GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 1, 1845,- A BILL FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF A TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT IN OREGON BEING UNDER CONSIDERATION, — IN THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON THE STATE OF THE UNION.

I TOOK the floor last evening, Mr. Chairman, as I stated when the Committee rose, with no view of preparing myself for any formal speech on the Oregon question. It may be remembered, that I addressed the House on that question at some length last year. The circumstances of the case have not materially changed since then, and my opinions in regard to it are altogether unaltered. I shall content myself, therefore, with a few remarks in reference to the precise bill under consideration, and with some observations in reply to gentlemen who have preceded me in the debate.

I shall enter into no argument of the American title to the Oregon territory. No such argument, certainly, is needed to convince the members of this House of the justice of our claim to that territory. Whatever else we may differ about, we all seem to have a sufficient sense of the soundness of our own title. It seems to be forgotten, however, that it is Great Britain, and not the United States, which requires to be convinced on this point. If gentlemen would only undertake to satisfy Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen that the American title is entirely indisputable, and that the British pretension is altogether void and groundless; or if they could fortify Mr. Calhoun in his efforts to enforce these positions upon the British minister with whom he is treating, they would turn their researches and their rhetoric to a more profitable account. I fear they are contribut

ing to no such result. I am inclined to believe that arguments, however strong, would lose much of their weight in the quarters I have suggested, when uttered in the tone of menace and defiance which has characterized so much of this debate. Nor can

I forbear to say, that it appears to me extremely impolitic for us to be publicly engaged in any arguments on the subject, while negotiations in regard to it are actually on foot within ear-shot of this Hall, and while we are necessarily ignorant how far our own individual views may conform to those, which the American Secretary of State may be at this moment pressing upon the attention of the British negotiator.

Indeed, Sir, this whole proceeding is, in my judgment, eminently calculated to impede and embarrass the negotiations in which the two governments are employed. We have received authentic assurances that those negotiations have not yet failed, that they are still in progress, and that a communication in regard to them may be expected from the Executive before the close of the present session. Why not wait for this communication? Why insist on taking any step in the dark, when, in a few weeks at the most, we shall be able to act advisedly, and to see clearly the ground on which we are treading?

I cannot help thinking, Mr. Chairman, that the course proposed to be pursued on this subject, savors somewhat of distrust of the hands to which our side of this negotiation is committed. I know not that any such thing is intended. I know not that there is any purpose to influence, by this proceeding, the Cabinet arrangements of the President elect. It seems to me, however, that the peculiar friends of the present Secretary of State may well feel some little jealousy on the point. There is such a thing known to the Parliament of Great Britain as a vote of confidence in the ministry. The passage of this bill, taken in connection with the circumstances under which it will have been passed, and with the considerations by which it has been urged, will seem not a little like a vote of want of confidence in our American Secretary. I am no champion of Mr. Calhoun's. His Texan negotiations and correspondence have certainly not inspired me with the most enthusiastic admiration of his diplomatic ability or tact. But it seems passing strange, I confess,

that any of his friends should be willing to acquiesce in such marked imputations on his statesmanship and ministerial fidelity as have been heard on all sides of the House. "We cannot wait for negotiations. We want no more of them. They are sacrificing our territory. They are only another name for surrenders of our rightful soil and sovereignty." These are the cries by which this measure is to be carried through! Why, Sir, I should imagine, from all this, that we had some unprincipled or incompetent British Whig at the head of our Foreign affairs, ready to mart our territory for gold; or that some such person was likely to succeed to the Department of State at the earliest moment. Such cries are the stale and unfounded reproaches with which political opponents have been wont to assail our public functionaries for party effect. That they should now be heard from the self-styled Democracy of the House, while a Democratic Secretary of State has the great seals of the nation still in his hands, and while a fire-new Democratic administration is on the very eve of accession, is, indeed, not a little extraordinary.

No more negotiations! Why, Sir, one would suppose that this would be the very time when a majority of this House would desire to have negotiations entered upon, and would feel a confidence that they would be conducted to a triumphant conclusion. What have they to fear? In the humiliating failure of all previous negotiations, they have the foil which is to give a greater brilliancy to their own success. If the treaty of Washington was really so inglorious a surrender, pray, pray, Mr. Chairman, do not forbid the abler, the more accomplished, the more patriotic negotiator of your own choice, present or future, to give us the example of a better treaty. Do not forbid him to retrieve the character of American diplomacy; to pluck up the drowning honor of the country from the waters of the St. John's; and to show us, for all time to come, how to preserve, with a greater skill, at once the rights and the interests of the Republic, includ ing that highest of all her interests, Peace!

No more negotiations! The treaty of Washington an inglorious surrender! To be sure, four fifths of the Senate ratified that treaty, and the whole country applauded it. But then

Maine has never assented to it! So says one of the honorable members from Maine, (Mr. Hamlin.) Maine had her commissioners here, had she not, with full powers to agree upon a conventional line of boundary? and they did agree upon such a line. And Maine has since received into her treasury the money for which those commissioners stipulated, and for which the treaty provided. Not, Sir, the mere reimbursement of expenses incurred in maintaining her supposed rights, as the honorable. member implied, but the rated consideration for the lands to which she relinquished her claim. And yet the honorable member insists that Maine has never yet assented to the treaty! This is an extraordinary position, certainly. I trust that it is not advanced now, as a pretence for repudiating the treaty, and for setting up a new claim to reannexation, hereafter. How is the position sustained? Simply by the allegation that the treaty was opposed by "the only Democratic Senator from Maine in the body by which the treaty was ratified." As if it were not an ample set-off to that suggestion, that the treaty was supported by the only Whig Senator from Maine at the same period; a gentleman (the Hon. George Evans) of whom I may say, without intending any disparagement to the Democratic Senator referred to, (the Hon. Reuel Williams, for whom I have a high personal esteem, founded upon a long acquaintance,) that he is second to none of his colleagues, past or present, nor, indeed, to any member of the body to which he belongs, in ability, in patriotism, or in a just regard for the rights and the interests, either of his own State or of the nation at large.

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No more negotiations! Why, Mr. Chairman, where is such a doctrine as this to lead us? Inevitably to war. To war with England now; to war with all the world hereafter, or, certainly, with all parts of the world with which we may have controversies any sort. And even war can never put an end to the necessity of negotiation. Unless war is to be perpetual, you must come back to negotiation in the end. The only question in the case before us the only question in every case of disputed international rights-is, not whether you will negotiate or fight, but whether you will negotiate only, or negotiate and fight both. Battles will never settle boundaries between Great Britain and

the United States, in Oregon, or elsewhere. The capture of ships, the destruction of commerce, the burning and plundering of cities, will leave us just where we commenced. First or last, negotiation alone can settle this question. For one, therefore, I am for negotiation first, before war, and without war. I believe that we shall get quite as much of Oregon in this way; and I know that we shall get it at less expense, not merely of money, but of all that makes up the true welfare and honor of our country.

Sir, the reckless flippancy with which war is spoken of in this House and elsewhere, as a thing to be "let come," rather than wait for the issue of negotiations, is deserving, in my judgment, of the severest rebuke and reprobation from every christian patriot and statesman. I say let it not come, let it never come, if any degree of honorable patience and forbearance will avert it. I protest against any course of proceeding which shall invite or facilitate its approach. I protest against it, in behalf of the commerce of the nation, so considerable a part of which I have the honor to represent. I protest against it, in the name of the public morality and religion, which ought to be represented by every member on this floor. I protest against it, also, in the spirit of a true Republican Democracy. My venerable colleague, (Mr. Adams,) alluded yesterday to the old and well-known correspondence of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, under the signatures of Helvidius and Pacificus, and expressed his wish that it might be freshly read by all who took an interest in ascertaining the just limitations of executive power. I cordially respond to that sentiment. But I will venture to say that no one will read these letters without being struck with the force, the beauty, the consummate justness and truth of a warning against war, which one of those letters contains, and which constitutes the crown-jewel of the whole series.

"War is, in fact, (says James Madison,) the true nurse of Executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the Executive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the Executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied, and it is the Executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the Executive brow they are to encir cle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast,