Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

"This pretension to the Columbia is an encroachment upon our rights and possession. It is a continuation of the encroachments which Great Britain systematically practises upon us. Diplomacy and audacity carry her through, and gain her position after position upon our borders. It is in vain that the treaty of 1783 gave us a safe military frontier. We have been losing it ever since the late war, and are still losing it. The commission under the treaty of Ghent took from us the islands of Grand Menan, Campo Bello, and Indian Island, on the coast of Maine, and which command the bays of Fundy and Passamaquoddy. Those islands belonged to us by the treaty of peace, and by the laws of God and nature; for they are on our coast, and within wading distance of it. Can we not wade to these islands? [Looking at senator Williams, who answered, 'We can wade to one of them.'] Yes, wade to it! And yet the British worked them out of us; and now can wade to us, and command our land, as well as our water. By these acquisitions, and those of the late treaty, the Bay of Fundy will become a great naval station to overawe and scourge our whole coast, from Maine to Florida. Under the same commission of the Ghent treaty, she got from us the island of Boisblanc, in the mouth of the Detroit River, and which commands that river and the entrance into Lake Erie. It was ours under the treaty of 1783; it was taken from us by diplomacy. And now an American ship must pass between the mouths of two sets of British batteries – one on Boisblanc; the other directly opposite, at Malden; and the two batteries within three or four hundred yards of each other. Am I right as to the distance? [Looking at Senator Woodbridge, who answered, 'The distance is three hundred yards.'] Then comes the late treaty, which takes from us (for I will say nothing of what the award gave up beyond the St. John) the mountain frontier, 3,000 feet in height, 150 miles long, approaching Quebec and the St. Lawrence, and, in the language of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, 'commanding all their communications, and commanding and overawing Quebec itself.' This we have given up; and, in doing so, have given up our military advantages in that quarter, and placed them in the hands of Great Britain, to be used against ourselves in future wars. The boundary between the Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods has been altered by the late treaty, and subjected us to another encroachment, and to the loss of a military advantage, which Great Britain gains. To say nothing about Pigeon River as being or not being the 'long lake' of the treaty of 1783; to say nothing of that, there are yet two routes commencing in that stream – one bearing far to the south, and forming the large island called 'Hunter's.' By the old boundary the line went the northern route; by the new, it goes to the south; giving to the British a large scope of our territory (which is of no great value), but giving them, also, the exclusive possession of the old route, the best route, and the one commanding the Indians, which is of great importance. The encroachment now attempted upon the Columbia, is but a continuation of this system of encroachments which is kept up against us, and which, until 1818, labored even to get the navigation of the Mississippi, by laboring to make the line from the Lake of the Woods reach its head spring. If Great Britain had succeeded in getting this line to touch the Mississippi, she was then to claim the navigation of the river, under the law of nations, contrary to her doctrine in the case of the people of Maine and the river St. John. The line of the 49th parallel of north latitude is another instance of her encroaching policy; it has been mutilated by the persevering efforts of British diplomacy; and the breaking of that line was immediately followed by the most daring of all her encroachments – that of the Columbia River."

The strength of the bill was tested by a motion to strike out the land-donation clause, which failed by a vote of 24 to 22. The bill was then passed by the same vote – the yeas and nays being:

"Yeas. – Messrs. Allen, Benton, Buchanan, Clayton, Fulton, Henderson, King, Linn, McRoberts, Mangum, Merrick, Phelps, Sevier, Smith of Connecticut, Smith of Indiana, Sturgeon, Tappan, Walker, White, Wilcox, Williams, Woodbury, Wright, Young."

"Nays. – Messrs. Archer, Bagby, Barrow, Bates, Bayard, Berrien, Calhoun, Choate, Conrad, Crafts, Dayton, Evans, Graham, Huntington, McDuffie, Miller, Porter, Rives, Simmons, Sprague, Tallmadge, Woodbridge."

The bill went to the House, where it remained unacted upon during the session; but the effect intended by it was fully produced. The vote of the Senate was sufficient encouragement to the enterprising people of the West. Emigration increased. An American settlement grew up at the mouth of the Columbia. Conventional agreements among themselves answered the purpose of laws. A colony was planted – had planted itself – and did not intend to retire from its position – and did not. It remained and grew; and that colony of self-impulsion, without the aid of government, and in spite of all its blunders, saved the Territory of Oregon to the United States: one of the many events which show how little the wisdom of government has to do with great events which fix the fate of countries.

Connected with this emigration, and auxiliary to it, was the first expedition of Lieutenant Frémont to the Rocky Mountains, and undertaken and completed in the summer of 1842 – upon its outside view the conception of the government, but in fact conceived without its knowledge, and executed upon solicited orders, of which the design was unknown. Lieutenant Frémont was a young officer, appointed in the topographical corps from the class of citizens by President Jackson upon the recommendation of Mr. Poinsett, Secretary at War. He did not enter the army through the gate of West Point, and was considered an intrusive officer by the graduates of that institution. Having, before his appointment, assisted for two years the learned astronomer, Mr. Nicollet, in his great survey of the country between the Missouri and Mississippi, his mind was trained to such labor; and instead of hunting comfortable berths about the towns and villages, he solicited employment in the vast regions beyond the Mississippi. Col. Abert, the chief of the corps, gave him an order to go to the frontier beyond the Mississippi. That order did not come up to his views. After receiving it he carried it back, and got it altered, and the Rocky Mountains inserted as an object of his exploration, and the South Pass in those mountains named as a particular point to be examined, and its position fixed by him. It was through this Pass that the Oregon emigration crossed the mountains, and the exploration of Lieutenant Frémont had the double effect of fixing an important point in the line of the emigrants' travel, and giving them encouragement from the apparent interest which the government took in their enterprise. At the same time the government, that is, the executive administration, knew nothing about it. The design was conceived by the young lieutenant: the order for its execution was obtained, upon solicitation, from his immediate chief – importing, of course, to be done by his order, but an order which had its conception elsewhere.

CHAPTER CXIII.

LIEUTENANT FREMONT'S FIRST EXPEDITION: SPEECH, AND MOTION OF SENATOR LINN

A communication was received from the War Department, in answer to a call heretofore made for the report of Lieutenant Frémont's expedition to the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Linn moved that it be printed for the use of the Senate; and also that one thousand extra copies be printed.

"In support of his motion," Mr. L. said, "that in the course of the last summer a very interesting expedition had been undertaken to the Rocky Mountains, ordered by Col. Abert, chief of the Topographical Bureau, with the sanction of the Secretary at War, and executed by Lieutenant Frémont of the topographical engineers. The object of the expedition was to examine and report upon the rivers and country between the frontiers of Missouri and the base of the Rocky Mountains; and especially to examine the character, and ascertain the latitude and longitude of the South Pass, the great crossing place to these mountains on the way to the Oregon. All the objects of the expedition have been accomplished, and in a way to be beneficial to science, and instructive to the general reader, as well as useful to the government.

"Supplied with the best astronomical and barometrical instruments, well qualified to use them, and accompanied by twenty-five voyageurs, enlisted for the purpose at St. Louis, and trained to all the hardships and dangers of the prairies and the mountains, Mr. Frémont left the mouth of the Kansas, on the frontiers of Missouri, on the 10th of June; and, in the almost incredibly short space of four months returned to the same point, without an accident to a man, and with a vast mass of useful observations, and many hundred specimens in botany and geology.

"In executing his instructions, Mr. Frémont proceeded up the Kansas River far enough to ascertain its character, and then crossed over to the Great Platte, and pursued that river to its source in the mountains, where the Sweet Water (a head branch of the Platte) issues from the neighborhood of the South Pass. He reached the Pass on the 8th of August, and describes it as a wide and low depression of the mountains, where the ascent is as easy as that of the hill on which this Capitol stands, and where a plainly beaten wagon road leads to the Oregon through the valley of Lewis's River, a fork of the Columbia. He went through the Pass, and saw the head-waters of the Colorado, of the Gulf of California; and, leaving the valleys to indulge a laudable curiosity and to make some useful observations, and attended by four of his men, he climbed the loftiest peak of the Rocky Mountains, until then untrodden by any known human being; and, on the 15th of August, looked down upon ice and snow some thousand feet below, and traced in the distance the valleys of the rivers which, taking their rise in the same elevated ridge, flow in opposite directions to the Pacific Ocean and to the Mississippi. From that ultimate point he returned by the valley of the Great Platte, following the stream in its whole course, and solving all questions in relation to its navigability, and the character of the country through which it flows.

"Over the whole course of this extended route, barometrical observations were made by Mr. Frémont, to ascertain elevations both of the plains and of the mountains; astronomical observations were taken, to ascertain latitudes and longitudes; the face of the country was marked as arable or sterile; the facility of travelling, and the practicability of routes, noted; the grand features of nature described, and some presented in drawings; military positions indicated; and a large contribution to geology and botany was made in the varieties of plants, flowers, shrubs, trees, and grasses, and rocks and earths, which were enumerated. Drawings of some grand and striking points, and a map of the whole route, illustrate the report, and facilitate the understanding of its details. Eight carts, drawn by two mules each, accompanied the expedition; a fact which attests the facility of travelling in this vast region. Herds of buffaloes furnished subsistence to the men; a short, nutritious grass, sustained the horses and mules. Two boys (one of twelve years of age, the other of eighteen), besides the enlisted men, accompanied the expedition, and took their share of its hardships; which proves that boys, as well as men, are able to traverse the country to the Rocky Mountains.

"The result of all his observations Mr. Frémont had condensed into a brief report – enough to make a document of ninety or one hundred pages; and believing that this document would be of general interest to the whole country, and beneficial to science, as well as useful to the government, I move the printing of the extra number which has been named.

"In making this motion, and in bringing this report to the notice of the Senate, I take a great pleasure in noticing the activity and importance of the Topographical Bureau. Under its skilful and vigilant head [Colonel Abert], numerous valuable and incessant surveys are made; and a mass of information collected of the highest importance to the country generally, as well as to the military branch of the public service. This report proves conclusively that the country, for several hundred miles from the frontier of Missouri, is exceedingly beautiful and fertile; alternate woodland and prairie, and certain portions well supplied with water. It also proves that the valley of the river Platte has a very rich soil, affording great facilities for emigrants to the west of the Rocky Mountains.

"The printing was ordered."

CHAPTER CXIV.

OREGON COLONIZATION ACT: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH

Mr. Benton said: On one point there is unanimity on this floor; and that is, as to the title to the country in question. All agree that the title is in the United States. On another point there is division; and that is, on the point of giving offence to England, by granting the land to our settlers which the bill proposes. On this point we divide. Some think it will offend her – some think it will not. For my part, I think she will take offence, do what we may in relation to this territory. She wants it herself, and means to quarrel for it, if she does not fight for it. I think she will take offence at our bill, and even at our discussion of it. The nation that could revive the question of impressment in 1842 – which could direct a peace mission to revive that question – the nation that can insist upon the right of search, and which was ready to go to war with us for what gentlemen call a few acres of barren ground in a frozen region – the nation that could do these things, and which has set up a claim to our territory on the western coast of our own continent, must be ripe and ready to take offence at any thing that we may do. I grant that she will take offence; but that is not the question with me. Has she a right to take offence? That is my question! and this being decided in the negative, I neither fear nor calculate consequences. I take for my rule of action the maxim of President Jackson in his controversy with France – ask nothing but what is right, submit to nothing wrong and leave the consequences to God and the country. That maxim brought us safely and honorably out of our little difficulty with France, notwithstanding the fears which so many then entertained; and it will do the same with Great Britain, in spite of our present apprehensions. Courage will keep her off, fear will bring her upon us. The assertion of our rights will command her respect; the fear to assert them will bring us her contempt. The question, then, with me, is the question of right, and not of fear! Is it right for us to make these grants on the Columbia? Has Great Britain just cause to be offended at it? These are my questions; and these being answered to my satisfaction, I go forward with the grants, and leave the consequences to follow at their pleasure.

The fear of Great Britain is pressed upon us; at the same time her pacific disposition is enforced and insisted upon. And here it seems to me, that gentlemen fall into a grievous inconsistency. While they dwell on the peaceable disposition of Great Britain, they show her ready to go to war with us for nothing, or even for our own! The northeastern boundary is called a dispute for a few acres of barren land in a frozen region, worth nothing; yet we are called upon to thank God Almighty and Daniel Webster for saving us from a war about these few frozen and barren acres. Would Great Britain have gone to war with us for these few acres? and is that a sign of her pacific temper? The Columbia is admitted on all hands to be ours; yet gentlemen fear war with Great Britain if we touch it – worthless as it is in their eyes. Is this a sign of peace? Is it a pacific disposition to go to war with us, for what is our own; and which is besides, according to their opinion, not worth a straw? Is this peaceful? If it is, I should like to know what is hostile. The late special minister is said to have come here, bearing the olive branch of peace in his hand. Granting that the olive branch was in one hand, what was in the other? Was not the war question of impressment in the other? also, the war question of search, on the coast of Africa? also, the war question of the Columbia, which he refused to include in the peace treaty? Were not these three war questions in the other hand? – to say nothing of the Caroline; for which he refused atonement; and the Creole, which he says would have occasioned the rejection of the treaty, if named in it. All these war questions were in the other hand; and the special mission, having accomplished its peace object in getting possession of the military frontiers of Maine, has adjourned all the war questions to London, where we may follow them if we please. But there is one of these subjects for which we need not go to London – the Creole, and its kindred cases. The conference of Lord Ashburton with the abolition committee of New York shows that that question need not go to London – that England means to maintain all her grounds on the subject of slaves, and that any treaty inconsistent with these grounds would be rejected. This is what he says:

"Lord Ashburton said that, when the delegation came to read his correspondence with Mr. Webster, they would see that he had taken all possible care to prevent any injury being done to the people of color; that, if he had been willing to introduce an article including cases similar to that of the Creole, his government would never have ratified it, as they will adhere to the great principles they have so long avowed and maintained; and that the friends of the slave in England would be very watchful to see that no wrong practice took place under the tenth article."

This is what his lordship said in New York, and which shows that it was not want of instructions to act on the Creole case, as alleged in Mr. Webster's correspondence, but want of inclination in the British government to settle the case. The treaty would have been rejected, if the Creole case had been named in it; and if we had had a protocol showing that fact, I presume the important note of Lord Ashburton would have stood for as little in the eyes of other senators as it did in mine, and that the treaty would have found but few supporters. The Creole case would not be admitted into the treaty; and what was put in it, is to give the friends of the slaves in England a right to watch us, and to correct our wrong practices under the treaty! This is what the protocol after the treaty informs us; and if we had had a protocol before it, it is probable that there would have been no occasion for this conference with the New York abolitionists. Be that as it may, the peace mission, with its olive branch in one hand, brought a budget of war questions in the other, and has carried them all back to London, to become the subject of future negotiations. All these subjects are pregnant with danger. One of them will force itself upon us in five years – the search question – which we have purchased off for a time; and when the purchase is out we must purchase again, or submit to be searched, or resist with arms. I repeat it: the pacific England has a budget of war questions now in reserve for us, and that we cannot escape them by fearing war. Neither nations nor individuals ever escaped danger by fearing it. They must face it, and defy it. An abandonment of a right, for fear of bringing on an attack, instead of keeping it off, will inevitably bring on the outrage that is dreaded.

Other objections are urged to this bill, to which I cannot agree. The distance is objected to it. It is said to be eighteen thousand miles by water (around Cape Horn), and above three thousand miles by land and water, through the continent. Granted. The very distance, by Cape Horn, was urged by me, twenty years ago, as a reason for occupying and fortifying the mouth of the Columbia. My argument was, that we had merchant ships and ships of war in the North Pacific Ocean; that these vessels were twenty thousand miles from an Atlantic port; that a port on the western coast of America was indispensable to their safety; and that it would be suicidal in us to abandon the port we have there to any power, and especially to the most formidable and domineering naval power which the world ever saw. And I instanced the case of Commodore Porter, his prizes lost, and his own ship eventually captured in a neutral port, because we had no port of our own to receive and shelter him. The twenty thousand miles distance, and dangerous and tempestuous cape to be doubled, were with me arguments in favor of a port on the western coast of America, and, as such, urged on this floor near twenty years ago. The distance through the continent is also objected to. It is said to exceed three thousand miles. Granted. But it is further than that to Africa, where we propose to build up a colony of negroes out of our recaptured Africans. Our eighty-gun fleet is to carry her intercepted slaves to Liberia: so says the correspondence of the naval captains (Bell and Paine) with Mr. Webster. Hunting in couples with the British, at an expense of money (to say nothing of the loss of lives and ships) of six hundred thousand dollars per annum, to recapture kidnapped negroes, we are to carry them to Liberia, and build up a black colony there, four thousand miles from us, while the Columbia is too far off for a white colony! The English are to carry their redeemed captives to Jamaica, and make apprentices of them for life. We are to carry ours to Liberia; and then we must go to Liberia to protect and defend them. Liberia is four thousand miles distant, and not objected to on account of the distance; the Columbia is not so far, and distance becomes a formidable objection.

The expense is brought forward as another objection, and repeated, notwithstanding the decisive answer it has received from my colleague. He has shown that it is but a fraction of the expense of the African squadron; that this squadron is the one-twelfth part of our whole naval establishment, which is to cost us seven millions of dollars per annum, and that the annual cost of the squadron must be near six hundred thousand dollars, and its expense for five years three millions. For the forts in the Oregon – forts which are only to be stockades and block-houses, for security against the Indians – for these forts, only one hundred thousand dollars is appropriated; being the sixth part of the annual expense, and the thirtieth part of the whole expense, of the African fleet. Thus the objection of expense becomes futile and ridiculous. But why this everlasting objection of expense to every thing western? Our dragoons dismounted, because, they say, horses are too expensive. The western rivers unimproved, on account of the expense. No western armory, because of the expense. Yet hundreds of thousands, and millions, for the African squadron!

Another great objection to the bill is the land clause – the grants of land to the settler, his wife, and his children. Gentlemen say they will vote for the bill if that clause is stricken out; and I say, I will vote against it if that clause is stricken out. It is, in fact, the whole strength and essence of the bill. Without these grants, the bill will be worth nothing. Nobody will go three thousand miles to settle a new country, unless he gets land by it. The whole power of the bill is in this clause; and if it is stricken out, the friends of the bill will give it up. They will give it up now, and wait for the next Congress, when the full representation of the people, under the new census, will be in power, and when a more auspicious result might be expected.

Time is invoked, as the agent that is to help us. Gentlemen object to the present time, refer us to the future, and beg us to wait, and rely upon TIME and NEGOTIATIONS to accomplish all our wishes. Alas! time and negotiation have been fatal agents to us, in all our discussions with Great Britain. Time has been constantly working for her, and against us. She now has the exclusive possession of the Columbia; and all she wants is time, to ripen her possession into title. For above twenty years – from the time of Dr. Floyd's bill, in 1820, down to the present moment – the present time, for vindicating our rights on the Columbia, has been constantly objected to; and we were bidden to wait. Well, we have waited: and what have we got by it? Insult and defiance! – a declaration from the British ministers that large British interests have grown up on the Columbia during this time, which they will protect! – and a flat refusal from the olive-branch minister to include this question among those which his peaceful mission was to settle! No, sir; time and negotiation have been bad agents for us, in our controversies with Great Britain. They have just lost us the military frontiers of Maine, which we had held for sixty years; and the trading frontier of the Northwest, which we had held for the same time. Sixty years' possession, and eight treaties, secured these ancient and valuable boundaries: one negotiation, and a few days of time, have taken them from us! And so it may be again. The Webster treaty of 1842 has obliterated the great boundaries of 1783 – placed the British, their fur company and their Indians, within our ancient limits: and I, for one, want no more treaties from the hand which is always seen on the side of the British. I go now for vindicating our rights on the Columbia; and, as the first step towards it, passing this bill, and making these grants of land, which will soon place the thirty or forty thousand rifles beyond the Rocky Mountains, which will be our effective negotiators.