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be checked; speculation only would be restrained. The average income of the nation would be as great as now; the ultimate receipts far greater; and all parties would be benefited in the end. The West has no interest, the country has no interest, in extending our territorial possessions. This Union of ours must have limits; and it was well said by Mr. Senator Benton, in 1825, that westward, "the ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named, without offence, as presenting a convenient, natural, and everlasting boundary. Along the back of this ridge the western limit of this Republic should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled God, Terminus, should be raised upon its highest peak, never to be thrown down."

The Oregon question, however, Mr. Chairman, as now presented to us, is not a question of interest, but of right; not a question as to the ultimate reach of our federal Union, but as to the existing extent of our territorial title. Upon this point I shall say little. An argument to this House in favor of our title to Oregon would be words thrown away. If any man can convince the British Government that the Territory is ours, his labor will be well employed, and the sooner he sets about it the better. But we are convinced already. For myself, certainly, I believe that we have a good title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude. I believe it, not merely because it is the part of patriotism to believe one's own country in the right, but because I am unable to resist the conclusions to that effect, to which an examination of the evidence and the authorities have brought me. In saying this, however, I would by no means be understood to concur in the idea which has been recently advanced in some quarters, that our title is of such a character that we are authorized to decline all negotiation on the subject. Why, Sir, with what face can we take such a stand, with the history of this question before us and before the world? Nothing to negotiate about! Has not every administration of our government, since we had a government to be administered, treated this as an open question? Have we not at one time expressly offered to aban don all pretension to five twelfths of the Territory, and to allow our boundary line to follow the forty-ninth degree of latitude? Have we not united in a convention of joint occupancy for thirty

years, in order to keep it an open question? What pretence have we for planting ourselves on our presumed rights at this late day, and for shutting our ears to all overtures of negotiation, and all assertion or argument of the rights of others? None; none whatever. Such a course would subject us to the just reproach and scorn of the civilized world.

But the question before the committee relates simply to the termination of the convention of joint occupancy. This convention originated in the year 1818, and was limited to the term of ten years. In 1827, it was extended indefinitely, subject, however, to the right of either party to annul and abrogate the same, on giv. ing twelve months' notice to the other party. And now the question is not whether this joint occupation of Oregon shall be continued forever. Nobody imagines that the United States and Great Britain are about to hold this Territory in common much longer. Neither country desires it; neither country would consent to it. The simple question is, whether the United States shall take the responsibility of giving the notice to-day; whether, after having agreed to this joint occupancy for nearly thirty years, we shall take occasion of this precise moment in the history of the two countries to insist on bringing it to a close? I am opposed, wholly opposed, to such a course. I agree with the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, (a committee, be it remembered, composed of six members of the Van Buren party, and of three only of the friends of Mr. Clay,) that it is entirely inexpedient to act at all on the subject at this time; and I sincerely wish that the chairman of that committee (Mr. C. J. Ingersoll) had saved me the trouble of advocating his own report, and had given us an argument in favor of its adoption, instead of making the any thing but reasonable or pacific speech, which he has just concluded.

Sir, I regard the proposition to give the required notice to the British Government at this precise moment, as eminently illtimed, both in regard to our relations with Great Britain and to our own domestic condition. We are just at the close of an administration. We are on the eve of another election of Pre-.. sident. How this election may terminate may be a matter of doubt in some quarters. I have no doubt. But, however it may

terminate, it is no more than fair to those who are to be successful, to leave to them the initiation of a policy, which they are to be responsible for carrying on and completing. A twelve months notice! Why, to what point of time in our political affairs will the expiration of that notice bring us? To the very first month of a new administration; an administration which will hardly have taken the oaths of office; which will hardly have selected and installed its advisers and agents; and which (unless you are going to compel the calling of another extra session, only to deride and denounce it afterwards,) will have no Congress at the Capitol to act in any way upon its measures! This termination of joint occupation is to be followed by something, I suppose. It must be followed, it is intended to be followed, by some act of separate occupation. If negotiation, in the mean time, shall have failed, as it certainly will fail if this notice be given, something else than negotiation, a strife or a struggle of some sort, must ensue. It may, or may not, amount to an immediate war with England. But whatever form it may assume, it will involve responsibility, it will require preparation, it will demand matured and vigorous counsels. And how is a new administration, with its cabinet, perhaps, not yet arranged, and without a Congress to sustain it, to meet such an exigency as it ought to be met?

Mr. Chairman, it was — I will not say the policy and design of the Van Buren administration-but, certainly, the result of their course on going out of office three years ago, to precipitate their successors, while yet without that matured organization which is essential to any effective action, upon a condition of foreign affairs of the most delicate and dangerous character. Few persons, I imagine, know, and few persons, perhaps, ever will know, how critical were the relations of Great Britain and the United States at the precise instant of General Harrison's accession to the Presidency. My honored and venerable colleague (Mr. Adams) seemed to understand them, when he charged it openly upon the Van Buren party, a session or two ago, that they had fired the ship when they found they could no longer hold it! I trust that there is no design, no disposition, no willingness, to bring about the same state of things again. It ought to be the patriotic aim of us all, that whoever the next

President may be, he may have a smooth sea and a fair wind to start with; and that he may not be driven upon storms and breakers before his hand has fairly grappled upon the helm, and before his crew have got on their sea legs!

Sir, if there was any thing too pacific, any thing too compromising, any thing too yielding in the course of President Tyler, or his Secretary of State, in conducting the recent negotiations with Great Britain—all which I utterly deny - no small share of the blame would rest upon the party which threw upon a new administration, in the first hour of its existence, so perilous a responsibility; the party which brought the country to the very brink of war, and there left it, without preparation of any sort, either of money or munitions; with its navy dismantled, its fortifications dilapidated, and its Treasury many millions worse than empty!

But the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania has made a charge in relation to the treaty of Washington, of a somewhat different character. He has told us that the British ministry have succeeded in depriving this country of a considerable por tion of our territory on the northeast, with a perfect knowledge that they had no right to it. He has told us that the Prime Minister of England has declared in Parliament that he had proof, in the handwriting of a late English monarch, that the British claim was without foundation; and he has alluded to what he calls a corresponding acknowledgment of a distinguished member of the House of Lords! Mr. Chairman, this attempt to destroy the confidence of the American Congress and of the American people in the good faith and common honesty of the British Government, at the very moment when we are about to enter upon new and critical negotiations with them, can hardly, in my judgment, be too strongly condemned. The charge is entirely unwarranted. The speeches of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Brougham justify no such impeachment of British integrity. What were the circumstances under which the remarks were made to which the honorable member had reference? It is well known that a charge of bad faith had been brought against our negotiator, Mr. Webster, for having

concealed from Lord Ashburton all knowledge of a map which had been discovered by Mr. Sparks in Paris, and which there was the strongest reason for believing to be Dr. Franklin's map. This map had a broad red line upon it in close conformity to the British claim, and was considered as being somewhat of an extinguisher of the American view of the question, so far as the authority of maps was concerned. Yet it was carefully concealed from the British government and the British negotiator. For this proceeding Mr. Webster was arraigned both at home and abroad. Lord Palmerston, who, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs for many years, had failed in all attempts to settle the boundary question, and who was, perhaps, a little envious of the reputation which his successor, Lord Aberdeen, had acquired through the negotiations of Lord Ashburton, publicly arraigned Mr. Webster in the House of Commons, and made substantially the same charge against him, which the Chairman of the Com. mittee of Foreign Affairs in this House has now made against the ministry of England. And it was in answer to this attack upon Mr. Webster, it was in defence of our Secretary of State, not, perhaps, without some view of vindicating themselves from the imputation of having been overreached in the negotiation, that Sir Robert Peel and Lord Brougham brought for ward the fact to which the honorable gentleman has alluded. They stated that the British government as well as the Ameri can government, had concealed maps which made against their own claim; that Lord Palmerston himself had been guilty of the same suppression; that, beside other maps of less significance, which had been kept out of sight by the ministry of England, there was one which could be traced back to the possession of George the Third, the monarch in whose time the separation of the two countries had taken place, and upon which there was a red line in precise conformity with the American claim. But what was their course of remark upon the subject? Did they, as the gentleman would imply, admit that these maps, on either side, would have been.considered as conclusive evidence of the intention of the treaty of 1783? No such thing; they ridiculed such an idea. Sir Robert Peel commenced his remarks on this subject by saying, –

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