and thi 
 
 shattei 
 
 Yet 
 
 proud 
 
 energj 
 
 withoi 
 
 the w: 
 
 tricks, 
 
 the I> 
 
 solitai 
 
 give ^ 
 
 tiee sc 
 
 pen t( 
 
 Sir 
 
 this 11 
 
16 
 
 j the countries, when (hat state of things arrives and brings, as it may bring, 
 no treaty ? 
 
 Sir, it did and does seem to me, that the annulment of the Convention, 
 unaccompanied by treaty, places the Governments in collision. Your no- 
 tice is a declaration that in a year, if the country is not yielded, you will- 
 take it. Great Britain has recorded her declaration, that although she 
 does not propose to colonize, and although, as I gather, she would not 
 concern herself in it, if the Hudson's Bay Company, the hunter, and the 
 game, should slowly retire to the more congenial deserts of the North and 
 Northeast, yet, that iC you forcibly attempt to dispossess them now, she 
 will oppose force to force. If you execute your threat, and she executes 
 hers, you certainly are in collision. If you do not, you will have to retire 
 not very magnificently from a position up to which you will have very 
 loftily strutted. Besides, if the Convention is abrogated, collisions among 
 the settlers, each body of them feeling that they represent and are backed 
 by their own Government, will become inevitable ; each Government 
 will defend its own ; and there is a war iu the Oregon, whether you de- 
 signed it or not. 
 
 I thought therefore, and now do, that in this view of possible conse- 
 quences, it is not (00 soon, if the notice is given, to begin to inquire wheth- 
 er Oregon is to be defended in Oregon, or under the walls of Quebec, or 
 on the sea; and if in the Oregon, how it is to be done ; by what floating 
 and what stationary force ; at what cost ; and on what ways and means ? 
 Is there a doubt that England would begin to prepare on the day of the 
 notice ? With her habits, with her means, under the apprehensions 
 which the notice would excite, would she not begin to accumulate and 
 concentrate a preparation which would enable her (o s(oop, beak and 
 talons, upon the con(e8(ed (erri(ory, on the day (hat the year should expire ? 
 Will you &it still, and see and hear her preparing ? To give this notice, 
 then, and go hoir.e without more, were to light a train to the magazine, 
 and then lie down to sleep upon the deck, which in half a niinute will be 
 shattered to atoms. 
 
 Yet Senators are so sure of having a treaty, they are so sure that this 
 proud and grasping Power, this Power which " pushes her rights with 
 energy while we sleep on ours," this Power which will not treat at all 
 without a menace, will treat under menace ; that she will sweetly yield 
 the whole matter in dispute in a year ; that red lines, courtly diplomatic 
 tricks, the avarice of territory, the dreams of Gibraltars and Maltas on 
 the Northwest coast, the pride of protecting all her subjects from what 
 solitary spot of land or sea soever their cries assail the throne — will all 
 give way ; so sure arc they of all this, that they will not have a commit- 
 tiee so much as inquire what is to be done if none of these fine things hap- 
 pen to come to pass ! 
 
 Sir, my friends and myself are willing to go before the country upon 
 this matter. We oppose the notice ; but if you give it, then, we say, pre- 
 pare with a rational forecast for the consequences. Senators on the other 
 side advise the notice, and resist even inquiry into the expediency of any 
 preparation at all. 
 
 I eome at last, sir, to that part of my previous observations on which 
 the Senator from Pennsylvania has chiefly diffused himself. 
 
16 
 
 I said, for the purpose of persuading you not to give this notice now, 
 (for that all along is the whole subject of deliberation — shall it be givcti 
 now ?) — that over and above the possible inauspicious influence of the no- 
 tice upon the negotiation, the Convention was actually working very well 
 ' for you in the Oregon itself. I said, therefore, that so far from precipitat- 
 ingan attempt to abrogate it to-day, it was perhaps nut certain that you 
 would ever do so, treaty or no treaty. It would be very proper, at least, 
 I suggested, that a committee should inquire what is the actual operation 
 of the Convention ; and whether time, the Convention subsisting, did 
 now, and would hereafter, " fight for you or fi;:ht*for England ?" ° I said 
 that, in my view of the facts, the actual tendencies of events were giving 
 you the agricultural portions of Oregon ; and that there was nothing now 
 in operation in England or Oregon which was at all counteracting those 
 tendencies. Such was the actual operation of the Convention. And then 
 I said, that although all this might change ; although England or the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company might put into activity some new agencies of coun- 
 teraction to keep our agricultural settlers out ; yet I did suggest, that if 
 things could be left as now they are, to succeed one another in their natu- 
 ral course ; if time and chance, as now, could be continued in the control 
 of events ; if collision is not precipitated, and blood is not shed ; if ex- 
 asperated and mad national will, stimulated to undesigned and unreasona- 
 ble action, is not substituted for the natural sequence of things ; if the 
 whole could remain, as now it is, intrusted to the silent operation of those 
 great laws of business and man, which govern in the moral world, as grav- 
 itation among the stars ; upon this hypothesis, I suggested that your peo- 
 ple would spread themselves upon the whole agricultural capacities of Or- 
 egon, and the Hudson's Bay Company, (he hunter, and the game, would 
 retire to a fitter region for that wild pursuit. That this would be so I 
 could not assert, of course. Over and over again, I said the British poli- 
 cy might ta\j,e some new direction. We may brag her into a change of 
 it. The foolishness of debate may change it. In point of fact, however, 
 now, for the present, the Convention works well. Continue it, therefore. 
 But keep a constant and keen lookout upon the Oregon ; and in the mean 
 time, you are filling it with its appropriate and its natural defenders. 
 
 Such, exactly, sir, was the poetical and self-deceiving policy which so 
 much amuses the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania. Has he adequate- 
 ly met the view I took ? Sir, I think not. 
 
 Consider, sir, first, what is the exact question. It is this. Js the ac- 
 tual wofking of the Convention snch as to afford a reason for abrogating 
 it sufficiently clear and weighty to induce you to disregard and take the 
 hazard of those probable inauspicious influences which the proposed no- 
 tice would exert upon the p^ ling negotiation ? The cfl'ect of the no- 
 tice upon negotiation, I hope I have shown, would be bad. The argu- 
 ment of the Senator from Pentuylvania, that notice would help negotia- 
 tion, I hope I have shown, is not sound nor specious. Still the question 
 arises. Does the actual working of the Convention aflbrd a reason, ifce> 
 spective of the efiiect of notice upon negotiation, for abrogating, or a rea- 
 son for continuing it ? Does it afford so strong a reason for abrogating it, 
 that you should ieel obliged to abrogate it at the expense of a treaty ? I hare 
 8ai(\ and repeat, that on the contrary, the Convention operates so favora- 
 
 i]y, that, witl 
 
 negotiation, yi 
 
 and when you 
 
 What, then 
 
 dencies and < 
 
 with your peo 
 
 cies and inst 
 
 tendencies an 
 
 a pure questic 
 
 tion of the ps 
 
 and by itself. 
 
 not very usefi 
 
 the honorable 
 
 claim, Englar 
 
 Our busine 
 
 of the presen 
 
 vention to-da 
 
 are refuted, 
 
 then we can 
 
 The first s 
 
 things, was t 
 
 ing the agric 
 
 dencies whicl 
 
 tiers from at 
 
 something li 
 
 Springing u[ 
 
 where, by hii 
 
 ing rather, 
 
 honest old A 
 
 and by the 
 
 possess, whe 
 
 is growing, s 
 
 will cover tl 
 
 cover the se 
 
 otution. A 
 
 lostrated thi: 
 
 "Oregon 18 
 ' such were once I 
 country — 'point 
 F!ve thouaand 
 before another y 
 you legislate for 
 ered in the Hou 
 
 To the sa 
 Illinois him 
 
 "The peopU 
 acted. For ma 
 the purpose of 
 
poli- 
 
 i 
 
 17 
 
 )ly, that, without the least regard tn the unpropitious effect of notice upon 
 negotiation, you should not to-day disturb it. Whether you ever shall, 
 and when you shall, events will reveal to you. 
 
 What, then, is the actual working of the Convention ? Are there ten- 
 dencies and causes now actually in operation, which would fill Oregon 
 with your people, if not counteracted ; and ara there counteracting agen- 
 cies and instrumentalities actually in operation which overcome those 
 tendencies and causes, and thus keep your people out ? And this, sir, is 
 a pure question of fact. It is a question of mere evidence. It is a ques- 
 tion of the past and the present of Oregon. Examine it, then, as such, 
 and by itself. Do not let it be confounded with the very different, and 
 not very useful question, What is to be the future of Oregon .' Let not 
 the honorable Senator jump aside or jump forward from the fact, and ex- 
 claim, England will do this; the Hudson's Bay Company will do that! 
 
 Our business is not to guess about the future; but to discern the duties 
 of the present, and to fulfil thera. You urge the abrogation of the Con- 
 vention to-day. See, then, how it works to-day. If it work well, you 
 are refuted. And if then you guess it will work badly next year, I say 
 then we can abrogate it next year. 
 
 The first suggestion, sir, which I made touching the existing state of 
 things, was that causes and tendencies now actually in operation are GIU 
 ing the agricultural parts of Oregon with your people ; causes and ten- 
 dencies which, not counteracted, will fill those parts wi(h agricultural set- 
 tlers from among yourselves. There is already kindled and diffused 
 something like a passion for agricultural emigration to that country. 
 Springing up and spreading, one knows not how ; not prompted, as else- 
 where, by hlinger, by pauperism, by the want of work or wages ; spring- 
 ing rather, perhaps, from a craving of personal independence, and an 
 honest old Anglo-Saxon appetite for land ; stimulated by our large liberty, 
 and by the feeling that we have vast tracts of new world to divide and 
 possess, wherein each may get his share : the passion exists, is diffused, 
 is growing, and, in the absence of insuperable counteracting agencies, 
 will cover the whole agricultural opportunities of Oregon, as the waters 
 cover the sea. Such, 1 ^ ^id, was the view taken by the friends of the res- 
 olution. A vivid paragraph from a speech delivered elsewhere well il- 
 lustrated this. 
 
 ' ' Oregon U our land of promise. Oregon in our land of destination. ' The finjjcj of N«tnrc' — 
 surh were once the words of the gentlcinnn from Massachusetts, [Mr. AnA.M.«,] in regard to thia 
 
 country 'pointsthat out,' Two thouaand American citizens arc already indwcUcra of hurvalleys. 
 
 Five thousand more — ay, it may bo twice that number — will have crossed the mountain pamm, 
 J^ before another year rolls round. While you arc legislating, they arc emigrating ; and whether 
 you legislate for them or not, they will emigrate still." — Speech of Mr. Owen, of Indiana, de&a- 
 ered in the Home of Representatives of the United Slates, January Vidand 24M, 1844. 
 
 To the same effect was the less fervent language of the Senator from 
 Illinois himself, in his speech upon introducing this resolution. 
 
 " The people of the West have not contented themselves with expresssing opinions — they have 
 acted. For many years our citizens have gone into the country west of the Rocky Mountaiiu^ br 
 Ihe purpose of hunting, trapping, and trading with the Indians. They have also more recently 
 i 
 
 PRO 
 
 
18 
 
 gone for the purpoM of making pennuient lettlemenU. During the lait year, more than a thott> 
 sand bravf) and hardy piqneera aet out from Independence, in Miaiouri, and, overcomi^ all ,ob- 
 staelns. hay e arrived safe in the Oregon. Thu« the firat attempt to eroaathr extenaiTe prairies 
 and high mountains which intervene between the settlements in the States and the Pacific ocean 
 has been completely successful. The prairie wilderness and the snowy mountains, which have 
 heretofore been deemed impassable, which were to constitute, in the opinion of some, an impene- 
 trable barrier to the further progress of emigration to the West, ard already oven;ome. The same 
 bold and daring spirits, whose intrepidity has heretofore overcome the Western wilderness in the 
 niidst of dangers, can never be checked in their march to the shores of the Vadf"- During the 
 next summer I believe thousands will follow. Extensive preparations are now making for a gene- 
 ral move towards that country. The complete snccesi of those who have first gone will moouragc 
 others ; and, as the road is now marked out, I do not think 1 am at all extravagant when 1 suppose 
 that ten thousand emigrants will go to Oregon next summer." 
 
 Indeed, I added, the one great fact which, first, last, every where and 
 always strikes you on a review of our history, is the noiseless, innumer- 
 ous movement of our nation westward. 
 
 Setting off two centuries ago from J-imestown and Plymouth, we have 
 spread to the Alleganies; we have topped them; we have diffused our- 
 selves over the imperial valley beyond ; we have crossed the Father of 
 Kivers; the granite and ponderous gates of the Rocky Mountains have 
 opened, and we stand in sight of the great sea. He whose childhood 
 learned his mother's tongue from her loved lips, in the utmost North and 
 East, speaks it to-day in the tones of a man on the shores of the Pacific; 
 speaks it to teach the truths and consolations of religion and of culture to 
 tke wasted native race ; speaks it there, and is still at home ! unexpatri- 
 ated, unalienated, his " heart, untravelled," still turning to you ! In this 
 fact, recorded and exemplified by all our history, there was revealed a 
 law of growth, which, in the absence of counteracting causes, would fill 
 all that was worth filling of the country in dispute. 
 
 Such was the first of the facts I urged which make up the actual pres- 
 ent of this question of Oregon. 
 
 And, now, what does the I.snorable Senator from Pennsylvania say to 
 this ? Does he controvert it, or any part of it ? Certainly not. Does be 
 doubt the existence of a formed, diffused passion for emigrating to Ore- 
 gon.' Not he, indeed ! Does he doubt the agricultural capacities of the 
 country .'' I understand him to go the whole length of his friends, the 
 friends of this resolution, in their high estimate of those capacities. Does 
 he deride and disbelieve the law which seems to conduct our star of em- 
 pire wftstward ? O no ! Hear him : 
 
 "He believed that the system of law and of social order we enjoyed was' destined to be the in- 
 heritance of this continent For this it was that the Almighty had put within this entire nation 
 that spirit of progreFs, and that disposition to roam abroad and seek out new homes and new fields 
 of enterprise. It could not be repressed ; it was idle to talk of it ; you might as well arrest the stars 
 in their course through heaven. The same Divine hand gave impulse to both. Stop the Amer- 
 ican people from crossing the Rocky Mountains! You might as well command Niagara not to 
 flow. We had a dvtitiny , and it would be fulfilled," 
 
 SiCt how. poor, flat, spiritless, prosaic, was all I said, to this! He talk 
 of.;>njr!^PQ^.t''y, indeed! Why compared with these arrow flights, thefw. 
 
than a thoa» 
 omijny all .ob> 
 nwive praiiin 
 Paoiflc ocean 
 I which have 
 ii an impene- 
 . The lame 
 demeas in the 
 During the 
 ng for a gone- 
 Rill mcouragc 
 fhen 1 luppogc 
 
 where and 
 innumer- 
 
 , we have 
 ffuaed our- 
 
 Father of 
 itaiDs have 
 
 childhood 
 North and 
 he Pacific; 
 
 culture to 
 unexpatri- 
 I ! In this 
 revealed a 
 , would fill 
 
 ctual preS' 
 
 inia say to 
 Does be 
 ng to Ore- 
 ties of the 
 lends, the 
 es. Does 
 itar of em- 
 
 to be the in- 
 entire nation 
 nd new fields 
 rreat the itars 
 •p the Amer- 
 iagannotto 
 
 He talk 
 bts, the^e, 
 
 ea^le flights, of the soaring Senator, I crept upon the ground ; I abased ' 
 mysjelf ; 1 lay flat on my face ; I hid my head in the humble reeds! 
 
 No wonder, indeed, that the topic inspires him \'ith "thoughts that vol- - 
 untary move harmonious numbers." Yet it has its sad and fearful as- 
 pects, too, on whtjh we may, and soon, have cause to dwell. 
 
 Tendencies and causes then in actual operation are conducting your 
 people to the occupation of the whole agricultural Oregon. The next ' 
 question is, are there any counteracting agencies actually operating to check 
 and restrain these tendencies and causes, and thus to keep your people 
 out ? Is the British Government and nation now doing any thing, is the 
 Hudson's Bay Company now doing any thing, to prevent settleis from- 
 among yourselves taking up the entire agricultural capacities of that far 
 West ? 
 
 Beginning, then, with the British Government and nation at home, as' 
 distinct from the Hudson's Bay Company, whose policy requires to be sep- 
 arately examined, I said, and say, that upon all the evidence to which I 
 have access, and to which you all and all the world have equal access, 
 there is no proof whatever ihat that Government and nation is doing any 
 thing which operates in the slightest degree to keep out or to embarrass 
 our agricultural emigration to Oregon. Do not lose sight of the question. 
 That question is, What is the existing state of things? What is that Gov- 
 ernment doing noti; ? Three years, six months, the next packet, may 
 change every thing. But what is going on now ? 
 
 In the first place, then, 1 said, and repeat, that I see no proof that 
 that Government and nation, or any party or association or individual of 
 the British nation at home, are now carrying on the agricultural coloniza- 
 tion of Oregon ; or do now, or ever did, cherish the purpose of colonizing 
 it, or any part of it, for objects of agriculture. 
 
 Some proofs and considerations having a tendency to evince that na 
 such thing is doing, and that no such purpose is cherished, were then ad- •■ 
 verted to. In 1837 Mr. Gallatin, in a letter to the American Secretary of ■ 
 State, observes that the British negotiators declared " there was no inten- - 
 tion on the part of Great Britain to colonize the country (of the Columbia) ■ 
 or impede the progress of American settlement." And then, through all 
 that series of colonization and emigration enterprise, beginning in Great ' 
 Britain in 1826, perhaps as far back as 1815, by which the British Gov- 
 ernment under successive administrations, and by which associations of { 
 private persons, and by which wise and feeling individual minds, have r 
 sought to relieve the over pressure of population at home by opening new 
 fields of British labor and new markets of British goods abroad: — an en- 
 terprise which has excited so much interest and caused so much discus- 
 sion in Parliament and by the press.; an enterprise which has carried many 
 hundreds of thousands of voluntary emigrants to every spot almost of . 
 British earth — to .'\ustralia, N' >' Zealand, the Cape of Good Hope, thai 
 Canada8,'New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and all the isles of the sea ; in the - . 
 whole history of this enterprise, nobody has proposed to colonize the Ore'. 
 gon, and nobody has taken a step that way. The neceeisily of colonizar. 
 tion on the largest. scale has been admitted. It has been forced upon iha . 
 British public mind. It is most energetically and successfully acted upon«v 
 Colonies are rising every where; new. fiel,ds and new shops. ofaBrittsh. 
 
wm 
 
 20 
 
 Ul>ftr4 ne\Y markets of British manufactures; new investments of British 
 capita], benefiting him who emigrates and him who stays at home ; stim- 
 ulating British production; "putting the full breast of youthful exuber- 
 ^Bce to the mouth of the exhausted parent." Yet no human being has 
 cuii^ratcd or meditated emigration, that I can see, to the Oregon. The 
 atiFAKtugcs and disadvantages of ail these seats of colonization have been 
 repeatedly and warmly discussed in Parliament, and by the whqle press, 
 liiigh and low, but not one word that I can find has been spoken or written 
 Wliie Oregon. I referred to a catalogue of books coming under the gen- 
 «Faii denomination of Emigrants' Guides, just published in London, in which 
 the roving English reader may find something to induce him to go to al- 
 most every other spot on earth or sea, and to show him the way to it, but 
 <>ot a pufTand not a direction for Oregon. In no paper put forth by the 
 'Gcveinnient, or any association of persons ; in no speech, in no book, in no 
 ae4 of any description, or of any body, do 1 see a paiticlc of proof of the 
 nt^istence of a design to settle that country for agriculture or for any thing, 
 ^fvtdecil, when you consider of how vast u colonial territory Great Britain 
 is (he admitted exclusive proprietor ; a territory on which her descend- 
 -aunCs may go on for ages spreading to hundreds of millions ; a territory 
 .<aore accessible and towards which the current of emigration is already 
 running ; on which the foundations of new States arc already traced, and 
 4lw structures going up, it is not strange that she has not directed her 
 ^v'andering steps to tins last home of man, where she does not pretend to 
 ovm an acre by an exclusive title, and to which wc are known to deny 
 iHir liny title at all. 
 
 WfiJJ, sir, how does the Senator meet this .' Why, he says Great Brit- 
 ^uiaimist colonize. " What ! he exclaims, not colonize .-' It is the indis- 
 .pensiille condition of hei existence ; she wius/ colonize." Certainly, sii. 
 Sol ifiid the honor to say. But she must not colonize the top of Mont 
 lifaMc:; and she must not colonize the dome of St. Paul's church, that I 
 aat aware of.', and whether she is colonizing or meditates colonizing the 
 o^i^iicultural parts or any parts of Oregon is a pure and sheer question of 
 £i.tft, Co be settled by the proofs. 
 
 fK<turning, then, to the proofs, the Senator has produced nothing but 
 tias renewal of the Hudson's Bay Company's charter, in which is reserv- 
 '^vTigbtto colonize. It was my purpose to have remarked on this be- 
 ^m^«i)d to urge, as now I do, that it greatly strengthens the position 
 ' ffiMt 4he British Government has not formed the purpose of attempting 
 ji;;i;m»Uural settlement in that country. But the Senator from Missouri, 
 / MEc. AscHiaoy, ) to whom I was replying, not having adverted to this doc- 
 mnwiit. It at the moment escaped my attention. 
 
 Sir, the fact is this : In 1837 the company applied for a r^H^^al of its 
 
 Soeane to trade and hunt. To obtain it, a good story 'xvas to be told, and 
 
 tSK Oregon, and all the other almost untraunded territory on both sides of 
 
 >tfiKll«rky Mountains,to which the license extended, certainly was describ- 
 
 edl in the color of the rosev 'The British, Government, haying such an ac- 
 
 •aoHntef it thrust into -their ve^ry, faces, determi;ied to ititro.duceint£(t|^e 
 
 ctasMfPal a reservation of the right as against the comj|»ny' 1^9 '^9^1'!^*^^ 
 
 '.o&j part^of'^hd whole count'rv tb which the licen'^b'^kt^hdedf^ 'if du'rihg 
 
 . -i tmtMf m iii tf yearns lor which tl^ey gate the' r6ifi^wal it'sHoulId wish to do 
 
T 
 
 21 
 
 80. And thi« ia all. But does this afford a scrap of evidence that that 
 Government had then formed, or has notv formed, tlie design of coloniai»|{. 
 the Oregon ? 
 
 !n the first place, there is no proof of any one act evincing such a de> 
 sign. It was a Whig administration which in 1838 renewed the liecnse^ 
 That administration held power till 1841, and did nothing o>) the subject.^ 
 The Tory administration that succeeded it has done nothing. But I may 
 go further. The Senator from Indiana, (Mr. HANNEOA«r,)in his speeefi 
 the other duy, produced and read the Morning Chruni(?le of. I bolieve, 
 22d August, 1843, to prove some British opinion about the Oregon. 1 
 propose to cross-examine his witness; and will put upon the st.ind for that 
 purpose the same Morning Chronicle of August 2Sth, 1843, six days after 
 the date of the paper from which he read. It is an opposition paper, and 
 certainly utters itself with a commendable wrath and freedom. After 
 
 5 lancing at certain easy courses, by which the present ministry might have 
 one themselves honor and the State service, the writer taunts them 
 in the bitterest terms with pursuing a directly opposite policy ; with nofe 
 doing this from fear of Louis Philippe ; with not doing that from fear of 
 Russia ; and, among other things, with " giving up the Oregon," in consid- 
 eration of having lost the Northeastern boundary before! Certainly, if 
 the Senator's witness is a credible one, he utterly disproves all ministerial 
 design of colonizing the Oregon. 
 
 Take another piece of nvidcncc. Here is an article on " the fur trade 
 between the Northwest coast of America and China," in Fisher's Colonial 
 Magazine, published in London, April, 1843. Very probably it was writ- 
 ten by an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company. 1 read a paragraph from 
 page 2: "It is truly mortifying to reflect on the ignorance, imbecility, and 
 negligence, of tlic British Government, which is allowing us to be juggled 
 out of this coast, one of the finest in the world, and unquestionably be- 
 longing to us by the right of priority in discovery." The last part of the 
 paragragh contains news; but what docs the Senator from Pennsylvania 
 say to the former ? Mc can hardly refuse the tribute of his unwilling ad^ 
 miration to Great Britain, for the energy with which " she pushes her 
 rights," or rather her claims, without right. " She is rushing forward, ha 
 says, to get and keep the country !" Whcteas, here is an unhappy HudsoQ's> 
 Bay Company proprietor, beating his breast and pulling out his hair, be- 
 cause he cannot move such " a dish of skimmed milk" as the British Gov- 
 ernment "to an honorable action." But which to rely on .^ I cannot 
 help thinking that this writer has the best means of knowledge, both of 
 Oregon and England ; and he calls names with a copiousness and hearti- 
 ness that shows him to be altogether in earnest. 
 
 I add a passage or two from the British Foreign Review of .ItMuary^ 
 1844. In an article "on the Oregon Territory," the writer says: " Upon 
 the whole, therefore, the Oregon Territory holds out no great promise as 
 an agricultural field." " We have seen that Oregon oiTers, upon the whole> 
 very little inducement to agricultural pursuits." " For ourselves, we da 
 not set any great value upon the country as an emigration field, either for 
 England or America." 
 
 I submit, then, sir, that the British Government and nation at home ha& 
 not formed the design of colonizing the agricultural regions of Oregqiu. 
 
 >'■ irfiThii^jjMit 
 
33 
 
 This resertfffion in the license or (he company strengthens tho'prooAl of 
 this fact. But for (hat, the Senator migh( say, nay, has said, that the GbV- 
 ernmcnt had no right as against (he company (o colonize. The'ri^ht'is 
 gained, and yet the Government does nothing. 
 
 Sir, Great Britain is not in the Oregon at all, except in and by the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company. She has no fort, nor farm, nor town, nor traee^of 
 footstep there, except in and by the Hudson's Bay Company. I come ntvr 
 in the next place to ask, whether (hat company opposes (he slightest ob- 
 stacle, in point of fact, to (he entrance of our agricultural 8e(tlers ? And 
 nothing is more indisputably cer(ain (ban (hat it does no(. In one way 
 only does it seem to be probable (ha( it will do so. In one way it may. 
 Send on armed mounted force to eject those persons ; drive them hotoe, 
 maimed and spoiled, upon (he sympathies and the pride of a Government 
 which has recorded i(s de(ermina(ion (o pro(ec( (hem from violence, and 
 thus indeed they may become an obstacle to the entrance of American 
 agricultural immigration. Bu( if, avoiding such insanity ns (ha(, you 
 main(ain the existing state of things; if under (his Convention you con- 
 tinue to enter with ploughshare and pruning hook, and missionary, twen- 
 ty years more may see them pass away, as night, to the more congenial 
 desert. At present, I say again, tha( the Company does no(, in point of 
 fact, oppose the slightest possible counterac(ing resistance to (hose ten- 
 dencies and causes which are giving to your fanners the good lands of 
 Oregon. 
 
 We must distinguish when We speak of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
 As a hunting and trading organization, it is very formidable indeed. It 
 wields a large capital ; occupies and owns a vast region on this side of the 
 "htoUntains, drained by the waters of (he Hudson's Bay ; i( has a liceitse 
 'of trade exclusive of all British subjects over that region, and over dther 
 (i-acts all 'but boundless on both sides of the mountains ; employs agents of 
 great ^kill, acquired by long experience, and exerts a decisive contro(-upon 
 itaahy of the native races, in (he business of ob(aining furs, by htindng, 
 trapping, or (rade with Indians. A solitary ship, or a stranger going there 
 once or twice in his life, stands no chance with such a body as this. 
 
 But thus far, sir, the company opposes no obstacle at all to your agri- 
 cultural settlement. The truth is precisely (hat it is a hun(ingcorpora(ion 
 exclusively ; itgiv^sno attention (o agricuUure ; but it permits i(s retired 
 servants to take vp farms about and near its trading posts ; and, to some 
 tfxt^nt, perhaps a hundred of these retired servants nave done so. These 
 pei^ns are'the only cultivators of Oregon, excepting your own couhtry- 
 'then. They are English, French, and half breeds. With them your set- 
 tlers mingle peaceably ; your missionaries preach to them ; and they are 
 at'this moment coming within your influence ; ready to receive your 
 laws I to be bldnded with your countrymen ; to be enfolded in your pi-o- 
 ieeting arms. Meantime, (he Hudson's Bay Company pursues its busi- 
 'Itessof seeking furs ; but these are fast disappearing; and as the game 
 gdes noHh, the hunter. must follow. The process which is going on, Then, 
 in th^ Oiffigbn, is exactly this. The hunter state is disappearing. The 
 agriculturil state is succeeding; and your settlers, (he farmer, aind the 
 'mi&8ionary,'(tbd the retired servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, its'ser- 
 Mrttat^ ho longer — these, of diverse race, but with kindred Objects, and soon 
 
 Ito be a kit 
 
 I are introd 
 
 far, the H 
 
 Sir, the 
 
 place, tha 
 
 ments ; ai 
 
 own, is c< 
 
 nize for a 
 
 f Its whol( 
 
 -f mountain 
 
 as propri 
 
 If waters of 
 
 ] and nothi 
 
 grant oni 
 
 ;: The S 
 
 , ■ pany for 
 
 proof tha 
 
 some lar| 
 
 on a clbs 
 
 charged 
 
 company 
 
 that in n 
 
 it expect 
 
 of the n 
 
 "The pi 
 
 eup'atlon Oj 
 
 Iheir trade, 
 
 with the 1 
 
 is u yet of 
 
 employ mei 
 
 rive from i 
 
 " That I 
 
 omment fo 
 
 whatAoevei 
 
 when it ia 
 
 country, 
 
 amli conM 
 
 of citizeiM 
 
 from the 1 
 
 riea, in th 
 
 gtoclchold) 
 
 "The 
 
 nnd we ni 
 
 lion for tl 
 
 of farm*, 
 
 This 
 out, WI 
 modifif 
 ing an( 
 
33 
 
 l^roofii of 
 
 the Gbv. 
 
 right'ji 
 
 [to be • kindred colony, all sprung from you — these are the instruments who 
 'are introducing the agricultural slate. And to this process, I repeat, thus 
 far, the Hudson's Bay Company opposes no hinderance ul all. 
 
 Sir, the proofs of all parts of this statement are conclusive. In the flrst 
 place, that the company, as such, has no agricultural tastes or employ- 
 ments ', and that the discharged servants are the only farmers, except our 
 own, is certain. It is no part of its policy or even of its |)owers to colo- 
 nize for agriculture. It is a trading company. Its charter makes it such. 
 Its whole corporate business hasheen to trade and hunt. West of the 
 mountains it has not a foot of land, by grant even from England. Its title 
 as proprietor is confined exclusively to lands on this side, drained by the 
 waters of the Hudson's Bay. On the west side it has a license to trade, 
 and nothing more. It cannot, even as against England, hold ; it cannot 
 grant one acre there for independent agricultural occupation. 
 
 The Senator from Pennsylvania has referred to the petition of the com- 
 ' pany for a renewal of their license, and to the papers attending it, for 
 proof that they meditated agricultural undertakings. Doubtless, there are 
 some large and vague intimations of such a purpose or such a hope. But, 
 on a closer examination, it becomes quite clear that it is through their dis- 
 charged servants only that any thing agricultural is to be done ; that the 
 company remains, as from the first it has been, a hunter and trader ; and 
 that in neither capacity and in neither employment has it earned, or does 
 it expect to earn, any profits, or any considerable profits, on the west side 
 of the mointains. A paragraph or two will suffice to show this : 
 
 "The princip*! brneflt the company derive from the cxriurive licrnM oftnule in ihe peaeeabk ot- 
 tapatitm of their oum proper territory, from which they draw nearly the whuk of the pnffiti of 
 their trade, aiid for the protection of which they ha\e a right to look to Qovernment, in common 
 with the rest of Her Majetty'a aubjects, as the trade of the country embraced in the royal liceiuo 
 is a* yet of very litUe benefit to them, and aflbrds greater advantages to the mother country, in the 
 employment of shipping, and in the revenue arising from imports and exports, than the company do. 
 rive from it. 
 
 " That the Hudson Bay Company have the strongest possible claims upon Her Majesty's Gov- 
 ernment for a renewal of iYe exclusive license of trade, without any rent or pecuniary consideration 
 whatsoever, cannot, I should hope, admit of a question, after the explanation I have |pven ; but 
 when it is considered that the greater part of the country to which the license applies is Indiait 
 country, opened by treaty to citizens of the United States of America as well as to British subjects* 
 and, consequently, the license of exclusive trade does not protect the company from the competition 
 of citizens of the United States, it must appear evident that no substantial l)rncfit is likely to arise 
 from the boon we are soliciting, beyond the probable rneani of affording pence !i< our own Territo- 
 ries, in the tranquillity of which Her Majesty's Government oii);ht to feel us dcc;i an interest as tho 
 stockholders of the Hudson Bay Company." 
 
 " The possession of that country to Great Britain may become an object of very great importance, 
 and we are strengthening that claim ti- it (independent of the claims of prior discovery and occupa 
 lion for the ptirpose oflndian trailc, ) by <brming the nueleun of a colony, through the cstaiblishraen t 
 of farms, and the settlement of tome of ow retiring officer! and lervants at agricuHuritts." 
 
 This petition, whatsoever purpoii?s of agricultural achievement it held 
 out, was presented in 1837. But that ■■: truth the company has not at all 
 modified its character and objects, or become any less exclusively a hunt- 
 ing and trading company than before, all evidence concurs to ptove. Mr. 
 
 4 
 
 : L_ 
 
24 
 
 7 
 
 Greenhow, in his excellent Memoir on the subject, published in May, 1840^ 
 and since then expanded into the most complete and most authoritative 
 work on the whole Oregon question, in all its aspects, which has ever been 
 written, and for which I hope to unite with the Senator from Pennsylvania,. 
 and the whole Senate, in remunerating the laborious and trustworthy com- 
 piler — Mr. Greenhow says, three years after this petition had been present- 
 <ed : " the only settlement which appears to have been made under the r.u- 
 spices of the company beyond the Rocky Mountains in that on the Walla- 
 mette, where a few old Canadian voyageurs are permitted to reside with their 
 Indian wives and half'breed families, on condition of remaining faithful to 
 their liege lords of the company. In the neighborhood of each large fac- 
 tory, indeed, a portion of ground is cleared and cultivated, and dwelling 
 houses, nulls, and shops for artisans, are erected ; but these improvements 
 are all entirely subservient to the uses and objects of the company, all 
 proceedings not strictly connected with its pursuits being discournged." 
 
 I read now from the British Foreign Review of January, 1844 : " The 
 interests of the company are of course adverse to colonization.' " The 
 fur trade has been hitherto the only channel for the advantageous invest- 
 ment of capital in those regions." 
 
 Indeed it is plain, that such a company, as such, can do nothing in agri' 
 culture. It cannot live in or near the agricultural state. It is not fields of 
 grain, or grass, or cattle, or pasture, that it requires, but Indians to trade 
 with, beaver and muskrat to kill, a vast wildcrnes^^ to range in, one whole 
 region of which it may hunt over this year, leaving it fallow the next, to 
 replenish its growth of savage life. It cannot blend, it canr.ot contempo- 
 raneously conduct, agricultural and hunting occupation. There is a sort 
 of chronological incompatibility in it. These are successive states, mark- 
 ing successive ages of man. The company must retire before the agricul- 
 tural life, not enjoy it. 
 
 In the next place, sir, it is as clear, and it is an interesting and pleasing. 
 Tact, that these discharged servants of the company possess very friendly 
 dispositions to the Government of the United States, that they receive our 
 settlers hospitably, that they listen gladly to the instructions of our mis- 
 sionaries, and that they anticipate with pleasure, not fear, the extension of 
 our laws and the unfolding of our flag upon the shores of their tranquil 
 sea. Among the documents accompanying the President's message of this 
 session, is a letter from Dr. Elijah White, our sub agent beyond the Rocky 
 Mountains. He is a genMeman, as I learn from information through Mr. 
 Crawford, of the office of Indian Affairs, of excellent character, whose 
 appointment to his present office was warmly urged by Mr. Linn, late of 
 this Senate. In this letter he says : 
 
 "I think I mi'ntioiieil llic kind and hospituble manner wc were received and entertained on the 
 ■way by the gentlemen of the Hud«on'ii Bay Company, and the cordial and most handsome recep- 
 tion I met with at Fort Vancouver, from Governor McLaughlin, and his worthy associate chicj. 
 factor, James Douglass, Esq., my appointment giving pleasure rather than pain— a satisfactory as^ 
 surancc that these worthy gentlemen intend, eventually, to settle in this country, and prefer Am.'r- 
 ican to English jurisdiction. 
 
 "On my arrival in the colony, sixty miles south of Vancouver, Iwing in advance of the party, 
 and comip,; unexpectedly to the citizens, liearing the intelligence of the arrival of so large a rein- 
 Ibrcemcn.', and giving assurance of the good intentions of our Government, the excitement was 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 general 
 infant ( 
 "Ifo 
 •doubled 
 with ou 
 tion of 
 useful, 
 nation ( 
 "A 
 Bay Ct 
 say, ha 
 expense 
 Hishal 
 gentler 
 industr 
 lishcd < 
 
 Ar 
 
 friem 
 
 refer 
 
 local 
 
 lowe 
 
 no ti 
 
 influ 
 
 cane 
 
 quar 
 
 adja 
 
 lt| 
 
 prop 
 
 retir 
 
 or c 
 
 new 
 
 to ii 
 
 owr 
 
 I Bay 
 
 aiid 
 
 * be 
 
 OV£ 
 
 we 
 ow 
 
 of 
 
 no 
 
 ; an 
 
 ■n stj 
 Tl 
 al 
 
 f; 
 ei 
 ol 
 
■I 
 
 in May, 1840^ 
 authoritative 
 has ever been 
 Pennsylvania^ 
 tworthy com- 
 been present- 
 under the CM- 
 on the VValla- 
 lide with their 
 i»g faithful to 
 >ch large fac- 
 nd dwelling 
 mprovements 
 company, ali 
 cournged." 
 1844 : "The 
 on.' « The 
 ?eou.s invcst- 
 
 thing in agri- 
 s not fields of 
 ians to trade 
 >, one whole 
 the next, to 
 ot coiitempo- 
 here is a sort 
 states, mark- 
 e the agricul- 
 
 and pleasing, 
 very friendly 
 ' receive our 
 s of our mis- 
 extension of 
 heir tranquil 
 Jssage of this 
 id the Rocky 
 through Mr. 
 acfer, whose 
 Linn, late of 
 
 itertaincd on tlio 
 iiandsome recep. 
 associate chie, 
 1 satisfactory aa^ 
 id prclcr Am.r- 
 
 ■e oC the party, 
 so large a rein- 
 xcitemcnt wan 
 
 25 
 
 general j and two days afler, we had the largwt and happiest public meeting ever convened in this 
 infant colony. 
 
 " I found the colony in peace and health, rapidly increasing in numbers, having more than 
 "oubled in population during the last two ycurs. English, French, and half breeds, seem equally 
 with our own people attached to the .\mericaii cause ; hence the bill of Mr. I<inn, prolTcring a sec 
 tion of land to every white man of the territory, has the double oilvontagc of licing popular and 
 useful, iiiircasing such attachment, and manifestly acting as a strong incentive to all, of whatever 
 nation or party, to settle in this country. 
 
 " A petition started from this country to-day, making bitter complaints against the Hudson's 
 Bay Company and Governor McLaughlin. On reference to it, (as a copy was denied,) I shall only 
 say, had any gentleman disconnected with the Hudson's Bay Company been at half the pains and 
 expense to establish a claim to the Wallamettc falls, very few would have raised an opposition- 
 His half-bushel measure I know to be exact, according to the English imperial standard. The 
 gentlemen of this company have been fathers and fosterers of the colony, ever encouraging peace, 
 industry, and good order, and have sustained a character lor hospitality and integrity too well estab- 
 lished easily to be shaken." 
 
 And this is fully confirmed by those who regard the tact with an iin- 
 friendly eye. The writer in the Colonial Magazine, to whom 1 have just 
 referred, thus complains: " By a strange and unpardonable oversight of the 
 local officer ol the company, missionaries from the United States were al- 
 lowed to take religioui^ charge of the population ; and these artful men lost 
 no time in zntroducing such a number of theii* countrymen as reduced the 
 influence of the small number of British settlers into complete insignifi- 
 cance. Unless a speedy remedy be applied, our fellow-subjects in that 
 quarter will soon be excluded from the Columbia river, its tributaries and 
 adjacent countries." 
 
 It is certain, also, in the next place, that the Hudson's Bay Company 
 proper, the hunting and trading company, finds already that its game is 
 retiring to the north and northeast ; and the hunter must follow his game, 
 or cease to be a hunter. You have seen thai in the application for a re- 
 newal of the license, it is said that no considerable profits weie expected 
 to be gathered on the west side of the mountains; that it was upon their 
 own proper territory on this side, drained by the waters of the Hudson's 
 Bay, that their business was to be, if any where, advantageously pursued ; 
 and that the license to hunt and trade on the west side was expected to 
 be useful iniiinly as a means of extending and perpetuating that influence 
 over the indians, and that monopolypeaceful and exclusive range of their 
 west, which would ensure them the a prudent husbandry and alternation 
 own territory, and enable them, by a prudent husbandry and alternation 
 of crops, hunting in one season on one tract, and the next on atiother, to 
 prevent or postpone the total destruction of game. In point of fact, there is 
 no doubt that, from causes wholly uncontrollable by them, the fur-bearing 
 animals are deserting the Oronon. South of the Coluuibia, they are sub- 
 stantially extinct. They are disappearing on the north of that river. 
 The company have bought out the interest of the Russian fur hunters, 
 above 54° 40' ; they are explorin!;the dim neighborhood of the Arctic sea. 
 One age and state cf man is lading away in the Oregon, and another 
 emerges to light. Then- is not an acre of good land in the whole valley 
 of the Columbia, that is not even now ready for the agriculture of civili- 
 
 
 I 
 
-zaUon. Sir, letme adv«rt to a few prbors of this. A ivriter on'theijiib- 
 ject of Turs and the fur trade, in a paper published in Silliman's J^rhal, 
 coneludes: 
 
 *' Prom the Toregoing atatements, it appears that the fiir traile must henceforward decline. The 
 advanced state of geographical science shows that no new countries remain to be explored. In 
 North America, the animals are slowly decreasing, from the persevering eflbrts and the indiscrim- 
 inate slaughter practised by the hunters, and by the appropriation to the uses of man of those 
 forests and rivers which have afforded them food and protection. They recede with the aborigines, 
 before the tide of civilization.". 
 
 In the ai'tide from the British Foreign Review, to which I made rfefer- 
 etice before, it is remarked: '^ Even now, the animals yielding Tors and 
 6kin9'are safid to be disappearing, and the toils of the hunters and trap- 
 pers are less profitable than formerly. The Americans are not p^obtibly 
 dl&p!«ased to observe this, and wduld rejoice still ihore if the doinphny 
 should find it necessary to abandon these regions; but, even ifsubh a re- 
 sult should take place, it would be some time before (he United States 
 eduld be prepiared to send forth any large body of settlers to the country." 
 You perceive that he does not suggest a doubt that the A inerican wish 
 'idii be gratified. Again: ''The fur trade is incompatible with the pro- 
 gress of settlement, and must gnidually cease as the occupation of the 
 cOu'htry proceeds." But I pass to far higher'authority upon the subject. In 
 a ispeech of ihe late Mr. McRoberts, of Illinois, delivered in this place, 
 at the I^st session, he says: " The leading inducement to the forination 
 of the Convention, which as to facilitate the collection of furs and skins, 
 has almost entirely ceaisec ; and particularly in the country south of the 
 Columbia, which is the country best adapted to agricultural pursuits. The 
 huM6r has laid by his rifie and traps, and is cultivating the land for a sub- 
 sistence. If our people go there, (hey must pursue the mechanic arts, or 
 he ctiltivators of the soil — not hunters." To the same eflect, sustaining 
 in (h^ fullest inanner my entire view, were the remarks of his colleague, 
 Mr. Young, in the course of the same debate. They bear with decisive 
 'Effect ij|)on ail the positions which I have assumed. 
 
 " It struck him that it was a mistake to think that Great Britain will ever look to that 'territory 
 for agricultural purpose' And herein lay a great difference between he.- views and ours. They 
 aio in fact different, and yet not conflicting. Wc want the territory for agricultural pursuitti ihain- 
 ly. She looks to it for the main p'lrsuit of the Hudson's Bay Company, which is the tride in 
 fori." "In the Oregon Territory, this company, not having for iu primary object agricuHUral 
 pursuits, never have encouraged rtiore culture of the soil than necessary for the temporary sttpport 
 of its tm^hyees. But with our citizens, agriculture must be the primary object. We have al> 
 eady a rrjmber of our citizens there, engaged in this pursuit. There is no jealousy towA^ds them 
 on the part of the Hudson'e Buy Company, so long as they make agriculture their primiry pur- 
 suit." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "The rtbst friendly feelings are evinced by the empbiyees of the Hudson s Bay CompUiy to- 
 wards our cifiiens now there. They give no offence by occupying any portion of tht wjU they 
 please in Agriculture. The Hudsdn's Bay Cjmpany can have no objection, and will it ake ri6ne, 
 to agricultural settlements." "There is nothing Hkc an cflfort or disposition on the part of the 
 
 nC 
 
 ►say. 
 
 ;i! 
 
 .17 
 
«7 
 
 oii'iheijab- 
 n's JWriial, 
 
 decline. The 
 explored. In 
 
 ' the indiRetim- 
 nian of those 
 
 the aborigines, 
 
 nade rtfer- 
 g furs iind 
 s and trsp- 
 at plrobaWy 
 e doinpahy 
 'sabh a re- 
 ted States 
 
 cbu'nlry." 
 sricJin wish 
 th (he pro- 
 ion of the 
 ubjeet. In 
 this place, 
 
 fo'rfnad'dn 
 and skins, 
 'Uth of the 
 luits. The 
 I for a sub - 
 Die arts, or 
 sustaining 
 colleague, 
 h decisive 
 
 that 'territoiy 
 uure. They 
 irenitt, iiiain- 
 the trkde in 
 agricuhttml 
 "aiy Rtipport 
 ^e have al> 
 owa^ds them 
 primiTy pur- 
 
 ludson's Bay ComT<any to make permanent agricultural aettlcmcntit. Theirs is a mere temportry 
 cupation." 
 
 Mr. Linn followed Mr. Young, and daid : 
 
 " He felt it unnecessary to consume time in debate, after the very lucid statement of the'Scna- 
 or from Illinois, placing the matter on the plain grounds on which it should be viewed." 
 
 I say, then, sir, that the Hudson's Bay Company, in point of fact, is 
 Dpposing no obstacle at all to your agricultural entei prise to Ihe Oregon, 
 •either the hunter, nor the discharget. servant, who is giving his few 
 llast and fatigued years to the cultivation of the land, opposes any obsta- 
 ^cle. There is no obstacle of force, or fraud, or of inhospitt^lity. I dare 
 hay, little controversies there may be, such as there are every where ; 
 controversies about titles ; first possession ; prices; monopolies of grind- 
 ing grain, sawing timber, and the like ; such as the memorial presented 
 by the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Atchison) sets forth ; but the weight 
 of evidence, from all sources, is most decisive to show, that virith the 
 Hudson's Bay Company proper our settlers come into no contact ; and 
 that from the discharged vmployeea, the British, French, and half-breed 
 farmers, they have experienced generally the most hospitable and the 
 kindest reception. Already we are, in numbers, more than two* to- their 
 one. The whole number of persons, all told, in the employment of the 
 company in the Oregon, or discharged, and cultivating the soil,' Joes not 
 exceed a thousand. We have, I think, seven missionary stations, from 
 two hundred miles south of the Columbia to Paget's sound, one hiindred 
 and forty miles north of it ; we have two thousand persons there ; we 
 have, beyond doubt, the best grazing and best wheat country in Ihe whole 
 territory, the valley of the Wallamelte, which some visiters liken,' foi* fer- 
 tility and almost to extent, to New York. 
 
 The Senator from Pennsylvania, however, twice or thrice takes rare 
 to tell you that " the Hudson Bay Company had murdered four or five 
 hundred of our citizens, as we had learned from good authority, either 
 directly with their own hands, or indirectly through the agency of the 
 Indians, who were under their exclusive control. They had murdered 
 and expelled all our citizens who had gone there for the purpose of inter- 
 fering with thsir hunting and trafficking and trading." 
 
 The Senator does not assert that they have murdered or expelled any 
 body who went there to settle. My proposition, therefore, he has not as- 
 sailed. But, from the terms of his actual statement, I apprehend' the Sen- 
 ate-would derive an impression, undesigned by him, undesigned, certaiinly, 
 if it be an erroneous impression, which is utterly unsupported by the facts. 
 Sir, the statement of the Senator has no sort of application to, and com- 
 poses no part of, and throws no light on, the existing policy or purposes 
 of that company, or on the actual circumstances under which our citi- 
 zens go to that country to-day. Why, sir, when were these four or " five 
 hundred" murdered? In whose administration? Where? How? Un- 
 der what circumstances ? Will it not surprise you to learn thi>t all this 
 was more than fif^.een years — much, much of it more than thirty years 
 ago? Will it not surprise you still more to learn that the circumstances 
 in which it happened are such as to leave it a matter of utter uncertainty 
 whether the company, directly or indirectly, with intention, caused the 
 death of one of the four or five hundred ? While upon the whole proof, 
 
88 
 
 it will appear, that within the last fifteen years, probably a much longer 
 period, they certainly have not caused or procured the murder of on^ 
 nian ! 
 
 Before the year 1821, there were two great companies, the Hudson's 
 Bay Company and the Northwest Company, which contended for the 
 furs of 'he northwest portions of North America. They carried the com- 
 petition 9 the extent of an actual civil war. Affairs almost amounting to 
 battles we.'e fought. Blood was shed. The most painful scenes of vio- 
 lence, crueltV, insubordination, and selfish disregard of the rights, inter- 
 ests, and lives of nien, were exhibited ; and this disgraceful and distress- 
 ing state ot th ngs was continued for years, and over almost all the un- 
 bounded wilde-ness which spreads itself out among and on each side of 
 the Rorky Mountttins, is traversed by the waters of the Hudson's Bay, 
 and subsides towards the Arctic sea. The consequence was, of course, 
 that all control of the Indians was lost. Spirituous liquors were freely 
 introduced among them. Their treacherous and ferocious natures were 
 stimulated by all sorts of appliances ; and there is no doubt that many 
 American citizens, hunters and trappers, among and on each side of the 
 mountains, and about the heads of the upper Mississippi and upper Mis- 
 souri, lost their lives by the hands of these wild men. It has been esti- 
 mated, and 1 do not kn^w that it has not been truly estimated, that be- 
 tween 1808, or a few years earlier, and 1821, or a few years later, but 
 before 1829, five hundred American citizens were 'hus murdered. They 
 were murdered by Indians, wearing European blankets; armed with Eu- 
 ropean rifles; drunk upon European spirits. So much we know. Per- 
 haps it is all we know. 
 
 In 1821, the two companies were united in the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany. The scene was changed immediately. The white men no longer 
 quarrelled among themselves. The Indians were subjected to a more 
 perfect and better administered surveillance. Spirituous liquors were ex- 
 cluded. The reign of law and order was restored, and has in the main 
 been preserved ever since. And from that time, 1 compute from 1821, 
 or a few years later, 1S26 or 1828, I deny that there is a particle of evi- 
 dence that the Hudson's Bay Company, or any body else, civilized or 
 savage, by their procurement, has murdered any American citizen any 
 where. 
 
 Indian murders since that time there may have been; but what I say 
 is, that I have not seen a scrap of proof that they were instigated, directly 
 or indirectly, by this company. Whether the murders; of that earlier pe- 
 riod were instigated by any white trader, I have not inquired, and do not 
 know. Let me refer you to the account the company give of this matter 
 themselves, in the petition to which the Senator from Pennsylvania has 
 referred : 
 
 "It unncoCMuiry to say more of the easier competition into whirli this ossociiition entered with the 
 Huilxort Bay Company for the trade of the Indian districts, or of the scenes of demoralization 
 and dentruction of life und property to wliich it led, than to refer your Lordship to tljc ample de- 
 tail* on this revolting; subject in the Colonial Department ; to the af^rrecmcnts at last entered into 
 lietween the rival companies to put an end to them by the union of their interests in 1821." 
 
 "Great loss of property, and in some cases loss of life, have been incurred by savage and mur- 
 ilcroos attacks oi. their hunt-ng parties and establishments, and order haa only been restored and 
 
 ice maintoi 
 ise, on the p 
 ' Under tl 
 Hies from Eui 
 ■tending to th 
 breaking up ( 
 By that 
 country in a 
 I property, lm\ 
 Indians has, 
 :much reduce 
 •Stive populatic 
 
 J You S( 
 
 W years ago 
 
 * no light 
 
 ^immigran 
 
 jthe siigh 
 
 obstacle i 
 
 tionof th 
 
 will judg 
 
 Well, 
 
 sir, only, 
 
 not prete 
 
 He exhil 
 
 no proof 
 
 the Orcj 
 
 lifting at 
 
 this istu( 
 
 new dev 
 
 ibody. I 
 
 Well, 
 
 our eye 
 
 IWatch d 
 
 lect the 
 
 ivorld. 
 
 irty. 
 
 In the 
 
 It. Y 
 
 with 
 
 les and 
 
 'hen th 
 
 looks ii 
 
 ade is 
 
 le timi 
 
 jeise'ft 
 
 ■* I do r 
 
 rection 
 
 #y may 
 
 ;?ib new 
 
 ptake.ai 
 
29 
 
 niueh longer 
 lurder of one 
 
 the Hudson's 
 nded for the 
 Tied the com- 
 amounling to 
 snenes of vio- 
 rights, inter- 
 and distress- 
 ost all the un- 
 each side of 
 udson's Bay, 
 'as, of course, 
 were freely 
 natures were 
 ibt that manv 
 ch side of the 
 id upper Mis- 
 has been esti- 
 ated, that be- 
 >arKi later, but 
 lered. They 
 ned with Eu- 
 know. Per- 
 
 in Bay Coin- 
 ncn no longer 
 ed to a more 
 uors were ex- 
 i in the main 
 B from 1821, 
 irticle of evi- 
 ?, civilized or 
 I citizen any 
 
 ut what I say 
 ated, directly 
 at earlier pe- 
 lt and do not 
 f this matter 
 Jsylvania has 
 
 entered with the 
 if demoralization 
 to the ample dc- 
 lart entered into 
 n 1821." 
 navage and mur- 
 «n restored and 
 
 r 
 
 ce maintained by the ^employment, at a RTeat expenie, of conrnderablo force, and by the exer- 
 ise, on the part of their liervants, of tlie utmost temper, patience, and persevcraneo." 
 
 Under that arrangement, his liordnhip, at a very heavy expense, ronveyed several hundred fam- 
 lies from Europe to thut i<ettlemeut ; but the evils attendant on the competition in the fur trade ex> 
 Itcnding to this settlement, orrasioncd serious breaches of the peace, much loss of life, and tlie 
 breaking up or abandonment of the settlement by the whites on two ditl'orcnt occasions, " 
 
 "By that report it will moreover \te seen that the animosities and feuds which kept the Indian 
 country in a state of continued disturbance, extending to the loss of lives and to the destruction of 
 ])roperty, have, since 1831, entirely censed ; that the sale or distribution of spirituous liquors to the 
 Indians has, in most parts of the country, been entirely discontinued, and in all other parts so 
 much reduced rh to be no longer an evil ; and that the moral and religious improvement of the na* 
 ^ive population has been greatly promoted." 
 
 You sec then, sir, that these murders were committed from 15 to 30 
 years ago. By whomsoever done, by whomso'.'Ver procured, they throw 
 no light on the exigtin<; dispositions of the rjmpany towards agricultural 
 immigrants from the United States; and they do not iiripugn or qualify in 
 the Hiightest degree the universality and the truth of my position, that no 
 obstacle is now actually opposed by any body to our agricultural occupa- 
 tion of the Oregon. I have given you the proofs of that position, and you 
 will judge of them. 
 
 Well, what does the Senator from Pennsylvania reply to all this .-" Why, 
 sir, only, and exactly, that it is too good to last. That is all. He does 
 not pretend that Great Biitain is now colonizing the country agriculturally. 
 He exhibits no proof that she now meditates such a thing. He exhibits 
 no proof that she now cherishes the purpose of building forts or marts in 
 the Oregon. He exhibits no proof that the Hudson's Bay Company is 
 lifting a linger to keep your farmers, artisans, or missionaries, from it. But 
 this is too good to last ! Great Britain will certainly break out into some 
 new development of policy. The Hudson's Bay Company will kill some- 
 body. It is impossible that this state of things should last. 
 
 Well, sir, perhaps it is. What then.' I will tell you what then. Keep 
 eye always open, like the eye of your own eagle, upon the Oregon. 
 IWatch day and night. If any new developments of policy break forth, 
 
 eet them. If the time changes, do you change. New thinirs in a new 
 hvorld 
 krty 
 
 rour 
 
 Eternal vigilance is the condition of empire as well as of lib- 
 
 rln the inea>. time, you sec the existing state of things. You see fhe pres- 
 ftit. You are sure that you se^ it. Govern yourselves accordingly. Go 
 (*dph with your negotiation. Go on with your emigration. Are not the ri- 
 les .•».nd the wheat growing together side by side ? Will it not be easy, 
 Krhen the inevitable hour comes, to beat back ploughshare and pruning 
 kooks into their original forms of instruments of death .' Alas! that (hat 
 rade is so easy to learn, and so hard to forget ! Who now living will see 
 he time when nations shall learn war no more ; when the wicked shall 
 |e^8e' A'om troubling, and the weary be at rest, on this side the grave' .* i 
 r Ido not follow Senators, therefore, a step in their speculations on the di« 
 Irection which any new policy of England or,t^e Hudson's Bay Compa-, 
 hy may take in the Oregein., Where no man knows whether there is to be 
 k new p9l,icy.3{ alj, it, is vain and idle to begin to guess what shape it may 
 |lake, and what details it may involve. Wait and see. Wait and see. 
 
80 
 
 The Senator wonders at the " inconsistency" with which the Senator 
 from; Massachusetts told the Senate that Great Britain would go to war 
 for Oregon, and in the next breath that the Hudson Bay Company would 
 abandon it without a " struggle." What inconsistency ? I said that the 
 Hudson's Bay Company were hunters, not farmers ; that their game was 
 retiring northward, and inland, and (hat the hunter had already followed 
 and would follow his game ; and that even now he had left your agricul- 
 tural settlers to lay the foundation of their colony in peace ; and seen 
 without a struggle his influence upon his own retired employeetj and on 
 your countrymen, annihilated by American missionaries and American 
 predilections. I said that England did not in point of fact interfere with 
 this; but that, if, anticipating and disturbing the natural course of things, 
 you urge on a forcible attack upon the yet lingering company ; burn 
 their stockade forts; rob them of their peltries, and shed their blood, Eng- 
 land had expressly declared, in the negotiation of 1827, that she would 
 interpose, and that it was probable that she would. Where is the incon- 
 sistency of one of my views with the other .' 
 
 The Senator says, also, " to imagine England was going to give up the 
 right of colonizing in Oregon without a struggle was to imagine what 
 seemed very strange, not to say impossible." Well, sir, if it is impossi- 
 ble, there is an end of it. We will wait and see. But does not the f^ena- 
 tor himself expressly tell us that " England is too wise to risk a war for 
 the possession of that country ?" That it is a moral impossibility at this 
 day, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era ?" '■'■ That she would 
 not go to war with us, unless upon a question where her honor was con- 
 cerned ?" which I undeistand him to suppose is not concerned. If it is 
 impossible she should risk a war for the country, and yet also impossible 
 to imagine she will yield it without a struggle, why, she must look to her- 
 self. : But if the Senator is right in the last opinion which he expressed, 
 which was that she would not fight unless the point of honor became in- 
 volved, why may she not go on, as now she does, allowing events to take 
 their own course? Why is it not a graceful and obvious way of disen- 
 gaging herself from connexion with a subject for which she is said to be 
 too wise to fight ? On one of the Senator's views of the matter, this 
 would: seem exactly the sensible and easy policy. But again I say, wait 
 and see ! 
 
 I observe that the British and Foreign Reviewer advances the sugges- 
 tion, that we, or our settlers, are welcome to all the agricultural Oregon ; 
 but, the British Government will seek to letain a common use of the riv- 
 ers and the harbor of Fuca. Well, now, in this 1 think I see the whole 
 question collapsing into a pretty small and very manageable thing. In the 
 first place, the nation that owns the land will be likely, if it chooses, to bold 
 rivers and harbor. In the next place, as the game retires, the use of these 
 becomes of less and less importance to Great Britain. In the third place, 
 I do not know that permission of a temporary and restricted enjoyment of 
 these waters, in general subordination to our right, involves any very ter- 
 rific, consequences. Witness the case of the St. John. And finally, by 
 greM'had luckv there is.but pne harbor; and the rivers are good foi noth- 
 ing.!. " The rivers of Western America," says Mr. Greenhow, " present in 
 fact fenTyOr no facilities for commercial transportation. . They pearly aU 
 
 n 
 
31 
 
 the Senator 
 d go to war 
 ipany wauld 
 said that the 
 »ir game was 
 ady followed 
 your agrioul- 
 ie ; and seen 
 yce«, and on 
 
 American 
 nterfere with 
 rse of things, 
 npany ; burn 
 r blood, Eng- 
 at she would 
 
 the incon- 
 
 > give up the 
 imagine what 
 
 it is impossi- 
 lot the !?ena- 
 
 isk a war for 
 ibility at this 
 lat she would 
 inor was con- 
 ned. If it is 
 so impossible 
 [t look to her- 
 he expressed, 
 >r became in- 
 ;vent9 to take 
 way of disen- 
 is said to be 
 i matter, this 
 n I say, wait 
 
 !s the suggea- 
 ural Oregon ; 
 se of the riv- 
 ee the whole 
 hing. in the 
 ooses, to hold 
 ? use of these , 
 e third place^ 
 enjoyment of 
 iny very ter- 
 id finally, by . 
 ood foi noth- 
 , " present in 
 ey pearly all 
 
 run io their, whole course through deep ravines among stony mountains; 
 and they are frequently interrupted by ledges or accumulations of rock, 
 producingfalls and rapids, to overcome which, all the resources of ari 
 would probably. bOv unavailing.'.' 
 
 Senators tell us that England maintains Gibraltar and Malta on points, 
 about :Which she owns no agricultural settlements; and therefore infer sLe 
 will -jiover be easy tiir she hears that encircling and importunate drum 
 beat on the desert coast of the Northwest. Well, sir, I cannot say. If' 
 shje begins to build a Gibraltar there, do you begin too. Let your walls 
 ascend with hers. Go up with her story by story ; a tier of guns for eve- 
 ry new, one she plants ; and the day when she throws out the red cross 
 flag from the turret of her consummated structure, cast abroad the radi- 
 ant stainless stars and stripes, to tell her that there " foreign dominion 
 shall tiot come." In the mean time, let me say that this Gibraltar and 
 Malta analogy does not seem to me very direct. Gibraltar and Malta are 
 men of war harbors, where whole armadas may lie afloat, directly on both' 
 the old and both the modern routes of commerce from Europe to the 
 East ; points from which a British fleet may unmoor, and in ten days strike 
 with thunder the walls of one or more cities of how many of the nations 
 of Europe, Asia, and Africa ! Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Austria,* 
 Greece, Russia, by the Black Sea, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Algiers. To 
 argue from her tenacious possession of such places a necessary desire to 
 see new Gibraltars and new Maltas rise under the 49th degree of north 
 latitude upon the Northwest coast, does not strike me as extremely co- 
 gent. 
 
 One event there is, sir, which may change your policy and hers, which' 
 I marvel not to have heard adveKed to. If in five or ten years the isthmus 
 of Panama is cut through, and thus 'a new track of commerce paved out 
 in the sea; if that great triumph of man over the world of matter is 
 achieved; if that marriage of oceans is really celebrated, then new and 
 intense importance may be given to new lands, and new seas; to the Sand- 
 wich Islands, to California, to San Francisco, possibly to the harbor of. 
 Fuca itself. He who lives to see that new earth, and those new heavens, 
 will have new and appropriate duties to perform, and new and suffi- 
 cient lights by which to perform them. In the mean time, we are here. 
 Wc have the present to work in and provide for. Our situation is the 
 teacher and the limit of our duty. Long, long b^fore that day, I hope 
 this question will have been adjusted, and have taken its place among the , 
 follies, among the trivialities, of which, a hundred years hence, men shall, 
 read with ineredulity and astonishment, that, for such things. Christian 
 nations were once near shedding each other's blood. 
 
 In the expression of this hope, Mr. President, I believe I speak for my 
 country. It is true that the Senator from Pennsylvania has said : 
 
 "He admitted with regret that there were some very dangerous symptoms between the two 
 countries. The whole press of Great Britain, for the last two years, had teemed with abuse of 
 America, and all that was American— our institutions, and , every thing coiuiected with us, had 
 bee;i made the subject of perpetual vituperation. 
 
 " All, he had read was substantially of the same tenor — tlu: abuse was unexampled in any fop* 
 mer time. And, on the other hand, among ourselves, though there were many, in out large cities, 
 
32 
 
 cHproially, who nntortaincd a warmth of feeling towards England — insomuch that on a great public 
 occanion, in one of the Inrgoat of those cities, the health of "the PresidertI of the United States" had 
 been drunk in silence, while that of " Queen Victoria " hud been received with acclamation — yet 
 with the srent iimss of our pcoi)|p, a very diifcrent feeling prevailed. They still remembered the 
 wrongs we had endured in days past ; they remembered these things perhaps with too deep a sen- 
 sibility' And although Senators might please their ears with the terms "mother" and "daughter,* 
 a vast majority of our people were penetrated with the conviction that to us England had ever acted 
 the part of a cruel step-mother. It was this deep-wrought conviction, these associations of former 
 scenes, that lay at the foundation of the national enmity, which too extensively prevailed. Injurieii 
 on one side, and their remembrance on the other, kept up this ill blood. Besides, even were it 
 otherwise, the American people, as one man, felt that ^there was a calamity even greater than that 
 of war, and that was a sacrifice of the national honor. " 
 
 But is tliisso.' Is it so, that the greut mass of the people of this coun- 
 try are pervaded, are " penetrated" by a deep-seated, " deep-wrought" 
 "sentiment of national enmity" towards this particular nation England .' 
 Is it so, that our veins are tilled with " ill blood " towards that country ; ill 
 blood generated and fed by the " memory of wrongs enduicd in days 
 past .'" This I understand the Senator to allege, and even to regret. I 
 have repeated to you, however, exactly what he says, to be interpreted by 
 yourselves. But thus I undeistand it. The cherished remembrance of 
 ^vrongs endured in past days, the conviction that England had ever acted 
 the part of a " cruel step-mother ;" the " associations of former scenes," 
 these bitter memories, compone the deep foundations of a too extensive na- 
 tional hostility ; these things make the great body of the people enemies 
 of England, in a time of profound peace. Thus I interpret the Senator. 
 Is this so i* 
 
 Being, sir, through the favor of a kind Providence, one of the people 
 of America myself; and having been born and bred, not in cities, which 
 are said to love England, but in the country, which is said, as 1 understand 
 the honorable Senator, to hate her ; and having been astonished and pain- 
 ed to hear it asserted that such a people. One of as happy, generous, and 
 kind a nature as the sun shines on, were laboring under a sentiment so 
 gloomy and so barbarous as this, I have been revolving the subject with 
 some care and with some feeling. Exhausted as 1 am, and as you are, I 
 cannot sit down without denouncing, in the first place, the sentiment thus, 
 as I understand the Senator, ascribed by him to my countrymen, as immor- 
 al, unchristian, unehivalfous, unworthy of good men, unworthy of "gal- 
 lant men, and men of honor ;" and without, in the second place, expressing 
 my entire and profound conviction that no such sentiment inhabit^ the 
 bosom of the American people. Sir, I thank the Senators from Kentucky 
 and Virginia ( Mr. Ckittbnden and Mr. Rives ) for their notice of this part 
 of the honorable Senator's address. With my last words, if I knew 1 were 
 about to speak them, would I unite my judgments and feelings on this 
 subject with them. 
 
 Mr. President, we must distinguish a little. That there exists in this 
 country an intense sentiment uf nationality ; a cherished, snergetic feeling 
 and consciousness of our independent aiid separate national existence ; a 
 feeling that we ha^'*e a transcendent de^t^ny to fulfil, which we mean to ful- 
 fil ; a great work to do, which We know-how todo, and are able to do ; a 
 career to run, iip which we Hope to ascend till we stand on the steadfast 
 
33 
 
 and glittering summits of the world ; a feeling that we are surrounded and 
 attended by a noble, historical group ofconipetitors and rivals, the other na- 
 tions of the earth, all of whom we hope to overtake and even to distance — 
 such a sentiment as this exists perhaps in the character of this people. 
 And this I do not discourage ; I do not condemn. It is easy to ridcule 
 it. But "grand swelling sentiments" of patriotism no wise man will de- 
 spise. They have their uses. They help to give a great heart to a na- 
 tion ; to animate it .'jr the various conflict of its lot ; to assist it to work 
 out for itself a more exceeding weight and to fill a larger measure of 
 glory. But, sir, that among these useful and beautiful sentiments, pre- 
 dominant among them, there exists a lempet of hostility towards this one 
 particular nation, to such a degree as to amount to a habit, a trait, a na- 
 tional passion, to amount to a state of feeling which " is to be regretted," 
 und which really threatens another war — this I earnestly and confident- 
 ly deny. I would not hear your enemy say this. 
 
 Sir, the indulgence of such a sentiment by the people supposes them 
 to have forgotten one of the counsels of Washington. Call to mind the 
 ever seasonable wisdom of the Farewell Address : 
 
 "The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondneu, is in 
 como degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its oflection, either of which is sufficient to 
 to lead it astray from its ' duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes 
 each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of sUght causes <Sf umbrage, and to b* 
 haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent 
 collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and resent- 
 mcntsometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The 
 Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts, through passion, what 
 reason would reject ; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of 
 hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, 
 sometimes perhaps the liberty of nations, has been the victim." 
 
 No, sir. No, sir. We are above all this. Let the highland clansman, 
 half naked, half civilized, half blinded by the peat smoke of his cavern, 
 have his hereditary enemy and his hereditary enmity, and keep the keen, 
 deep, and precious hatred, set on fire of hell, alive if he can ; let the North 
 American Indian have his, and hand it down from father to son, by 
 Heaven knows what symbols of alligators, and rattlesnakes, and war clubs 
 smeared with veriuition and entwined with scarlet ; let such a country as 
 Poland, cloven to the earth, the armed heel on the radiant forehead, her 
 body dead, her soul incapable to die, let her " remember the wrongs of 
 days long past ;" let the lost and wandering tribes of Israel remember 
 theits — tiie manliness and the sympathy of the world may allow or pardon 
 this to them ; but shall America, young, free, prosperous, just setting out 
 on the highway of Heaven, " decorating and cheering the elevated sphere 
 she just begins to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and 
 joy," shall she be supposed to be polluting and corroding her noble and 
 happy heart, by moping over old stories of stamp act, and tea tax, and the 
 firing of the Leopard upon the Chesapeake in a time of peace .' No, sir; 
 no, sir ; a thousand times no ! Why, I protest I thought all that had been 
 settled. I thought two wars had settled it all. What else was so much 
 good blood shed for on so m:tny more than classical fields of revolutionary 
 3 
 
84 
 
 ||oi7 ' ^°' ^^^^ w* *o much good blood more lately shed at Lundy's 
 Mtoe, at Fort Erie, before and behind the linei at New Orleans, on the 
 deck of the Constitution, on the deck of the Java, on the lakes, on the 
 ■ea, but to settle exactly these *' wrongs of past days ?" And have we 
 come back sulky and sullen, from the very field of honor ? For my coun- 
 try I deny it. The Senator says that our people still remember these 
 ** former scenes of wrong with perhaps too deep" a sensibility ; and that, 
 M I interpret him, they nourish a <' too extensive" national enmity. How 
 so ? If the feeling he attributes to them is moral, manly, creditable, how 
 comes it to be too deep ; and if it is immoral, unmanly, and unworthy, why 
 is it charged on them at all ? Is there a member of this body, who would 
 stand up in any educated, iu any intelligent and right-minded circle which 
 he respected, and avow, that for his part he must acknowledge, that, look- 
 ing back through the glories and the atonements of two wars, his veins 
 were full of ill blood to England ; that in peace he could not help being 
 her enemy ; that he could not pluck out the deep-wrought convictions 
 and " the immortal hate" of the old times P Certainly, not one. And 
 then, sir, that which we feel would do no honor to ourselves, shall we 
 confess for our country ? 
 
 Mr. President, let me say, that in my judgment this notion of a national 
 enmity of feeling towards Great Britain belongs to a past age of our his- 
 tory. My younger countrymen are unconscious of it. They disavow it. 
 That generation in whose opinions and feelings the actions and the desti- 
 ny of the next age are enfolded, as the tree in the germ, do not at all com- 
 prehend your meaning, nor your fears, nor your regrets. We are horn 
 to happier feelings. We look on England as we look on France. We 
 look on them, from our new world, not unrenowned, yet a new world 
 still ; and the blood mounts to our cheeks ; our eyes swim ; our voices are 
 Utifled with emulousness of so much glory ; their trophies will not let us 
 sleep ; but there is no hatred at all ; no hatred ; all for honor, nothinc for 
 hate ! We have, we can have no barbarian memory of wrongs, for which 
 brave meii have made the last expiation to the brave. 
 
 No, sir ; if public men, or any one public man, think it thfcir duty to make 
 a war or cultivate the dispositions of war towards any nation, let them 
 perform the duty, and have done with it. But do not say that there is an 
 unfortunate, morbid, impracticable popular temper on the subject, which you 
 desire to resist, but are afraid you shall not be able to resist. If you will 
 answer for the politicians, I think I will venture to answer for the people 
 
 • »t. '. , 
 
t Lundjr't 
 nt, on the 
 18, on the 
 
 I have we 
 ' my coun- 
 iber these 
 ; and that, 
 ity. How 
 table, how 
 orthy, why 
 vho would 
 rde which 
 that, look- 
 I, his veins 
 lielp being 
 convictions 
 one. And 
 IS, shall we 
 
 r a national 
 of our his- 
 jisavow it. 
 d the desti- 
 t at all com- 
 e are born 
 •ance. We 
 new world 
 r voices are 
 
 II not let us 
 nothing for 
 8, for wnich 
 
 luty to make 
 m, let them 
 t there is an 
 t, which you 
 If you will 
 ■ the people