An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day, Part 5

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1014

USA > Idaho > An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day > Part 5

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

At this time England made absolutely no pre-

HISTORY OF IDAHO.

tense to territorial or even commercial rights on the Pacific coast, and none on the American con- tinent anywhere except on the Atlantic slope from Charleston to Penobscot northward, and inland to the watershed of the Alleghanies.

Thus stood the pretended foreign ownership of the New World at the conclusion of the treaty of Ryswick in 1697. The intelligent reader can- not but have observed how shadowy were these pretensions, and how vague in territorial limits, but they were the basis of claims that afterward became more tangible and real, and in their ulti- mate settlement cost long continued struggles of the 'ablest diplomats of the world, and were no mean elements in setting nations in array of arms against each other.

Though it would be deeply interesting to trace the movements of the struggling forces that sought for mastery on this "Armageddon" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, our limits preclude much more than the merest out- line, and this confined to what relates to the Oregon country, of which Idaho was an in- tegral part. In doing this we must refer once more to the edict of Pope Alexander VI., who, on the 4th of May, 1493, im- mediately after the return of Columbus from his voyage of discovery, published a bull in which he drew an imaginary line from the north pole to the south, a hundred leagues west of the Azores, assigning to the Spanish all that lay west of that boundary, and confirming to Portugal all that lay east of it.

While the act of Alexander VI. had little au- thority, it did have a great influence on those to whom it was made, and Spain and Portugal, in the glory of discovery and in the pompous "gift" of the Pope, ruled the splendid hour. Such was the superstitious awe with which the pretensions of the Pope were then regarded in Europe that this edict did very much to control the actions of all the powers of that continent in regard to. the New World. Of course very little was known of the geography of America at this time, and there could really have been no prescience of the great part it was to play in the future history of the world. Something, therefore, of the in- difference with which these pretences were viewed must be set down to this fact.

Through the maze of boundary lines, fixed on

imaginary maps by the negotiations of contend- ing parties, rather than run by the compass on the solid earth, and which involved to a greater or less extent the ultimate title to the Oregon country, we shall not attempt to lead our read- ers. It is sufficient to say that France and England began to crowd Spain southwardly and westwardly on the eastern slope of the con- tinent.

France had established some mythical right to "the western part of Louisiana," which she se- cretly conveyed to Spain in 1762. Thirty-eight years thereafter Spain reconveyed the same to France. In 1803 France sold the same territory to the United States, and practically disappeared from the list of contestants for the possession of the empire on the western continent. Spain, however, still held Florida, but when in 1819 the United States purchased that, she also disap- peared from the same list, the rights and claims of both having passed into the hands of the United States.

It is important that we now restate the fact that the old Spanish claim, which had been ac- corded some international authority, extended on the Pacific coast from Panama to Prince William sound, and this entirely covered the Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia of to- day up to 54' 40". Presumptuous as it was, this claim became one of the most determining ele- ments in the final settlement of what is historical- ly known as the "Oregon question."

The claims of France to American territory were hardly less ambitious and retentions than those of Spain. They covered more than the size of all Europe. The treaty of Ryswick conceded these claims. But the peace of Ryswick was brief. War soon followed, and the titles to em- pire were written again by the point of the sword.

Though the parties to the struggle for the possession of the country of the Pacific north- west had changed, yet the struggle went on. Little of it was in the territory in question. It was in the plots and counterplots of European capitals, in Paris and London and St. Petersburg. It was about the tables of diplomats. Within six- teen years of Ryswick came Utrecht, when the issues of war between France and England, waged chiefly in North America, brought Anne

HISTORY OF IDAHO.

of England and Louis XIV. of France face to face in the person of their embassadors. The aged and humbled Louis XIV. gave up to Great Britain the possessions of France on the Atlantic slope, and thus yielded the morale of position to the Saxon. Thus Great Britain became rein- stated in place of France over the Hudson's Bay basin, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. But France still held the Canadas, though they were sandwiched between the northern and southern possessions of Great Britain. The grain between the upper and nether millstones could remain unbroken when the stones were whirring as eas- ily as these French provinces could remain in peace in such a position. In the struggles that followed the execution of the treaty of Utrecht, in the old world and in the new, more and more the tide of battle turned against France, in favor of England. At last the culmination of events came. In Montcalm and Wolfe the hopes, and even a large measure the destinies of France and England, were impersonated. When they looked into each other's faces at Quebec, standing at the head of their armies on that great September morn in 1759, each felt that was the morn of duty,-the morn of destiny for themselves and for their country. The issue of that day on the plains of Abraham gave each general to immor- tal fame, but it gave to England all the terri- torial treasures of France east of the Mississippi, except three small islands off the coast of New- foundland. Had France not already, by secret treaty with Spain, executed about one hundred days before the great transfer to Great Britain, alienated her Pacific coast possessions, Great Britain would have taken all, and this would so have changed the relations of things that the atlas of the world would have had an entirely dif- ferent lining. Either the whole must have gone without controversy to the United States of America at the close of the Revolution, or the title of Great Britain would have been conceded and unquestionable to all the territory between California and the Russian possessions. In either event the story of the history of this coast would have been quite another book.

With the transfer of all the claims of France and Spain to the territory on the Pacific coast to the United States, which was concluded in 1803, it would seem that there was no rightful

contestant with the United States for any portion of that territory; certainly not as far north as the 49th degree of latitude. None had appeared in the negotiations through which this transfer was made. The state of the case seems to have been this: In the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, between the English and the French, the boundary be- tween Louisiana and the British territory north of it was fixed by commissioners, appointed un- der it to run from the lake of the Woods west- ward on latitude forty-nine indefinitely. When France conveyed the territory of Louisiana, whose line had been thus fixed, to Spain in 1762, she also conveyed up to and along this same line westward, indefinitely, on to the Pacific coast. If she did not convey to the coast, it was because Spain already had a more ancient claim along the coast. When Spain, in 1800, recon- veyed the same to France, it was, in the language of the third article of the treaty: "The colony or provinces of Louisiana, with the same extent which it now has in the hands of Spain and which it had when France possessed it." As Spain had not alienated any of the territory she had received from France, of course she retro- ceded to that power all that she had received from her. When, therefore, the United States made the purchase of Louisiana she purchased clear through to the Pacific on the line of the 49th parallel if that was a part of the original cession of France to Spain, or, if not, as Spain had never ceded it to another power, then to the Spanish possessions on the Pacific. It was then either American territory, made such by the pur- chase of Louisiana in 1803, or it was still Span- ish territory. From 1800 to 1819 Spain made no changes of ownership, sovereignty or juris- diction touching Oregon. In the "Florida Treaty" of 1819 Spain ceded to the United States all her possessions north of a line beginning at the mouth of the Sabine in the Gulf of Mexico and running variously north and west until it reached the Pacific latitude forty-two, or the southern boundary of Oregon. The third article of the treaty said: "His Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States all his rights, claims and pretensions to any territory east and north of said line, and for himself, his heirs and successors renounces all claims to the said territory for- ever." Therefore, by the purchase of 1803 from

HISTORY OF IDAHO.

France and by the purchase of 1819 from Spain, the United States gained all pretended titles to sovereignty on the Pacific coast between the forty-second and the forty-ninth parallels of north latitude, the exact Pacific limits of the earlier Oregon. England at this time advanced no claim to sovereignty. As late as 1826 and 1827 her plenipotentiaries formally said: "Great Brit- ain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any por- tion of that territory. The present claim, not in respect to any part but to the whole, is limited to a right of joint occupancy in common with the other states, having the right of exclusive do- minion in abeyance." This, with the history al- ready recounted, leaves the title of the United States to the Oregon country beyond any ques- tion of power. And with this statement our reader will be willing to follow us through the story of diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Great Britain in regard to the "Oregon Question" as well as the actions of the national legislature through the quarter of the century during which Great Britain succeeded in some way in so beclouding the title of the United States to the territory in question and in bewildering our diplomats as to well nigh secure this vast Pacific empire to the crown. We shall make this story as brief as we reasonably can, and be faithful to the facts of history concerning it. The diplomacy was tedious and intricate, and the action, tentative or completed, of the Ameri- can congress, often doubtful and inconsequent ; yet a careful resume of both is a need of Idaho history.

At the precise moment the United States was negotiating the treaty with France, in Paris, for the acquisition of Louisiana, her commissioners were also negotiating one in London for the definition of the boundary line between the pos- sessions of the two countries in the northwest. The negotiators of the two treaties were ignorant of the action of the others. When the two treaties were remitted to the senate of the United States for ratification, that for the purchase of Louisiana from France was ratified without re- striction. That defining the northwest boundary was ratified with the exception of the fifth article, which fixed the boundary between the lake of the Woods to the head of the Mississippi. The treaty was sent back to London, the article ex-

punged, and then the British government refused to ratify it.

In the year 1807 another effort was made at negotiation between the two countries. A treaty was agreed upon by the commissioners, fixing the line of the forty-ninth parallel as the bound- ary between the territory of the two countries as far as their possessions might extend, but with a proviso making this provision inapplicable west of the Rocky mountains. This treaty was never ratified, Mr. Jefferson rejecting it without refer- ence to the senate.

In the treaty signed at Ghent, in 1814, the British plenipotentiaries offered the same articles in relation to the boundaries in question as were offered in 1803 and 1807, but nothing could be agreed upon; and hence no provision on the sub- ject was inserted in that treaty.

In 1818 negotiations upon this subject were renewed in London. The plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Mr. Goulborne and Mr. Robinson, for the first time in all the negotiations, gave the grounds of the pretensions of Great Britain to the country in controversy. They asserted "That former voyages, and principally that of Captain Cook, gave to Great Britain the rights derived from discovery;" and they alluded to purchases from the natives south of the Colum- bia, which they alleged to have been made prior to the American Revolution. They made no for- mal proposition for a boundary, but intimated that the Columbia river itself was the most con- venient that could be adopted, and declared that they would not agree upon any boundary that did not give England the harbor at the mouth of that river in common with the United States. Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, the American pleni- potentiaries, made a moderate, if not a timid, reply to the intimations of Great Britain. The final conclusions reached on this subject were announced in these words: "That any country claimed by either on the northwest coast of America, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years, to the subjects, citizens and vessels of the two powers, without prejudice to any claim which either party might have to any part of the country." This was the celebrated "Joint Occu- pancy" treaty.

HISTORY OF IDAHO.

It must be confessed that the adoption of this article of "joint occupancy" gave Great Britain a decided advantage in the Oregon controversy. First, it conceded that she had some sort of a claim to the country, a claim that stood for no less, even if it stood for no more, than that of the United States. Secondly, she was on the ground in much greater force in her Hudson's Bay Company and her Northwest Company, united into one of the strongest commercial cor- porations in the world, and having all the ele- ments in itself of political propagandism. With her advantages in trade, her strong semi-political occupation of the country by the Hudson's Bay Company, Messrs. Gallatin and Rush should have known that she would be able to drive all American enterprises from the country before the ten years were gone. Great Britain knew this; intended to do so, and did it. One of the wonders of the historian is that such a treaty could ever have been approved by an American president, or ratified by the senate of the United States.

The session of the congress of the United States for 1820-21 was made remarkable, espe- cially in the light of subsequent events, as the first at which any proposition was made for the occupation and settlement of the country ac- quired from France and Spain on the Columbia river. It was made by John Floyd, a representa- tive from Virginia, an ardent and very able man, and strongly imbued with western feelings. His attention was specially called to the subject by some essays of Thomas H. Benton, just then ap- pearing in the field of national politics, as sena- tor-elect from Missouri, and he resolved to bring the matter to the attention of congress. He moved for the appointment of a committee of three to consider and report on the subject. The committee was granted, more out of courtesy to an influential member of the house than with any expectation of favorable results. General Floyd was made chairman, with Thomas Metcalf, of Kentucky, and Thomas V. Swearingen, of Vir- ginia, associated with him. In six days a bill was reported, "To authorize the occupation of the Columbia river, and to regulate trade and in- tercourse with the Indian tribes thereon." They accompanied the bill with an elaborate and able report in support of the measure. The bill was

treated with parliamentary courtesy, read twice, but no decisive action was taken. But the sub- ject was before congress and the nation, and that was much gained.

In studying the reasons assigned at that time, by the committee, and by such men as Benton and Linn, why the proposed action should be taken, one is impressed with the clear foresight of their prophetic minds as to the future history of this great northwest. To the great part of their contemporaries their views were wild va- garies and their propositions extravagant and chimerical; to us they are a fulfilling and ful- filled history.

The Oregon question slumbered in congress until 1825, when Senator Benton introduced a bill into the senate to enable the president, Mr. Monroe, to possess and retain the country. The bill proposed an appropriation to enable the president to act efficiently, with army and navy. In the discussion of this bill the whole question of title to Oregon came up, and, in reply to Mr. Dickinson, of New York, who opposed the bill, Mr. Benton made a speech which entirely met all objections against the proposed action, and thoroughly answered all the pretensions of Great Britain in relation to the country. The bill did not pass, but fourteen senators voted for it. The action of Senator Benton on the bill showed very clearly that the sentiment in favor of as- serting the rights of the United States to Oregon was rapidly increasing. The ten years of joint occupancy, provided for in the treaty of 1818, were drawing toward a close, and a strong and intelligent part of our national legislators, under the lead of Senator Benton, was opposed to re- newing that provision. The reasons on which these views were based were never invalidated, but were the final grounds on which the United States won her case and secured Oregon. They were these:

The title to Oregon on the part of the United States rests on an irrefragable basis. First: The discovery of the Columbia river by Captain Gray in 1792. Second: The purchase of its territory of Louisiana, which included Oregon, from France in 1803. Third: The discovery of the Columbia river from its head to its mouth by Lewis and Clarke in 1806. Fourth: The settle- ment of Astoria in 1811. Fifth: The treaty with

HISTORY OF IDAHO.

Spain in 1819. Sixth: Contiguity of settlement and possession.

The next step in the negotiations between Great Britain and the United States was the proposition, in 1828, at the end of the ten years of joint occupancy, to renew the terms of the convention for an indefinite period, determinable on one year's notice from either party to the other. Mr. Gallatin was the sole negotiator of this renewed treaty on the part of the United States, and his work was sustained by the ad- ministration then in power,-that of John Quincy Adams. The treaty met strong opposition in the senate, led by that steadfast and intelligent friend of Oregon, Thomas H. Benton, but it was rati- fied; and thus England was indefinitely continued in her position of advantage over the United States in the territory in question.

From 1828 to 1842, "joint occupation" was the law of the land so far as the United States was concerned, while "British occupation" was the fact so far as Oregon was concerned. Every attempt of the citizens of the United States to establish commercial enterprises in the valley of the Co- lumbia had been frustrated and defeated by the Hudson's Bay Company, the potent representa- tives of British interests on the Pacific coast. Astor's great plans, conceived in a broad intel- ligence prosecuted at enormous expense, and representing American interests in Oregon, had failed. Wyeth had sunk a fortune between the Rocky mountains and the Pacific, and all other Americans who had adventured kindred enter- prises had been equally unfortunate, and after a quarter of a century of "joint occupancy" Eng- land had almost exclusive possession of Oregon.

What is known as the "Ashburton-Webster Treaty" was negotiated at Washington, in 1842, said Ashburton being the sole negotiator on the part of England, and Mr. Webster, then secretary of state under President Tyler, on the part of the United States. Said Ashburton was Mr. Alexander Baring, head of the great banking house of Baring & Brothers, and was a very astute and able man, and a finished diplomat. His mission was special, and though Mr. Fox was then the resident British minister at Wash- ington, so thoroughly did the government trust Lord Ashburton that even Mr. Fox was not joined in the mission. Neither did the president

associate any one with Mr. Webster. The Eng- lish plenipotentiary came, professedly, to settle all questions between the United States and England, a chief one of which was the "Oregon Question." The United States wished it settled. England wished it adjourned; and the wishes of England prevailed. What conferences, if any, were held between Mr. Webster and Lord Ash- burton about anything further than the adjourn- ment of this question, does not appear in any record, and about the only reference to it made of record is the statement of the president that there were some "informal conferences" in relation to it, and in his message communicating the treaty to the senate, that "there is no probability of com- ing to any agreement at present."

The treaty was ratified by the senate on the 26th day of August, 1842. After its ratification by the queen of England, and its proclamation as the supreme law of the land on the 10th day of November, England was more firmly in- trenched, so far as law was concerned, in her claims and pretensions to Oregon than ever be- fore. But while plenipotentiaries temporized and compromised, and executives and senates moved at a laggard pace on such great questions, events hastened. The people took up the question and went before the government. What they deter- mined, the government must soon affirm. So fully did the question which the late treaty had postponed occupy the public mind, even during the pendency of the negotiation of that treaty, that, had the ear of Mr. Webster been nearer the heart of the people, he would surely have under- stood that adjournment of the question by him- self and Lord Ashburton meant anything rather than a suppression, or even a postponement, of it from public debate. The newspapers took it up, and it was thus brought to the boys and girls, fathers and mothers on the hearthstones of the million homes of the country. The sentiments of the leaders of political action in our national legislature, as those sentiments appeared in the debates of the senate on the question of the rati- fication of the Webster-Ashburton treaty, were criticised, approved or condemned by the people in all the land. One sentiment was for the ratifi- cation, with postponement of the Oregon ques- tion and its easy forbearance with the crafty and insidious policy of England; the other was for

HISTORY OF IDAHO.

the rejection of the treaty, a withdrawal of the United States from joint occupancy, and an act of colonization which would assume the full sov- ereignty of the United States over the territory in question by granting lands to emigrants, and otherwise encouraging their settlement in Ore- gon. Representing the first class, and speaking for it, as well as for Mr. Webster, the negotiator of the treaty, was Mr. Rufus Choate, senator from Massachusetts, who spoke in his place in the senate as follows: "Oregon, which a grow- ing and noiseless current of agricultural immigra- tion was filling with hands and hearts the fittest to defend it-the noiseless, innumerous move- ment of our nation westward. * * We have spread to the Alleghanies, we have topped them, we have diffused ourselves over the imperial val- ley beyond; we have crossed the father of rivers; the granite and ponderous gates of the Rocky mountains have opened, and we stand in sight of the great sea. *

* Go on with your negotia- tions and emigration. Are not the rifles and the wheat growing together, side by side? Will it not be easy, when the inevitable hour comes, to beat back ploughshares and pruning hooks into their original forms of instruments of death? Alas, that that trade is so easy to learn and so hard to forget!"

This was beautifully said, and it had a certain amiability about it that commended it to the fa- vorable thought of many. Still it was far from representing the views of those who, from the beginning of the diplomatic struggle with Great Britain, had been the steadfast and radical ad - vocates of the right of the United States to the possession of Oregon. Their views were better expressed by Senator Benton, who on the "Ore- gon Colonization Act" closed a speech of great vigor and power by saying:

"Time is invoked as the agent that is to help us. Gentlemen object to the present time, refer us to future time, and beg us to wait, and rely upon time and negotiations to accomplish all our wishes. Alas! Time and negotiations have been fatal agents against us in all our discussions with Great Britain. Time has been constantly work-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day, Part 5

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1014

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1014