Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

In all this Mr. Haywood spoke the sentiments of the President, personally confided to him, and to prepare the way for his action in conformity to them. The extreme party suspected this, and had their plan arranged to storm it down, and to force the President to repulse the British offer of 49, if now it should be made, as he had been stormed into a withdrawal of his own offer of that line by his own newspapers and party in the recess of Congress. This task fell upon Mr. Hannegan of Indiana, and Mr. William Allen of Ohio, whose temperaments were better adapted to the work than that of their chief, Mr. Cass. Mr. Hannegan began:

"I must apologize to the Senate for obtruding myself upon your attention at this advanced period of the day, particularly as I have already occupied your attention on several occasions in the course of this debate. My remarks now, however, will be very brief. Before I proceed to make any reply to the speech of the senator from North Carolina – the most extraordinary speech which I have ever listened to in the whole course of my life – I desire, through the Vice President, to put a question to him, which I have committed to writing. It is this: I ask him if he has the authority of the President, directly or indirectly, for saying to the Senate that it is his (the President's) wish to terminate the Oregon question by compromising with Great Britain on the 49th degree of north latitude?"

To this categorical demand, Mr. Haywood replied that it would be unwise and impolitic for the President to authorize any senator to make such a declaration as that implied in the question of Mr. Hannegan. Mr. Allen, of Ohio, then took up the demand for the answer, and said:

"I put the question, and demand an answer to it as a public right. The senator here has assumed to speak for the President. His speech goes to the world; and I demand, as a public right, that he answer the question; and if he won't answer it, I stand ready to deny that he has expressed the views of the President."

Mr. Westcott of Florida, called Mr. Allen to order for asking for the opinions of the President through a senator. The President could only communicate his opinions to the Senate responsibly, by message. It would be a breach of privilege for any senator to undertake to report such opinions, and consequently a breach of order for any senator to call for them. In this Mr. Westcott was right, but the call to order did not prevent Mr. Allen from renewing his demand:

"I do not demand an answer as any personal right at all. I demand it as a public right. When a senator assumes to speak for the President, every senator possesses a public right to demand his authority for so doing. An avowal has been made that he is the exponent of the views of the President, upon a great national question. He has assumed to be that exponent. And I ask him whether he has the authority of the President for the assumption?"

Mr. Westcott renewed his call to order, but no question was taken upon the call, which must have been decided against Mr. Allen. Mr. Haywood said, he denied the right of any senator to put questions to him in that way, and said he had not assumed to speak by the authority of the President. Then, said Mr. Allen, the senator takes back his speech. Mr. Haywood: "Not at all; but I am glad to see my speech takes." Mr. Allen: "With the British." Mr. Hannegan then resumed:

"I do not deem it material whether the senator from North Carolina gives a direct answer to my question or not. It is entirely immaterial. He assumes – no, he says there is no assumption about it – that there is no meaning in language, no truth in man, if the President any where commits himself to 54° 40', as his flattering friends assume for him. Now, sir, there is no truth in man, there is no meaning in language, if the President is not committed to 54° 40' in as strong language as that which makes up the Holy Book. From a period antecedent to that in which he became the nominee of the Baltimore convention, down to this moment, to all the world he stands committed for 54° 40'. I go back to his declaration made in 1844, to a committee of citizens of Cincinnati, who addressed him in relation to the annexation of Texas, and he there uses this language being then before the country as the democratic candidate for the chair which he now fills.

"Mr. Crittenden. What is the date?

"Mr. Hannegan. It is dated the 23d of April.

[Mr. H. here read an extract from Mr. Polk's letter to the committee of the citizens of Cincinnati.]"

Mr. Hannegan then went on to quote from the President's message – the annual message at the commencement of the session – to show that, in withdrawing his proposition for a boundary on the 49th parallel, he had taken a position against ever resuming it. He read this paragraph:

"The extraordinary and wholly inadmissible demands of the British Government, and the rejection of the proposition made in deference alone to what had been done by my predecessors, and the implied obligation which their acts seemed to impose, afford satisfactory evidence that no compromise which the United States ought to accept can be effected. With this conviction, the proposition of compromise which had been made and rejected was, by my direction, subsequently withdrawn, and our title to the whole Oregon Territory asserted, and, as is believed, maintained by irrefragable facts and arguments."

Having read this paragraph, Mr. Hannegan proceeded to reply to it; and exclaimed —

"What does the President here claim? Up to 54° 40' – every inch of it. He has asserted that claim, and is, as he says, sustained by 'irrefragable facts and arguments.' But this is not all: I hold that the language of the Secretary of State is the language of the President of the United States; and has not Mr. Buchanan, in his last communication to Mr. Pakenham, named 54° 40' in so many words? He has. The President adopts this language as his own. He plants himself on 54° 40'."

Mr. Hannegan then proceeded to plant the whole democratic party upon the line of 54-40, and to show that Oregon to that extent, and Texas to her whole extent, were the watchwords of the party in the presidential election – that both were to be carried together; and Texas having been gained, Oregon, without treachery, could not be abandoned.

"The democratic party is thus bound to the whole of Oregon – every foot of it; and let the senator rise in his place who will tell me in what quarter of this Union – in what assembly of democrats in this Union, pending the presidential election, the names of Texas and Oregon did not fly together, side by side, on the democratic banners. Every where they were twins – every where they were united. Does the senator from North Carolina suppose that he, with his appeals to the democracy, can blind our eyes, as he thinks he tickled our ears? He is mistaken. 'Texas and Oregon' cannot be divided; they dwell together in the American heart. Even in Texas, I have been told the flag of the lone star had inscribed on it the name of Oregon. Then, it was all Oregon. Now, when you have got Texas, it means just so much of Oregon as you in your kindness and condescension think proper to give us. You little know us, if you think the mighty West will be trodden on in this way."

Mr. Hannegan then undertook to disclaim for the President the sentiments attributed to him by Mr. Haywood, and to pronounce an anathema upon him if the attribution was right.

"The senator in his defence of the President, put language into his mouth which I undertake to say the President will repudiate, and I am not the President's champion. I wish not to be his champion. I would not be the champion of power. I defend the right, and the right only. But, for the President, I deny the intentions which the senator from North Carolina attributes to him – intentions, which, if really entertained by him, would make him an infamous man – ay, an infamous man. He [Mr. Haywood] told the Senate yesterday – unless I grossly misunderstood him, along with several friends around me – 'that the President had occasionally stickings-in, parenthetically, to gratify – what? – the ultraisms of the country and of party; whilst he reposed in the White House with no intentions of carrying out these parenthetical stickings-in.' In plain words, he represents the President as parenthetically sticking in a few hollow and false words to cajole the 'ultraisms of the country?' What is this, need I ask, but charging upon the President conduct the most vile and infamous? If this allegation be true, these intentions of the President must sooner or later come to light, and when brought to light, what must follow but irretrievable disgrace? So long as one human eye remains to linger on the page of history, the story of his abasement will be read, sending him and his name together to an infamy so profound, a damnation so deep, that the hand of resurrection will never be able to drag him forth."

Mr. Mangum called Mr. Hannegan to order: Mr. Haywood desired that he might be permitted to proceed, which he did, disclaiming all disrespect to Mr. Haywood, and concluded with saying; that, "so far as the whole tone, spirit, and meaning of the remarks of the senator from North Carolina is concerned, if they speak the language of James K. Polk, then James K. Polk has spoken words of falsehood with the tongue of a serpent."

Mr. Reverdy Johnson came to the relief of the President and Mr. Haywood in a temperate and well-considered speech, in which he showed he had had great apprehension of war – that this apprehension was becoming less, and that he deemed it probable, and right and honorable in itself, that the President should meet the British on the line of 49 if they should come to it; and that line would save the territorial rights of the United States, and the peace and honor of the country.

"It is with unaffected embarrassment I rise to address the Senate on the subject now under consideration; but its great importance and the momentous issues involved in its final settlement are such as compel me, notwithstanding my distrust of my own ability to be useful to my country, to make the attempt. We have all felt that, at one time at least (I trust that time is now past), we were in imminent danger of war. From the moment the President of the United States deemed it right and becoming, in the outset of his official career, to announce to the world that our title to Oregon was clear and unquestionable, down to the period of his message to Congress in December last, when he reiterated the declaration, I could not see how it was possible that war should be averted. That apprehension was rendered much more intense from the character of the debates elsewhere, as well as from the speeches of some of the President's political friends within this chamber. I could not but listen with alarm and dismay to what fell from the very distinguished and experienced senator from Michigan (Mr. Cass) at an early period of this debate; to what I heard from the senator from Indiana (Mr. Hannegan); and, above all, to what was said by the senator from Ohio (Mr. Allen), the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, who, in my simplicity, I supposed must necessarily be apprised of the views of the government in regard to the foreign concerns of the country. Supposing the condition of the country to be what it was represented to be by each and all of the three senators, I could not imagine how it could be possible that the most direful of all human calamities, war, was to be avoided; and I was accordingly prepared to say, on the hypothesis of the fact assumed by the senator from Michigan, that war was inevitable; – to use his own paraphrase of his own term, which, it would appear, has got out of favor with himself – 'war must come.'

"What did they represent to be the condition of the nation? I speak now more particularly of the last two senators, from Indiana and Ohio. They told us that negotiation was at an end; that we were now thrown back on our original rights; that, by these original rights, as had been officially announced, our title to the whole country was beyond all question: and that the national honor must be forfeited, if that title should not be maintained by force of arms. I felt that he must have been a careless and a profitless reader of English history who could indulge the hope that, if such was to be the course and conduct of this country, war was not inevitable. Then, in addition to my own opinion, when I heard it admitted by the honorable senator from Michigan, with that perfect candor which always distinguishes him on this floor, that, in his opinion, England would never recede, I felt that war was inevitable.

"I now rejoice in hoping and believing, from what I have subsequently heard, that the fears of the Senate, as well as my own apprehensions, were, as I think, unfounded. Since then, the statesmanlike view taken by the senator from New York who first addressed us (Mr. Dix), and by the senator from Missouri (Mr. Benton), to whom this whole question is as familiar as a household term – and the spirit of peace which breathed in their every word – have fully satisfied me that, so far as depends upon them, a fair and liberal compromise of our difficulties would not be in want of willing and zealous advocates.

"And this hope has been yet more strengthened by the recent speech of the senator from North Carolina (Mr. Haywood), not now in his place. Knowing, as I thought I did, the intimate relations, both personal and political, which that senator bore to the Chief Magistrate – knowing, too, that, as chairman of the Committee on Commerce, it was his special duty to become informed in regard to all matters having a bearing on the foreign relations of the country; I did not doubt, and I do not now doubt, that in every thing he said as to the determination of the President to accept, if offered by the British government, the same terms which he had himself proposed in July last, the reasonable inference was, that such an offer, if made, would be accepted. I do not mean to say, because I did not so understand the senator, that, in addressing this body with regard to the opinions or purposes of the President, he spoke by any express or delegated authority. But I do mean to say, that I have no doubt, from his knowledge of the general views of the President, as expressed in his message, taken in connection with certain omissions on the part of the Executive, that when he announced to us that the President would feel himself in honor bound to accept his own offer, if now reciprocated by Great Britain, he spoke that which he knew to be true. And this opinion was yet more strengthened and confirmed by what I found to be the effect of his speech on the two senators I have named – the leaders, if they will permit me to call them so, of the ultraists on this subject – I mean the senator from Indiana (Mr. Hannegan), and the senator from Ohio (Mr. Allen). He was an undiscerning witness of the scene which took place in this chamber immediately after the speech of the senator from North Carolina (Mr. Haywood), who must not have seen that those two senators had consulted together with the view of ascertaining how far the senator from North Carolina spoke by authority, and that the result of their consultation was a determination to catechise that senator; and the better to avoid all mistake, that they reduced their interrogatory to writing, in order that it might be propounded to him by the senator from Indiana (Mr. Hannegan); and if it was not answered, that it was then to be held as constructively answered by the senator from Ohio (Mr. Allen). What the result of the manœuvre was I leave it to the Senate to decide; but this I will venture to say, that in the keen encounter of wits, to which their colloquy led, the two senators who commenced it got rather the worst of the contest. My hope and belief has been yet further strengthened by what has NOT since happened; I mean my belief in the pacific views of the Chief Magistrate. The speech of the senator from North Carolina was made on Thursday, and though a week has nearly elapsed since that time, notwithstanding the anxious solicitude of both those senators, and their evident desire to set the public right on that subject, we have, from that day to this, heard from neither of the gentlemen the slightest intimation that the construction given to the message by the senator from North Carolina was not a true one."

Mr. Johnson continued his speech on the merits of the question – the true line which should divide the British and American possessions beyond the Rocky Mountains; and placed it on the parallel of 49° according to the treaty of Utrecht, and in conformity with the opinions and diplomatic instructions of Mr. Jefferson, who had acquired Louisiana and sent an expedition of discovery to the Pacific Ocean, and had well studied the whole question of our territorial rights in that quarter. Mr. Benton did not speak in this incidental debate, but he knew that Mr. Haywood spoke with a knowledge of the President's sentiments, and according to his wishes, and to prepare the country for a treaty upon 49°. He knew this, because he was in consultation with the President, and was to speak for the same purpose, and was urged by him to speak immediately in consequence of the attempt to crush Mr. Haywood – the first of his friends who had given any intimation of his views. Mr. Benton, therefore, at an early day, spoke at large upon the question when it took another form – that of a bill to establish a territorial government for Oregon; some extracts from which constitute the next chapter.

CHAPTER CLVIII.

OREGON TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT: BOUNDARIES AND HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY: FRAZER'S RIVER: TREATY OF UTRECHT: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACTS

Mr. Benton then addressed the Senate. Mr. President, the bill before the Senate proposes to extend the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the United States over all our territories west of the Rocky Mountains, without saying what is the extent and what are the limits of this territory. This is wrong, in my opinion. We ought to define the limits within which our agents are to do such acts as this bill contemplates, otherwise we commit to them the solution of questions which we find too hard for ourselves. This indefinite extension of authority, in a case which requires the utmost precision, forces me to speak, and to give my opinion of the true extent of our territories beyond the Rocky Mountains. I have delayed doing this during the whole session, not from any desire to conceal my opinions (which, in fact, were told to all that asked for them), but because I thought it the business of negotiation, not of legislation, to settle these boundaries. I waited for negotiation: but negotiation lags, while events go forward; and now we are in the process of acting upon measures, upon the adoption of which it may no longer be in the power either of negotiation or of legislation to control the events to which they may give rise. The bill before us is without definition of the territory to be occupied. And why this vagueness in a case requiring the utmost precision? Why not define the boundaries of these territories? Precisely because we do not know them! And this presents a case which requires me to wait no longer for negotiation, but to come forward with my own opinions, and to do what I can to prevent the evils of vague and indefinite legislation. My object will be to show, if I can, the true extent and nature of our territorial claims beyond the Rocky Mountains, with a view to just and wise decisions; and, in doing so, I shall endeavor to act upon the great maxim, "Ask nothing but what is right – submit to nothing that is wrong."

It is my ungracious task, in attempting to act upon this maxim, to commence by exposing error at home, and endeavoring to clear up some great mistakes under which the public mind has labored.

It has been assumed for two years, and the assumption has been made the cause of all the Oregon excitement of the country, that we have a dividing line with Russia, made so by the convention of 1824, along the parallel of 54° 40', from the sea to the Rocky Mountains, up to which our title is good. This is a great mistake. No such line was ever established; and so far as proposed and discussed, it was proposed and discussed as a northern British, and not as a northern American line. The public treaties will prove there is no such line; documents will prove that, so far as 54° 40', from the sea to the mountains, was ever proposed as a northern boundary for any power, it was proposed by us for the British, and not for ourselves.

To make myself intelligible in what I shall say on this point, it is necessary to go back to the epoch of the Russian convention of 1824, and to recall the recollection of the circumstances out of which that convention grew. The circumstances were these: In the year 1821 the Emperor Alexander, acting upon a leading idea of Russian policy (in relation to the North Pacific Ocean) from the time of Peter the Great, undertook to treat that ocean as a close sea, and to exercise municipal authority over a great extent of its shores and waters. In September of that year, the emperor issued a decree, bottomed upon this pretension, assuming exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction over both shores of the North Pacific Ocean, and over the high seas, in front of each coast, to the extent of one hundred Italian miles, from Behring's Straits down to latitude fifty-one, on the American coast, and to forty-five on the Asiatic; and denouncing the penalties of confiscation upon all ships, of whatsoever nation that should approach the coasts within the interdicted distances. This was a very startling decree. Coming from a feeble nation, it would have been smiled at; coming from Russia, it gave uneasiness to all nations.

Great Britain and the United States, as having the largest commerce in the North Pacific Ocean, and as having large territorial claims on the north-west coast of America, were the first to take the alarm, and to send remonstrances to St. Petersburg against the formidable ukase. They found themselves suddenly thrown together, and standing side by side in this new and portentous contest with Russia. They remonstrated in concert, and here the wise and pacific conduct of the Emperor Alexander displayed itself in the most prompt and honorable manner. He immediately suspended the ukase (which, in fact, had remained without execution), and invited the United States and Great Britain to unite with Russia in a convention to settle amicably, and in a spirit of mutual convenience, all the questions between them, and especially their respective territorial claims on the north-west coast of America. This magnanimous proposition was immediately met by the two powers in a corresponding spirit; and, the ukase being voluntarily relinquished by the emperor, a convention was quickly signed by Russia with each power, settling, so far as Russia was concerned, with each, all their territorial claims in North-west America. The Emperor Alexander had proposed that it should be a joint convention of the three powers – a tripartite convention – settling the claims of each and of all at the same time; and if this wise suggestion had been followed, all the subsequent and all the present difficulties between the United States and Great Britain, with respect to this territory, would have been entirely avoided. But it was not followed: an act of our own prevented it. After Great Britain had consented, the non-colonization principle – the principle of non-colonization in America by any European power – was promulgated by our government, and for that reason Great Britain chose to treat separately with each power, and so it was done.

Great Britain and the United States treated separately with Russia, and with each other; and each came to agreements with Russia, but to none among themselves. The agreements with Russia were contained in two conventions signed nearly at the same time, and nearly in the same words, limiting the territorial claim of Russia to 54° 40', confining her to the coasts and islands, and leaving the continent, out to the Rocky Mountains, to be divided between the United States and Great Britain, by an agreement between themselves. The emperor finished up his own business and quit the concern. In fact, it would seem, from the promptitude, moderation, and fairness with which he adjusted all differences both with the United States and Great Britain, that his only object of issuing the alarming ukase of 1821 was to bring those powers to a settlement; acting upon the homely, but wise maxim, that short settlements make long friends.