SPEECH 
 
 ^ 
 
 / 
 
 JOSEPH R. INGERSOLL, 
 
 THK OREGON BILL: 
 
 I)CI.ly£K£I> 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 APKIL IG. 1846. 
 
 C^ WASHINGTON; 
 
 PRINTED BY GALES AND SEATON 
 
 1846. 
 
^««^ 
 
 i*('^ 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 The Oregon Bill being under consideration, Mr. J. R. INGERSOLL 
 
 rose and addressed the House as follows: 
 
 The measure now proposed has in view an exclusive exercise of power 
 and possession of land in Oregon. It designates the place which is to be 
 governed and occupied by no particular name, and it describes it by no 
 precise limits. It extends jurisdiction, and the incidents of jurisdiction 
 generally, over all thai portion of the territory of the United States lohich 
 lies west oj the Bocky Mountains. I object (said Mr. Ingersoll) to this 
 language as too indefinite. It begs the question of ownership, which has 
 been in a state of fruitless controversy for nearly thirty years ; and it 
 exposes to endless dispute, and ever-varying construction, a law which 
 ought to be, as the title is claimed to be, clear and unquestionable. The 
 professed object is to protect the rights of American settlers. Settlement 
 miplies the existence of something to be occupied. It is essential to proper 
 legislation, that the object of it should be fully ascertained and distinctly 
 communicated. 
 
 The language which I have quoted from the bill is not only indefinite, 
 but equivocal. I impute of course no improper design to the committee, 
 much less to the member of it who reported the bill ; but the terms are 
 deceptive. They are calculated to mislead, by creating a belief that the 
 rights of settlers will be measured according to the notion which each 
 individual entertains respecting them. There are many opinions as to the 
 extent and position of the territory of the United States west of the Rocky 
 Mountains. No less than three very recent European publications on the 
 subject of Oregon are now before me. Two of them are from the English 
 press, and one (Question de I'Oregon, par le Major G. T. Poussin) 
 from that of Paris. While Dr. Twiss and Mr. Wallace would contest 
 with us all territorial rights, strictly speaking, admitting only a concurrent 
 initiate claim, and Major Poussin would, with some of our immediate 
 friends, recommend a divided possession, not a few writers and 
 speakers among us insist upon an incontestable title to the whole 
 ground from 42° to 54° 40'. The doubtful language of the bill might 
 apply to any one of these contingencies. In the application of it, however, 
 great confusion would arise, and with every iiew occasion a new rule of 
 mterpretation might be introduced. When all the original elements of 
 title are combined, and discovery, exploration, occupation, and settlement, 
 shall have left nothing to complete it but the assertion and exercise of 
 eminent domain, there will be little doubt of the sufficiency of the terms 
 which are used. But the sturdiest friend of Oregon must admit that, in 
 the broad surface of more than twelve degrees of latitude, at the best, 
 various stages of advancement may be found ; and while in some places 
 settlements are practicable, and admit of protection, by many times the 
 larger part is in the merest state of unexplored nature, and will so remain 
 for ages. Other portions are held by subjects of another Government, 
 
who may prefer to receive protection from a source to which they 
 acknowledge themselves to owe a corresponding allegiance. If the sweep- 
 ing clause which has been selected be intended to embrace the whole with 
 indiscriminating and impracticable benevolence, it might find less favor 
 than a provision which should cover such objects only as are clearly entitled 
 to our care. Let them be distinctly avowed, and there will at least be no 
 voting in the dark. The bill which was reported some time ago, and 
 afterwards withdrawn, candidly made known its pretensions by metes 
 and bounds. This substitute resembles it in all respects, except the pro- 
 vision for notice, which has now become unnecessary, because it has met 
 with independent support, and except that it conceals the precise character 
 of a purpose which has lieretofore been manfully proclaimed. Legislative 
 language, notwithstanding the utmost care, will sometimes be exposed to 
 doubt and difficulty, when it comes to be applied to use. Statutes are 
 often found to be obscure in practice, however cautiously they may have 
 been prepared. To render them so purposely in their formation would 
 be to use a leaf from the precepts of that veteran diplomatist who said that 
 language was made to conceal our thoughts; or to adopt the idea of another 
 master in the same school, who once wrote to his Government from the 
 Hague, that a certain Russian minister had fallen into an error, common to 
 men of weak understanding, in believing that things were in reality what 
 they seemed to be. 
 
 It has been supposed that the measure contemplated has one or more 
 precedents in the British statute book, where enactments are found for 
 regulating the fur trade, and establishmg criminal and civil jurisdiction in 
 certain parts of North America. I ventured to suggest a day or two since 
 that there was some mislakti in this, and I beg leave to say a few words 
 in relation to it here. Certain well-known elementary rules for the con- 
 struction of statutes will show that these acts of Parliament are no justifi- 
 cation for this proceeding. The mischief that existed, and the remedy 
 that was provided, furnish a guide to the true construction of them. In 
 those wild regions which skirt the British provinces, agents of rival 
 British companies found an arena for a series of violent conflicts. Every 
 kind of disorder was practised with impunity. The Indian territories, as 
 they were called, became an abode of outlaws, who were, nevertheless, 
 British subjects, beyond the pale of British control. The whole scope of 
 the effort of the Government was to correct this evil. It did not contem- 
 plate an interference with the land. It did not look to the citizens or sub- 
 jects of any other nation. It merely designed to extend the jurisdiction of 
 the realm over those who had made themselves independent of it, without 
 becoming subject to any'other restraint, and who lived in the free indul- 
 gence of unbridled passions, aggravated by rival interests and the lust of 
 gain. During the war with this country these feuds were permitted to 
 flourisii. Soon after peace was restored, attention was anxiously directed 
 to them. Sir John Sherbrook, Governor General of the Canadas, issued 
 his proclamation on the 3d of May, 1817, This paper asserts the exist- 
 ence of breaches of the peace, nnd acts of force and violence, of conspi- 
 racies, unlawful assemblies, riots, affrays, and murders. It imputes them 
 all to conteniions between certain merchants carrying on trade in the In- 
 dian territories under the names of the Hud.son's Bay Company and 
 Northwest Company. It announces its purpose to restrain these offences, 
 and to bring to condign punishment the perpetrators ; and it constitutes 
 
5 
 
 civil magistrates, and justices of. the peace, and special commissioners^ to 
 discover and apprehend the crimmals, to repress and discourage crimes, 
 and to mE\intain and preserve the peace and the laws. ■ u . 
 
 This prorlamaiion was followed up by the act of Parliament of July, 2y 
 1821, which is the principal subject of objection. We have seen the mis- 
 chief which existed, the remedy contemplated, and the persons to whom 
 that remedy was to apply. The spirit and meaning of the law look to 
 British subjects, and to them alone. The subject-matter is their lawless 
 condition — the effects and consequences are punishments of a well-known 
 class of persons. The rules thus furnished would lead usso to .interpret a 
 highly, penal law that it will not involve a breach of international comity. 
 We need not provoke our own judgments to an exercise of the powers of 
 construction. It has been done to our hand by the most conclusive, I; 
 would say in relation to the subject, by the highest authority. During the 
 negotiations of 1826-'27, Mr. Gallatin brought this statute to the attention of 
 the British Government, and received the most satisfactory evidence of the 
 absolute and rigid limitation of it to the subjects of the Power which passed 
 the law. In his despatch of the 7th. August, 1827, he writes thus to Mr. 
 Clay from London : "The British Plenipotentiaries did not admit that the 
 act of Parliament of July, 1821, was susceptible of the strict literal con- 
 struction I had put upon it. They declared, explicitly, that it had no 
 other object but the maintenance of order amongst British subjects, and 
 had. never been' intended to apply to citizens of the United States. That 
 such was not the intention of Great Britain was evident from the. various 
 proposals now made on her part, having all for their object to prevent 
 both parties from assuming an exclusive jurisdiction." They who would 
 have been pirates if they were on the seas, and subject to punishment not- 
 withstanding the freedom from all especial jurisdiction of the element on 
 which they sailed, merely ceased to be outlaws on land by the necessary 
 restraints and penalties of legislation, without any assertion of eminent 
 domain. Indeed, the statute contains a special reservation in favor of 
 American citizens. This has been supposed to apply only to trade with 
 the Indians; but, it is coextensive with the purposes of the act. It recog- 
 nises the treaty as an existing and a paramount law ; and it could not, 
 without destroying its obvious intent, be limited except by the terms of the 
 treaty itself. Were it otherwise, another treaty, made half a. dozen years 
 afterwards, and simply prqionging indefinitely the operation of the first, 
 has superseded the statute, and has become once more a supreme law. i 
 
 To this moment, and at all times, the British Government liave disclaimed 
 all such pretensions as have been alleged to be manifested in th^eir written 
 law. The »'=;tatemf^nt annexed to the protocol of the sixth conference by 
 Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Addington, British Plenipotentiaries, in the nego- 
 tiation of 1826-'27, in reference to Oregon, asserts that " Great Britain claims 
 no exclusive sovereignty over any portion of that territory. Her present 
 claim," it proceeds, " not in respect to any part, but to the whole, is limit- 
 ed to a right of joint occupancy in common with other States, leaving 
 the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance." Mr. Pakenham, in his 
 argument of July 29, 1845, without asserting any thing like absolute sove- 
 reignty,' endeavors merely to prove that "the position of Great Britain in 
 regard to ' her claim, whether to the whole or to any particular portion of 
 the Oregon territory, is at least as good as that of the United States." 
 Prudence has been shown in the course of successive negotiations, by vb- 
 
6 
 
 staining from the assertion of title, and giving to the pretensions of Great 
 Britain a lowlier but not less ambitious name. They have been pru- 
 dently called her claims. Title is too lofty a term to be correctly used by 
 either of the parties litigant. It implies what cannot justly be said in rela- 
 tion to any holder of rights like these. The object itself is not in a condi- 
 tion for proprietary ownership. Nearly the whole of it is one broad ex- 
 panse of wild iaiid, savage rocks, and dreary streams. In 182S, an early 
 movement was made towards its occupation by citizens of the United 
 States, who prayed the aid of Congress in a memorial, in which they char- 
 acterized it all as wilderness. As to settlements, which your bill designs to 
 protect as matter of right, I fear we should stand on unequal ground with 
 our competitor, both in the priority and number of them. From 1813 to 
 1823, we learn from Mr. Greenhow, few if any citizens of the United States 
 entered the countries west of the Rocky Mountains. (Page 356.) The 
 first of these colonies, he informs us, was founded in 1834. (Page 360.) 
 Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, names the year 1806 as " the era of the 
 commencement of the first fixed methodical and continuous occupation of 
 the country; the first actual use made of it ; the first regularly conducted 
 attempt to develop its natural resources." 
 
 This writer enumerates eighteen different establishments under the name 
 of forts, from Fort Citrille to Fort Vancouver, some of which are head- 
 quarters for hunting parties in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 besides a village of fifty-three houses, " and the Vancouver farm, stretch- 
 ing up and down the river — 3,000 acres, fenced into beautiful fields, and 
 sprinkled with dairy houses and herdsmen's and shepherd's cottages." 
 There are spots of verdure in the extended deserts of Arabia ; but they 
 are so thinly scattered over the almost immeasurable vast, that the exhausted 
 traveler often sinks before he can reach their refreshing atmosphere. 
 
 I hope to say more of this subject of title, or rather of relative right of 
 occupation, before I take my seat. It is necessary now to turn to the par- 
 ticular merits of the bill before us, and its co-ordinate evils. We are dis- 
 cussing the second in a long list of disastrous circumstances, of which no- 
 tice to terminate the treaty of joint occupancy was ihe fv^st. That first 
 step, if in an evil hour it shall be adopted, will prove the costing step in a 
 progression of incidents which can bring with iheui nothing but calamity. 
 Besides the innate importance of the thing itself, it derives infinite moment 
 from its position in the front of a series of events that threaten in inevitable 
 succession to follow it — events that will be recollected for ages. While 
 individual differences, not strictly and in all instances confined to party lines, 
 have distinguished the course of Congressional proceedings on these inter- 
 esting topics, principles of separation are not less marked and obvious than 
 pei'sonal differences of opinion. Opposite conclusions are drawn from pre- 
 mises not seemingly dissimilar. The one great leading measure which still 
 hangs in threatening augury above our heads is, in the declared judgment 
 of those who urge it, of pressing necessity, and of no threatenii)g aspect ; 
 while it is regarded by its opponents as quite unnecessary in itself, and 
 fraught with disastrous consequences. Let gentlemen who so warmly in- 
 sist upon giving the stern notice of a determination to renounce an arrange- 
 ment which has preserved harmony in the particular region for nearly 
 thirty years deceive themselves as to the true character of the proceeding 
 as they may, they may depend upon it they are assuming the attitude 
 
without the armor, and they are unfurhng the banner without providing 
 the men or the materiel of war. 
 
 The advocates of " notice" and its incidents complain of wlial they are 
 pleased to call a war cry, and insist that it should be separated from the 
 argument. They forget that it is part of the esi^ential question itself. If 
 the tendency of a proceeding is to provoke or produce unnecessary war, it 
 would be difiicult to conceive a more forcible objection to it. Deprive the 
 proposition of this effect, and it loses half of its cHormity, It may remain 
 idle and unnecessary still, but its primary and most pernicious attributes 
 are taken from it. For the very reason that notice is the prelude to hos- 
 tilities, the casting of the herald's spear, it is to be avoided. You are the 
 master of your own actions, but not of those of others. Events that are to 
 react upon your movements are beyond the reach of your control. You 
 cannot imbue them with the influence of desires or expectations that you 
 may chance to entertain, by fanciful predictions of a supposed reluctance 
 from abroad, much less by crying out peace, peace, when there is no peace. 
 When Lord Suffolk, in the British House of Peers, proposed the employ- 
 ment of Indian allies in the war with our fathers — the employment, as 
 Lord Chatham termed it, of the "cannibal savage, thirsting for blood, tor- 
 turing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims" — 
 it was all in the name of religion and humanity ! Nor is it by any stand- 
 ard of judgment or justice which may be adopted here, that the course of 
 conduct of a foreign nation is to be regulated. That foreign nation will 
 probably determine and act for herself at her own pleasure, and as she has 
 done sometimes heretofore, in strange departure, perhaps, from our well- 
 founded notions of propriety. Who would have thought, according to the 
 confident predictions of the present time, that she would, in former days, 
 have continued to impress seamen and confiscate property alike protected 
 by the asgis of our flag, for the purpose of supporting her own navy and of 
 retaliating upon another ruthless belligerent ? Yet she persisted in impress- 
 ments and proclamations of blockade, at the peril of the commission of in- 
 justice, disregarding complaints and remonstrances, violating established 
 principles of international law, and in the face of threatened and actual 
 war. She chose in preference, and in pursuance of the dictates of a hostile 
 spirit towards her historical enemy, to forego many advantages of commerce, 
 and some of friendship and respect. Let it be borne in mind, that the for- 
 mer war ended with the causes that produced it. The contending parties 
 sheathed their swords for lack of argument. If another is to ensue, no 
 length of continuance, no change of circumstances, can change the differ- 
 ences in which it will have originated. These will remain indelibly marked 
 upon the earth, as long as the Rocky Mountains shall rear their lofty heads 
 above the clouds in proud observance of them. 
 
 Your own historian, the author of an authentic work on Oregon, which 
 was prepared under the auspices of one branch of the Government, and has 
 received the sanction of another, discusses this point of giving notice in the 
 abstract, and when the whole question was free from much of the irrita- 
 tion that now surrounds it. In his book (page 390) he observes, that " such 
 a notice can only be regarded as the announcement of the determination of 
 the party giving it, to take forcible possession at the end of the term," It 
 was argued not long since on this floor, tliat, because the act of giving notice 
 was a war measure, it should emanate from Congress — with that body be- 
 ing deposited, by the Constitution, the high responsibility of declaring war. 
 
8 
 
 Even now, thel'e are two modes of attaining the object pfofessedly'aimed 
 at — the abrogation of the convention. The one, as it appears, full of dire 
 omen and portentous rage, with gauntlet hurled and lance in rest — that is, 
 notice^^defying, inexorable, force-announcing notice ! The other bears in 
 its right hand gentle peace. It proposes that, as the treaty began in ami- 
 cable negotiation, so in amicable negotiation it shall end. It is not intended 
 to be argued here^'that either course is necessary or expedient, unless it be, 
 by the latter' expedient, to open anew the way to final settlement, which 
 ought never to have been closed ; the opening of which, by direct and frank 
 proposal, seems to be embarrassing to the plenipotentiaries themselves. 
 Except for this, both had better be omitted. But if you are bent upon the 
 accomplishment of a particular end — the abrogation of the treaty; and if, 
 also, you believe and declare that you design, in abrogating it, nothing else 
 than peace, do it in a manner that may not either be misunderstood or mis- 
 applied: do '\i peacefully, if you design ii peaceably. 
 
 That treaty has been well designated in former times, just as it is now, 
 a treaty of joint occupation. I should be sorry to relinquish for it that char- 
 acter. Give up that, and your antagonist stands on vantage gi'oiind. If 
 his numerous posts — some of them strong and extensive — aria not harmless 
 by consent, as establishments contemplaled by the treaty, they are settle- 
 ments of defiance and opposition, which raiay have derived strength from 
 time and independent existence. They may create new elements of trouble, 
 which the provisions of joint occupancy are calculated eftectually t6 pre- 
 vent. Mr. Gallatin uniformly thus denominated it ; so does Mr. Buchanan. 
 It was offered, protocolled, accepted, acted on, and has always been treated 
 as such. Its language admits of no other interpretation. Good faith would 
 forbid a departure, now, from its long understood nature and name, even 
 if policy suggested (as it clearly does not) a change. Notice of the termi- 
 nation of this agreement is urged— uncompromising, one sided notice— 
 with no consultation of the coiivenience of the other party, with no defer- 
 ence for the ordinary rules of courtesy, merely because the treaty provides 
 for it as a dernier tesort, in the possible failure of other means, as furnish- 
 ing, in any event, a reserved right, to a certain extent, in either party, if 
 other opportunities should be foreclosed. Between individuals, what is the 
 course of conduct on Occasions of strict analogy ? The law gives a right to 
 distrain when rent is in arrear: Does a landlord, therefore, seize at once the 
 household goods of a thriving tenant ? Does the lender of a sum of money, 
 for an indefinite period, to a friend, send the sheriff to arrest him within 
 four-and twenty hours of the time of loan ? These arc rights — perfect rights; 
 but they would not be exercised in a community that is fit to live in. No- 
 tice is of the same character. No principle of law is better established than 
 this: " Summum jus sum?na injuria.^' A stipulation for notice was in- 
 tended for such a state of things as now exists with Mexico : when no min- 
 ister residing at either Court, and formal negotiation being necessarily sus- 
 pended, an arrangement, such as that with England respecting Oregon, 
 could be terminated only by one-sided notice. As things are, it would 
 wear a hostile aspect, and have a hostile effect, oven if it stood alone ; for 
 it would announce a peremptory determination (and nothing else) to take 
 exclusive possession, and exercise exclusive jurisdiction, when the barriers 
 of the treaty should be broken down. But coupled, as it is too manifestly 
 intended to be^ with other unerring signs, either simultaneous in origin, or 
 composing a series of consecutive acts of legislation, all of them parts of 
 
one consistent and uniform system, it can lead only to a belligeinnt result. 
 Ask imi)artial persons, who are not in the vortex of dissenting judgment into ■ 
 which we are plunged; inquire of the lookers-on here in Vienna, friendly 
 representatives of foreign States; consult any unbiased minds, and see if 
 they will not pronounce your notice a measure of incipient hostility. Thus, 
 in the existing crisis, tiiere are but two parties to the Oregon question — a 
 peace party and a war party. All other points of difference are at least 
 postponed. The measures at once desired or deprecated, advocated or con- 
 demned, have one only tendency — and that is, downwards, towards war. 
 Like the descensus ^verni, it is perhaps the easiest, and, in its very ex- 
 citement, is not without attraction ; but the step, once taken, may be fatal 
 and irrevocable. To return from it will be difficult, if not impracticable. 
 Whether the final and fatal result is the rather to be dreaded or despised, 
 is not the point of immediate inquiry. Is that result fairly and naturally 
 probable ? Such i^Jlie question we propose, and Avhich we desire should 
 be met. 
 
 The discussion is supposed to be unduly embarrassed by appeals to the 
 very tendency to which I have adverted. Such a tendency is of course 
 reluctantly admitted by those who maintain the side of the argument to 
 which it necessarily belongs. The mind instinctively revolts from conse- 
 quences so painful, and denies that they are the corollary of a favorite 
 proposition. In the mere abstract, few men avow themselves the advo- 
 cates of war. Sometimes a curse, generally a crime, and always a calamity, 
 they who defend it seek for palliation in supposed injuries beyond endu- 
 rance, or palpable rights withheld, or other necessary inducements, which 
 are in the particular instance deemed too powerful to be withstood. At 
 the best, it is a reproach to civilized society, a relic of barbarism, a return 
 for the occasion to habits of savage life, where, unrestrained by disciplined 
 reason, it exists between man and man, as it does between the beasts thai 
 perish. Two of the bravest men and best soldiers known to history enter- 
 tained, more than two centuries ago, an honest hope that by a general 
 arrangement among nations it might be obviated. These gallant spirits 
 were Henry IV of France and his wise minister the Due de Sully. Tiie 
 death of Queen Elizabeth probably prevented a fair experiment from being 
 made. ^Var has sometimes, indeed, seemingly redeeming qualities, which 
 give to it a temptation, in spite of all its deformities. Power and pride and 
 glory and heroism and conquest and renown, gather together in rich and 
 glittering array, to crown the liead of cruelty, and to clothe with garlands 
 the gory limbs of sin and death. "The battle of the warrior," says the 
 book of inspiration, "is always with confused noise and with garments 
 dyed in blood." Calamity, crime, and curse — war has existed from the 
 earliest periods of society, as a necessary evil. Utopian would be the policy 
 that should hope at all times to dispense with it. Wisdom consists in re- 
 garding it as a remedy for otherwise helpless maladies alone, as the forlorn 
 hope of exhausted and baffled argument — literally as ihe ultima ratio gen- 
 tium. A wanton adoption of it, or of measures which, through however 
 long a chain of connected and dependent circimistances, lead finally to the 
 same result, would disgrace a virtuous people and an enlightened age. 
 
 For what ptnpose are this notice and its incidents designed .■' To accel- 
 erate adjustment? We are told, officially, that conference li, at an end. 
 To change the present relations of the couiitry as rcopects occupation of 
 the debatable ground ? They may be changed in a moment by negotia- 
 
w 
 
 tion. To give renewed life to a slumbering correspondence ? It may be done 
 at once by answering to the point the last letter of the British Plenipoten- 
 tiary, which has never yet been done, and still is due. The first error in 
 the negotiation was not on our side. It consisted of the abrupt rejection 
 by the British Plenipotentiary of an offer which, if not acceptable, might 
 have been modified. After this peremptory and somewhat uncourteous 
 refusal, it might well become a great nation formally to signify a desire 
 that the proposition might be renewed. It has been manifested from high 
 places that the rejection, and the manner of it, were not approved. The 
 Sovereign herself has declared from her throne that no effort consist- 
 ent with national honor shall be wanting on her part " to bring this ques- 
 tion to an early and peaceful termination." Her representative in the 
 House of Commons and the leader of the popular party have united in ex- 
 pressions of regret for the act of their Minister. After this virtual dis- 
 claimer, it might scarcely less well become another great nation formally 
 to renew the offer. Where real magnanimity prevails, no mere prin- 
 ciple of etiquette should be allowed to interfere with the high interests 
 and the higher duty of nations. These are not the objects ; if they 
 were, they might be without circuity attained. What then? Notice is 
 designed not to unfetter negotiation — it would chain it up — but simply as 
 a prelude to exclusive possession of territory now jointly occupied; to 
 be taken, because we choose to take it, in our own way. Notice has 
 never been thought of as a measure to stand alone. When at the last ses- 
 sion of Congress it found its way into initiate legislation, it was as an 
 amendment to a bill for the immediate exercise of exclusive jurisdiction 
 over the whole ground. Twice has this extreme effort of absolute control 
 made its way half through Congress — at first in 1843, when the Senate 
 blew the blast of war, and the redeeming spirit of peace providentially 
 breathed here ; and once when we in turn adopted the perilous enactment, 
 and the onward surge which it created was stayed at the other end of the 
 Capitol. We have strangely changed our minds. It was my honored 
 friend from Massaehusetts, now not reluctant for extreme measures, who 
 reported against the Senate bill. It was his successor in the place of chair- 
 man of the Committee of Foreign Affairs who reported against a resolution 
 of similar import, which was introduced by a gentleman now before me 
 from Indiana. 
 
 What is the purport of the present bill ? It extends Iowa jurisdiction 
 over the whole territory which is in dispute, and it reserves to the subjects 
 of Great Britain the rights and privileges secured by the third article of the 
 treaty of 1818 and that of 1827, only " until said treaty stipulation shall 
 cease by virtue of the notice provided for in the second article," and no 
 longer. It thus assumes Oregon for our own — enforces at once, by threat 
 of arms, and after the brief period of a few short months, in rigorous exer- 
 cise, at the point of the bayonet, the laws of the Republic over every inch 
 of land and every living soul; proposes grants, with unsparing spirit, by 
 hundreds of fair acres, as temptations to settlers ; assumes absolute control 
 over trade and intercourse with all the Indian tribes; organizes and equips 
 a military force ; and lays down a mail route from St. Joseph's, Missouri, 
 to the mouth of the Columbia river. It extirpates from the face of the 
 Oregon earth the British race and name, and it plants the standard of lib- 
 erty and the Union, in proud and uncompromising supremacy, on every 
 rocky eminence. 
 
11 
 
 Our question is not whether Great Britain ought to acquiesce in this high- 
 handed course, but whether, in the fair estimate of probabilities, she will. 
 Remember, you have already offered her one-half, and she has refused 
 it with disdain. Do you seriously believe that she will content herself with 
 none ? Will her desires, which even six bells of latitude cannot satisfy, be 
 satiated with less than the measure of a grave ? The leaves of the Sybil 
 acquired new value iji the eye of their possessor as they were reduced in 
 number. You have by your own act persuaded England to believe that 
 she ought to indulge some hopes, — that she has more than the shadow of a 
 shade. Yon have repeatedly, in times past and present, proposed to give 
 her barely less than she was willing to receive. By what scale of reason 
 or philosophy is her expected satisfaction in the future to be measured ? 
 She asked you for bread ; you offered to share witli her your loaf, and she 
 has cast it in an angry spirit away. She again asks you for bread; you 
 give her a stone, and you believe she will receive it, if^not with gratitude, 
 at least without a frown ! It is gravely argued on this floor, that your 
 notice shall be given, and that, at the expiration of the term assigned by it, 
 forcible possession shall be taken of every inch of the disputed ground; and 
 yet that there will be no war ! A powerful nation, armed to the teeth, her 
 banners fanned for ages by conquest's crimson wing, not distinguished for 
 the patience of her temper or her tender love for these United States, 
 will stand tamely by and patiently behold her cherished settlements assailed 
 and scattered; her time-honored charters violated and trampled in the 
 dust; her subjects dragged before foreign magistrates and condemned by 
 foreign laws ; their property confiscated, their persons imprisoned, their 
 lives perhaps sacrificed ! If, in the wide-reaching and sagacious policy of 
 that deep seated throne, there be one circumstance to which it clings with 
 more tenacity than all the rest, it is the tender, ardent zeal, the maternal affec- 
 tion, with which it watches over, protects, and cherishes the children of the 
 realm, in every quarter and corner of the globe. This never-ceasing care is 
 the incentive to patriotism and the reward of loyalty. Time cannot enfeeble 
 it, or distance diminish its freshness or its fervor, or circumstances rob it of 
 a particle of its reciprocal attractiveness and charms. It warms the liege 
 bosom in the frozen regions of Labrador, and it gives new vigor to the sin- 
 ews under the burning sun of either India, as well as in the giant metropo- 
 lis of the Insular domain. I am a Roman citizen, was a cry, the neglect 
 of which brought on the ruin of a powerful Sicilian praetor, and drove him 
 into perpetual exile. I am a Roman citizen, was an exclamation which 
 ascended with the loftiest flights of the eloquence of Cicero. A similar 
 appeal from the liegemen of England is not inaudible, if uttered at the 
 extremity of the diameter of the earth; it would thrill and vibrate in every 
 pulse and nerve of the vast body politic; it would be heard and responded 
 to, from the shores of the Pacific, at the heart and centre of the empire ; and 
 all that accumulated wealth, which is the wonder of the world, and all 
 those burnished arms, whicli have never failed to glitter whenever the 
 pride of the nation has bidden their approach, for disaster, for victory, or 
 for defeat, in the lens of Walcheren, or on the field of Waterloo, or on the 
 banks of the Mississippi, or the frozen hills of India, would be put in reciui- 
 sition for the rescue. The colonial policy of England, her vital prosperity, 
 her existence as a nation, are involved in the issue, and it would be mad- 
 ness to suppose that these essential purposes would now for the first time 
 be overlooked or forgotten. You are leading off blindfold a torch dance 
 
12 
 
 in the midst of combustibles, and trusting to accident that they will not 
 take fire, when you act and argue as is proposed. 
 
 What is the object for which these risks are to be unnecessarily run? I 
 say nothing of the prospect of easy and almost imperceptible acquisition, in 
 the natural course of things ; or of the facility of accomplishing all that can 
 be immediately wanted, by giving laws to your own citizens, controlling 
 the evil tendencies of savage tribes, and rendering more easy the access 
 and the intercourse of travellers. These are fair and unexceptionable ex- 
 pedients. They are suggested in the annual message of the President, and 
 they are far short of the measures now proposed. But let us see in the 
 first place, and during the progress of the experiment, whether Oregon be 
 worth the vexation it is giving birth to, whether this land of promise does 
 indeed flow with milk and honey. Of extent sufficient to tempt the appe- 
 tite of a nation like Ireland or Switzerland, or China or Hindostan, nations 
 that have people beyond subsistence or ground for them to till, where a 
 sterner and more cruel infanticide obviates the stern necessity of emigra- 
 tion, or where emigration supplies a remedy which infanticide affords else- 
 where ; more than three times as large, we have been told, as all the sur- 
 face of the British islands, and nearly or quite equal to our thirteen original 
 States in extent ; not, however, in extent desirable, because not needful to 
 a people yet supplied with land beyond the wants of centuries; not calcu- 
 lated in reason to tempt the sober agriculturist from the prairies of the less 
 distant West, from which the journey of a family to Oregon would cost the 
 price of a farm. In every other particular a country one would think not 
 so desirable as to fix the footsteps of the wanderer, or attract the movement 
 of the steady and settled occupant of a distant region. Nature has seemed 
 to assign barriers so definite as to mark the place as one of peculiar isola- 
 tion for itself, and to forbid easy access to it from the rest of the world. 
 Not one navigable river, if geography is to be credited, intersects its rug- 
 ged precipices or inhospitable. plains. 
 
 Recent and authentic accounts represent the whole country as so inter- 
 sected by ranges of lofty mountains, that the climate is generally severe, 
 and only a small portion of the land is susceptible of cultivation. Your 
 main quarrel is now about the use of the Columbia river, as that succes- 
 sion of shoots and cataracts is called. "The banks of the Upper Colum- 
 bia," says Captain Wilkes, "are altogether devoid of any alluvial flats, 
 destitute of even scattered trees; there is no freshness in the little vegeta- 
 tion on its borders, the sterile sands reach to its very brink ; it is scarcely 
 to be believed until its banks are reached that a mighty river is rolling its 
 waters past these arid wastes." At its mouth nature denies an entrance 
 during eight months of the year, and at all seasons renders it so difficult 
 and dangerous that in one fatal attempt made by naval skill and energy, 
 without especial difficulties from the elements, a sloop of war lodged her 
 stout timbers on the shoals, some fifteen miles it is believed from the capes. 
 There they are likely to remain, a beacon to the future navigator. A pre- 
 vious effort of Captain Thorne, in the service of the Pacific Company, had 
 succeeded, in March, ISll, with great difficulty and the loss of three men. 
 . The whole course of the river is minutely described by Lewis and Clarke, 
 as it was traversed by them forty years ago. It has not since shifted it& 
 rocky bed, or levelled the precipices which confine its waters. These in- 
 trepid travellers reached the ocean by means of portages round the more 
 
13 
 
 difficult places, where the river would have afforded them a precarious 
 means of transportation. 
 
 Such are some of the features of a counfry for which you are going to 
 war, of.choice and ul preference to other means of acquisition ! Small 
 portions of it comparatively are represented as fit for cultivation; its great 
 surface covered, as you have been told, with " antres vast, and deserts idle." 
 Might not the description have been carried out, with " the cannibals that 
 each other eat ?" Captain Clarke met with a tribe, he says, among the 
 most amiable he had seen, called the Chopunnisli, one of whose chiefs 
 wore a tippet of human scalps, decorated with the thumbs and fingers of 
 those whom he had slain. One of the last published letters on the subject 
 of Oregon describes a party of travellers from the Wallamette valley as 
 having been robbed by a band of Pawnees of a sum of money, and one of 
 the party as having been injured by their war clubs. To indemnify him 
 for his pecuniary loss, a bill has actually been reported to the Senate, and is 
 new awaiting the action of that body. It is curious how well the description 
 given in Koch's <' Traites de Paix/? in connexion with the treaty of the 
 Escurial of 2Sth; October, 1790, would fit the place! and the circumstances 
 of the present day.* Where is this desired coast in relation to the rest of 
 the world ? A broad surface of nine thousand miles of ocean lies between 
 it and its Asiatic neighbor ; and nearly m mid-ocean rise the Sandwich 
 islands, at the distance of 720 marine leagues, and the Marquesas distant 
 by two hundred more. With the aid of. the trade winds the outward voy- 
 age could be performed by traversing something like eleven thousand 
 miles. Inward, no such assistance would be found, and the voyage would 
 be much longer. 
 
 Thus separated from the rest of the world, and thrown upon its own 
 resources, Oregon will probably be found any thing but prolific in the pro- 
 duction of them. Whatever may be its future -fitness for pasture grounds, 
 the animals heiretofore sustained have not been such as produce their an- 
 nual and returning supplies, in renewed and multiplied extent — but those 
 which, furnishing for a while their quota of comforts to civilized society 
 with their lives, must soon altogether perish, and leave behind them a 
 more hopeless wilderness. Maize and corn have not succeeded, unless in 
 very limited spots. NotJiing in the distance from the ocean is to be grati- 
 fied except a love of adventure, and the wild excitements of a prolonged 
 condition of what is usually the first stage of society. 
 
 After an arduous struggle, may not this battle field remain an inacces- 
 sible object to both contending parties? Or if attained, through strife, by 
 either, with all of the consequences of bitterness that strife entails, mjty it 
 not be- a possession to be maintained with trouble, as it will have been 
 hardly won ? Then will these two nations, of boasted intelligence, and 
 kindred language, literature, laws, and blood, lie panting and exhausted 
 and bleeding, from their abortive cliMts, like the clowns in the fable, who 
 fought for the stars and the blue sky as cattle and pasture, mortified, 
 ashamed, and punished for the mutual folly (hat had led them to battle. 
 
 • Quelques hangars construits sur une cote inhospitaliere situee au 50c degre latitude nord au- 
 dessus de la presqu'ile de Californie, et un miserable bastion defeiidu par des pierries, manquerent 
 d'exciter une ^^uerre sanglante cntre deux grandes puissances Europeennes, et donnerent naisaance 
 a une negociation qui fixa pendant quelques mois I'attention de toutes les puissances maritimcs d« 
 I'Europe." (4 De Koch, oh. XXIV.) 
 
14 
 
 The alleged circumstances upon which the respective claims of the two 
 Governments rest are sufficiently well understood to authorize an applica- 
 tion to them of principles of law. In this appeal to sound legal principles, 
 facts not absolutely free from doubt may safely be assumed, without farther 
 acquiescence in them than may be necessary for the sake of the argument. 
 Some of them are so remote in their origin as to have become obscure 
 from length of time ; and others are so imperfectly proved as to be render- 
 ed doubtful by the want of evidence. In proportion to the darkness of 
 our path should be the caution with which as travellers we tread in it. 
 p'ortunately, there is in every controversy a fair and honorable means of 
 settlement, either in the ascertainment of right and wrong, by the aid of 
 reason, or, where the scales of justice are so nicely poised that there ought 
 to be no preponderance, a result equally satisfactory may be found in 
 mutual forbearance, concession, and compromise. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter the lists prepared for very serious conflict 
 with a claim to " clear and unquestionable title" on the part of Great 
 Britain. Such pretension has never been made, unless it be quite recently, 
 and then in responsive echo to the cry from high places here. Negotiators 
 on the other side have either disavowed or omitted to assert a claim to title, 
 in the strict sense of the term. They have been contented to question our 
 loftier pretensions in this particular, to assert for themselves equal rights, 
 to measure by a standard short of absolute perfection our claims, and to 
 compare them with their own. Although claimhig the merit of early dis- 
 coveries by Sir Francis Drake in the sixteenth century, they can scarcely 
 fail to admit that the absence of effective settlements for two hundred years 
 would open the way to other Governments to advance and maintain super- 
 vening rights. 
 
 In the statement already referred to of Messrs. Huskisson and Addington, 
 in the negotiation of 1826 '-27, it is said: " It only remains for Great Britain 
 to maintain and uphold the qualified rights which, she now possesses over 
 the whole of the territory in question. These rights are recorded and de- 
 fined in the convention of Noolka. They embrace the right to navigate 
 the waters of those countries, the right to settle in and over any part of 
 them, and the right freely to trade with the inhabitants and occupiers of the 
 same. These rights have been peaceably exercised ever since the date of 
 that convention — that is, for a period of near forty years. Under that con- 
 vention, valuable British interests have grown up in those countries. It 
 is fully admitted that the United States possess the same rights, although 
 they have been exercised by them only in a single instance, and have not 
 since the year 1813 been exercised at all. But beyond these rights they 
 possess none." (Greenhow's Proofs and Illustrations, pages 444, 445.) 
 
 The plenipotentiaries might have added, if it had been to the point then 
 in view, a farther assertion of rights according to the Nootka convention. 
 " The buildings and tracts of land situated on the northwest coast of North 
 America, or on the islands adjacent to that continent, of which the subjects 
 of His Britannic Majesty were dispossessed about the month of April, 17S9, 
 by a Spanish officer, shall be restored to the said British subjects." (1st 
 article treaty of the Escurial, October 28, 1790 — Greenhow's Proofs and 
 Illustrations, page 476.) 
 
 Article 2d provides, that "incase any of the said respective subjects 
 shall, since the same period, have been forcibly dispossessed of their lands, 
 
15 
 
 ic, theyshall-be re-established in the posesssion thereof, or a just compen- 
 sation shall be made," &c. 
 
 These articles, the applicalion of which will he seen in a moment, are 
 disregarded in our confident discussions, diplomatic and parliamentary. I 
 am constrained to bring them to a reluctant uiotice. 
 
 In ascertaining the precise character of Britisli ri2;h(s, the point has been 
 properly enough made, whether that nation ever hud possession of any land 
 at Nootka sound. One would have thought that the acknowledgments in 
 the Ireaty, o( dis/jusseisio7i di/Jo?^ce, and tlie stipulations of the treaty for a 
 re-cstablishnip.nt in posscs.sioji, wove pregnant proofs of tlie fact o{ prcvions 
 jwsscssio?), or at least of acknowledgment by a previous owner, which would 
 be good against that owner, and against all claiming under him. For the 
 purpose of the argument, it would matter little whether that possession pre- 
 ceded or followed the treaty — caused the treaty, or was caused by it. Did 
 It exist? Elaborate arguments have been submitted here, the bent and 
 purpose of which are to prove the negative. Authorities, some of them 
 already well collected and introduced in the same order by Mr. Greenhow, 
 (pages 257, 258,) are vouched to sustain the argument. 
 
 I will not dwell upon the insutficicnt character and sources of the asser- 
 tions which have been vouched, although it would go (ar to aflect the validity 
 of them. " A Captain Broughton" sending an officer into the Cove for intel- 
 ligence, who, with the use, perhaps,of his telescope, discovered, as he thought, 
 that the former Spanish settlement was occupied by an Indian village! 
 Rather imperfect vietv, as the lawyers would term it, for the foundation of 
 title, or for the destruciion of title! Segur's Historical Works are among 
 the most agreeable productions of his day, but they arc not always au- 
 thentic pieces of evidence. The " Political picture" which is quoted may 
 be as much of a fancy sketch as some portions of the Campaign in Russia 
 are said to be. Neither Segur's Works nor Belsham's partisan History 
 are satisfactory proofs, especially of events not bearing on the great political 
 events which they profess to record. The preparations for war resounded 
 through several kingdoms of Europe. The treaty was digified by a birth 
 and baptism at the Escurial. Noblemen were its sponsors — Lord Fitzher- 
 bert on the one side, and Count Florida Blanca on the other. The scene 
 and the persons of the drama were alike distinguished. An obscure act of 
 redelivery of possession, nearly five years afterwards, at a remote corner of 
 the globe — distant almost by its vast circumference — might well have 
 escaped the attention of even more faithful historians. While gentlemen 
 have been engaged in an unprofitable search for negative testimony, their 
 researches have not led to any of a positive character. I am gratified in 
 being able to accommodate them; and they will probably iidmit, as well 
 from the appropriate department of knowledge in which it is found, as from 
 its direct and affirmative nature, that it goes far to settl^ the paiticular 
 question. It will account, too, lor the Lieutenant Pierce of the marines, 
 though by a somewhat distorted name. In the " Traites de Paix entre 
 les Puissances de I'Europe," of J\I. dc Koch, the facts arc distinctly and 
 fully related in the 24th chapter, which is devoted to the history of the 
 " traitede I'Escurial entre I'Espagne et la Grande Bretagne du 28 0ctobre, 
 1790." " L'execution de la conveniion du 2S Octobre, 1790," (thus the 
 author concludes his history of an eventful negotiation ami its consequences, 
 which prevented a bloody war between two great European Powers, and 
 fi.\ed for a period the attention of all the maritime Powers of Europe:) 
 
16 
 
 ^^'epronva, an reste,d^s difticultes qui la retarderent jusqu'en, 1795.' lilies 
 ifurent termin6es le 23 Mars de cette annee, sur les lieux niemes, par le 
 brigadier Espagnol Alava et le lieutenant Anglois Poara,'^ (this is "the 
 desired Mr. Pierce,) "qui e'changereut des declarations dans le golfe de 
 Nootka meme: apres que le fori Espagnol fut rase, les Espagnols s'etn- 
 barquerent, etle pavilion Anglois y fut plante en signe de possession." The 
 symbol and the act went together. They, are in speeches and correspondence 
 overlooked. This event, it will be observed, took place in March, 1795. 
 The "very curious original Spanish inanuscri[)t found in the Library of Con- 
 gress,and entitled "Confidential Instructions for tlie Kingdom of New Spain," 
 drawn up by Count Gigedo," &c., is "dated June 30, 1794." Yet the gentle- 
 man from Indiana says, " We can hardly have anytliing more conclusive," 
 as to an event that is not suggested to have occurred until some nine months 
 afterwards. The whole error of the argument is one of chronology. Th6 
 convention itself havjng tiiken place in the year 1790, its execution, which 
 was merely delayed for between four and five years, is supposed never to 
 have taken place. One of the passages quoted, however, declares that "a 
 royal determination has been received for the abandonment of Nootka, to 
 which service I have," says Gigedo, "in consequence of the death of the 
 former commissioner, assigned Brigadier Don Jose Manuel de ^lava," 
 &c. Accordingly, Koch's valuable work tells us that on the 23d March, 
 1795, the difliculties were terminated on the spot '^par le brigadier Es- 
 pagnol Jilava^'' the very officer appointed for the purpose by Count 
 Gigedo on the 30th June, 1794, one week less than nine months previously. 
 It is a most curious circumstance, that this authentic piece of history should be 
 entirely unknown to Mr. Buchanan, who asserts that no sufficient evidenc'O 
 has been adduced, that either Nootka Sound or any other spot upon the 
 coast was ever actually surrendered by Spain to Great Britain. The ''cu- 
 rious manuscript" is noticed hy Mr. Grcenhow, as presented by General 
 Tornel. 
 
 England thus shows a /70.?.ve.5.9/o;?, small, indeed, and not perhaps ih'- 
 tended for all the purposes of permanent residence; still settlement — occu- 
 pancy — pedis positio — vvhilei it lasted; something more than mere pre- 
 liminary or inchoate right, founded on discovery, and susceptible of being 
 done away by non-user or neglect ; in its history not unlike that of Astoria 
 in gelation to ourselves. .Both were possessed, dispossessed, and by treaty 
 restored, and afterwards neglected or abandoned. It would not be easy in 
 any of these particulars to draw a distinction between them. In one respect 
 Nootka has a decided advantage — that its rivalcolony of Astoria, previously 
 to the act of dispossession by the Racoon sloop of war, 1st December, 1813, 
 had been sold, with all its stores of peltries, to a chartered company of the 
 capturing nation. This capture by Britons of British property was like the 
 purchase from the condemned culprit of his body by the surgeon — a bite— 
 because he was to be hanged in chains. 
 
 The fact of British possession at Nootka .threatens no such evils as have 
 been intimated. Look at your map. Mr. Greenhow's has not each sepa- 
 rate degree marked, although the eye can sufficiently well discriminate its 
 position. On Mofras's map every degree is numbered. Nootka is about 
 midway between 4 9 and 50. The southern straitsof Juan de Fuca, the 
 great enti-ance to Admiralty Inlet, that capacious inlet itself, and all the 
 appertaining waters, dre south of Nootka.. An arrangement upon the basis 
 of 49° would secure to us the benefit of the whole of them. 
 
17 
 
 If a possession at Nootka Sound gives a southern indication of British 
 color of right as early as 1788 at least, (Greenhow, page 290,) the 
 trading establishment of Simon Fraser,in 1806, on what is called " Eraser's 
 Lake,'' in the 54th degree of latitude, and different posts, which in 1808 
 received the name of New Caledonia, in the same region, mark the position 
 of no dissimilar claims to the north. The Nootka restoration derives addi- 
 tional importance from the fact that it was a recognition, by both Govern- 
 ments that were parties to it, of the original possession taken by John 
 Meares, in 1788. This was several years after its discovery on the 9th 
 August, 1774, under the parallel of 49° 30', by Juan Perez, who gave it 
 the name of Port San Lorenzo, which, four years afterwards, was changed 
 by Captain Cook to King George's, or Nootka Sound. That original act 
 of possession by Meares was at first perhaps equivocal, for two reasons: 
 1st, because Meares, though a British subject, sailed under Portuguese 
 colors : 2dly, because his establishment may have been designed for a tem- 
 porary and occasional purpose. The subsequent ratification by his Govern- 
 ment takes away from it all ambiguity, identifies upon settled principles 
 the sovereignty with the first proceeding, and gives something like perma- 
 nency and definite e/fect to the wliole. It is inipossible to treat with dis- 
 respect so grave, so well authenticated, so available a transaction. 
 
 Connected with these important circumstances is the series of events of 
 which Alexander Mackenzie was the author. Twice did he traverse this 
 before unexplored region all the way to the ocean. His first expedition 
 was in 1789, but was confined in its progress to the now Russian posses- 
 sions. The second, in 1 792-'93, thirteen or fourteen years before the parallel 
 exploration of Lewis and Clarke, went dnectly through the disputed ter- 
 ritory. The river which he floated down for two hundred and fifty miles 
 (then called by the Indians the Tacoutehee-Tessee — at present, by every 
 body, Eraser's river) has its mouth in the straits of Fuca, near to the forty- 
 ninth degree of latitude, but below it half a degree by the blessing of 
 Providence. 
 
 The two countries, England and Ainerica, rest their respective claims, 
 for the most part, upon similar grounds. Each asserts for itself rediscovery, 
 exploration, additional exploration, and formal, but partial, possession — and 
 each must admit at least partial abandonment. 
 
 Nootka Sound, discovered by Juan Perez, August, 9, 1774, was occupied 
 by John Meares in 1788. His vessels were seized, and himself, it would 
 seem, dispossessed by the Spaniards in 1789, and possession fully restored 
 or given to the British in 1795. 
 
 The Straits of Fuca were perhaps discovered by Juan de Fuca in 1592 ; 
 rediscovered by Captain Berkeley, in the British ship Imperial Eagle, in 
 1787; and by John Meares in the following year; and completely sur- 
 veyed by Vancouver and Broughton in 1792. 
 
 The Columbia river was discovered by Heceta, August 15, 1775, and 
 named " Assumption Inlet," although the Mexican charts immediately 
 called it Rio St. Roc. It was entered by ('aptain Gray, May 11, 1792, and 
 was subsequently explored and surveyed to a much more considerable ex- 
 tent by Vancouver. 
 
 Astoria was established in ISll, under the auspices of Mr. Astor, but 
 with a company composed principally of British subjects. On the 16th of 
 October, 1813, all its establishments, furs, and stock in hand, were sold to 
 the British Northwest Company, for about fifty-eight thousand dollars. 
 
18 . • 
 
 Captain Black, of the Raccoon, Britisli sloop of war, took possession on the 
 1st of December, 1813. On the Gth of October, 1818, the joint commis- 
 sioners on the part of Great Britain, in pursuance of the treaty of peace, 
 declared that they restored, and Mr. Prevost declared that he accepted for 
 the United States, the settlement of Fort George. Things were placed, by 
 this formal act, in the status ante helium. 
 
 Lewis and Clarke's explorations were long snbsequent to those of Alex- 
 ander Mackenzie; and they were so fairly undertaken, with the kind as- 
 sistance of the diplomatic representatives of other nations, that an advan- 
 tage over other nations could scarcely be claimed from them. Mr, Jeffer- 
 son's instructions to Captain Lewis, his former private secretary, look to 
 broader and more philanthropic objects. Such as they were, they were 
 followed by no acts of occupation for about thirty years. The first of such 
 transactions are believed to have occurred in the year 1834. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan is not quite sustained in tiie broad position assumed in 
 his last letter, that this proceeding was " preparatory to the occupation of 
 the territory by the United States;" nor is he entirely accurate in the as- 
 sertion that Lewis and Clarke " first explored the Columbia from its sources 
 to its mouth." 
 
 While the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain have disclaimed tille,'\n the 
 proper sense of the word, they have most pertinaciously insisted upon 
 claim of right. Once and again has the attempt been made to argue and 
 urge them to a relinquishment of that right, and as often has the attempt 
 signally failed. If on our side the word title has been used, and with it 
 strong epithets implying an absence of obscurity or question, the difference 
 has arisen from a different application of terms to precisely one and the 
 same thing. Our claims are derived from similar sources. Without quar- 
 relling about words, we should rather look at the thing, and see how far 
 these exclusive pretensions can be maintained. 
 
 The Spanish title, as it is called, might safely be left with what has been 
 so well said by Mr. Gallatin. After an abandonment of more than a hun- 
 dred and seventy years, it could not be regarded as of great value, unless 
 resuscitated with an impulse more than equal to that of its early vigor. 
 The country is greatly indebted to this experienced statesman for the let- 
 ters he has recently publisiied. His close connexion with the proceedings 
 of a former day, on which nearly every thing nuist rest, his clear intellect 
 and far reaching intelligence, have enabled him to shed valuable light from 
 the bright sources of an unfading mind. 
 
 Refuge at last is taken in the alleged discovery of the Columbia river 
 by Captain Gray. Admitting, for the sake of I he argument, all that is 
 claimed in point of fact for this nautical exploit, its priority, nationality, and 
 design, the great obstacle remains — what is its extent? The answer is 
 familiarly given. A discovery of the moutli of a river, we are constantly 
 and confidently told, extends the right which that circumstance confers to 
 the territory drained by its waters. A principle like this might possibly 
 suit some of the rivers, as they are called, of the fine estuary which receives 
 the waters of the Susquehanna. They are broad inlets half a dozen miles 
 in length, and are merely borrowed from the bay. Possibly you might 
 have found an inclination towards such a principle in some Dutch legend 
 or Italian romance, where a greater prolongation is given by nature to the 
 lazy Scheld or wandering Po. But to ascribe to a momentary looker-on of 
 the inhospitable debouche of the Mississippi, or even the capacious gulf 
 
• 19 
 
 which distinguishes the entrance of the Amazon, such extensive results, 
 would be near akin to positive absurdity. It would only fall short of that 
 Papal bull which, <' de nostra mera libertate," drew a line from pole to pole 
 in favor of their Most Catholic Majesties. Where would such indefinite ex- 
 tension end ? From the main river you would ascend all its tributary streams, 
 Ihence gaze with gloating appetite upon every mountain rill ; and if, through 
 the bases of the Stony mountains, some dark cavern sheds a modest drop 
 from its obscure and benighted bed on the eastern side of the girdle of the 
 great West, which finds its way to Oregon, this will embrace, by the same 
 vague hypothesis, the /anr/of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and all the rivers 
 of the continent. Lawyer after lawyer has built his argument upon this bold 
 assumption. As with the irregular pronunciation of certain ancient classi- 
 cal names, we might be bound to yield the principle to authority if it could 
 be found. Where is it ? Hidden in the recesses of the temple, with the 
 mysterious worship of the Grand Lama of Thibet ? Veiled, like the Prophet 
 of Khorassan, to conceal his splendors from human vision ? Written, like 
 laws of the Roman tyrant, on lofty pillars, beyond the reach of human 
 scrutiny ? 
 
 " If," says the Secretary of State to the country and the world, " the 
 discovery of the mouth of a river, followed up within reasonable time by 
 the first exploration both of its main channels and its branches, and 
 appropriated by the first settlements on its banks, do not constitute a title 
 to the territory drained by its waters in the nations performing thes^e acts, 
 then the principles consecrated by the practice of civilized nations ever 
 since the discovery of the new world must have lost their force. These 
 principles were necessary to preserve the peace of the world." 
 
 I will not repeat the facts already stated, or ask for an interpretation of 
 " reasonable time," " first exploration," and " first settlements,^' or submit 
 to you the dilemma of a draining by Frazer's river about the same time, 
 in seeking to support what are called principles consecrated ever since the 
 discovery of tlie new world. If there exist for particular objects, and be- 
 tween particular Powers, occasional treaties with new clauses in them, 
 those are voluntary acts, the influence of which begins and ends with the 
 high contracting parties who made them. If there be such ?i principle — a 
 SACRED principle, necessary for the peace of nations, time-honored by the 
 lapse of three hundred and fifty-four years, according to the minute 
 computation of the Siscretary, why has it escaped an authentic place 
 in the records of a science which had no existence until after the 
 discovery of the new world, towards the close of the fifteenth century ? 
 Grotius, the father of the law of nations, wrote and died in the seven- 
 teenth century. Pufl'endorf was born in the year 163L Barbeyrac 
 lived and died in the eighteenth century, and Vattel's first edition was 
 published within less than ninety years from the present day, and the 
 last in the year 1844. His work is deservedly held in the highest esteem. 
 It exhibits, however, no trace of the doctrine assumed by you. On the 
 contrary, such a pretension, by which a nation would engross, as I main- 
 tain, a wilderness, or, as Vattel says, a much greater extent of territory 
 than it is able to people or cultivate, would be " an absolute infringement 
 of the natural rights of men, and repugnant to the views of nature.^* 
 Remember how extensive are the fields over which your aspiring claims 
 would run. The bull's hide which was made to cover the circumference 
 of Carthage would be a pigmy illustration. A difficult and dangerous 
 
20 
 
 LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 017 187 207 8 
 
 entrance, almost imperceptible to the eye, and almost inaccessible to the 
 boldest keel, gives, it is said, initiate rights to a "region," "territory," an 
 "t entire region"'T-in other- words, to a country and a world. Will not 
 such extravagant attempts expose us to just complaints for an over- 
 weening ambition, and tend to give support to charges which have been 
 already brought against us? One gentleman has extended his colossal 
 arms beyond the arctic circle. Another, delighted with the capacious 
 maw of his fat hero — the happy emblem of "masterly inactivity" on the 
 plains of Shrewsbury — desires to swallow up the universe. The Scythian 
 ambassadors said to Alexander, " If your person were as gigsfntic as your 
 desires, the world would not contain you. With your right hand you 
 would touch the east, and with your left the west, at the same time. 
 From Europe you would lay hold on Asia, and from Asia you would 
 seize Europe ; and when at last you had conquered all mankind, you 
 would wage war with stones and trees, with rivers and wild beasts, and 
 ■ attempt to subdue nature." 
 
 - Another description of title has been more than once relied'on. Without 
 arrogating any great pretensions to knowledge of the law, in any of its varied 
 regions, I confess myself profoundly unacquainted with the laws of desti- 
 ny. It has no laws ; it never had them. It was in the dark forebodings 
 of an ancient mythology supposed to be the inexplicable doom of men and 
 nations. Blind and ignorant at all times, its decrees were for the most 
 part cruel and wicked. Side by side with the Furies, Alecto and her 
 hateful sisters, the Fates dispensed gifts and sufferings with indiscriminat- 
 ing hand. They appeared again in the halls of Odin, administering 
 draughts of blood in cups of human skulls. They yielded to the benignant 
 providence of a better fate ; and have been occasionally revived in a na- 
 tional assembly, under the assumed garb of a Goddess of Reason, or in 
 another hemisphere seated in the car of Juggernaut. Never may they find 
 altars or votaries in the halls of American legislation. 
 
 While investigating the merits of disputed questions, it should be our 
 first endeavor to prevent interest and passion from inducing us to deceive 
 ourselves. We have rights in Oregon — rights which, at every hazard, 
 
 must be upheld. But it is not by giving to them a name or a character 
 beyond their true deserts that in their integrity they are to be maintained.