An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 8

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056

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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

main unbroken when the stones were whirring as easily 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 and in favor of England. At last the culmination of events came. In Montcalm and Wolfe the hopes, and even in 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 immortal fame, but it gave to Eng- land all the territorial treasures of France east of the Mississippi, except three small islands off the coast of Newfoundland. 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 pos. sessions, Great Britain would have taken all, aud this would so have changed the relations of things that the atlas of the world would have had an entirely different lineing. 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 possession. 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 con- testant 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 negotations through which this transfer was inade. The state of the case seems to have been this: In the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, between the English and the French, the bound- ary between Louisiana and the British territory

north of it was fixed by commissioners appointed under it to run from the Lake of the Woods westward on latitude forty-nine indefinitely. When France conveyed the territory of Louis- iana, 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 than herself along the coast. When Spain, in 1800, reconveyed the same to France, it was, in the language of the third article of the treaty: "The colony or province 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 retroceded to that power all that she had re- ceived from her. When, therefore, the United States made the purchase of Louisiana she pur- chased 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 purchase of Louisiana in 1803, or it was still Spanish territory. From 1800 to 1819 Spain made no changes of ownership, sov- ereiguty or jurisdiction touching this territory. 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 in 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 ter- ritory forever." Therefore, by the purchase of 1803 from France and by the purshase of 1819 from Spain, the United States gained all pre- tended titles to sovereignty on the Pacific coast between the forty-second and the forty-ninth

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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 Britain claims no exclusive sover- eignty over any portion of that territory. The present claim, not in respect to any part but to the whole, is limited to a right of joint oc- enpancy in common with the other States, leaving the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance." This, with the history already recounted, leaves the title of the United States to Oregon beyond any question of doubt. 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 a 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 reason- ably 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 American Congress, often doubtful and inconsequent; yet a careful résumé of both is a need of this history.

Negotiations by the United States with Spain or France in regard to this country are now at an end. Henceforth they will be with Great Britain.

At the precise moment the United States was negotiating the treaty with France, in Paris, for the acquisition of Louisiana, her commis- sioners were also negotiating one in London for the definition of the boundary line between the possessions of the two countries in the Northwest. The negotiators of the two treaties were each 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 restriction. That defining the

northwest boundary was ratified with the ex- ception 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 expunged, 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 boundary between the territory of the two countries as far as their possessions might ex- tend, but with a proviso making this provision inapplicable west of the Rocky mountains. This treaty was never ratified, Mr. Jefferson re- jecting it without reference to the Senate.

In the treaty signed at Ghent, in 1814, the British plenipotentiaries offered the same arti- cles 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 subject was inserted in that treaty.

In 1818 negotiations upon this subject were renewed in London. The plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Mr. Goulborne and Mr. Robin- son, 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 al- Inded to purchases from the natives south of the Columbia, which they alleged to have been made prior to the American Revolution. They made no formal proposition for a boundary, but inti- mated that the Columbia river itself was the most convenient that could be adopted, and de- clared 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 plenipotentiaries, 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

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

coast of America, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all riv- ers 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 Occupancy " treaty.

It must be confessed that the adoption of this article of " joint occupancy " gave Great Brit- ain a decided a lvantage in the Oregon contro- versy. 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 Com- pany, united into one of the strongest commer- cial corporations in the world, and having all the elements in itself of political propagandism. With her advantages in trade, her strong semi- political occupation of the country by the Ind- son'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.

In the history and results of this negotiation, it is easy to detect the influence of the advice of Sir Alexander Mackenzie-whose journey across the continent to the Pacific north of the forty-ninth parallel we have already recorded -- over the minds of the British negotiators. He proposed the forty-fifth parallel of latitude as the boundary between the possessions of Great Britain and the United States west of the Mis- sissippi. His words were: " Let the line begin where it inay on the Mississippi, it must con- tinne west until it terminates in the Pacific ocean to the south of the Columbia river." It was this purpose which plainly dominated the

British plenipotentiaries in the propositions they made to the United States.

The session of the Congress of the United States for 1820-'21 was made remarkable, es- pecially in the light of subsequent events, as the first at which any proposition was made for the occupation and settlement of the country acquired from France and Spain on the Column- bia river. It was made by John Floyd, a representative from Virginia, an ardent and very able man, and strongly imbned with west- ern feelings. His attention was specially called to the subject by some essays of Thomas H. Benton, just then appearing in the field of national politics as senator-elect from Missouri, and he resolved to bring the matter to the at- tention of Congress. He moved for the ap- pointment 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 Virginia, asso- ciated with him. In six days a bill was re- ported, "To authorize the occupation of the Co- lumbia river, and to regulate trade and inter- conrse 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 greater part of their contemporaries their views were wild vagaries 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

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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, namely: Barbour, Benton, Boligny, Cobb, Hayne, Jackson (the general) Johnson of Ken- tucky, Johnson of Louisiana, Lloyd of Massa- chusetts, Mills, Noble, Ruggles, Talbot and Thomas. These names deserve an honorable record on the pages of the history of this coast.

The action of Senator Benton on the bill showed very clearly that the sentiment in favor of asserting the rights of the United States to Oregon was rapidly increasing. The ten years of joint ocenpancy, provided for in the treaty of 1818, were drawing toward a close, and a strong and intelligent part of our national leg- islators, under the lead of Senator Benton, was opposed to renewing that provision. The rea- sons on which these views were based were never invalidated, but were the final grounds on which the United States won her case and se- cured 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 settlement of Astoria in 1811. Fifth: The treaty with Spain in 1819. Sixth: Contignity 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 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- ininistration then in power,-that of John Quincy Adams. The treaty met strong oppo- sition in the Senate, led by that steadfast and intelligent friend of Oregon, Thomas H. Ben - ton, but it was ratified; and thus England was indefinitely continued in her position of advan- tage over the United States in the territory in question.

From 1828 to 1842, " joint occupation " was the law of the land so far as Oregon was con- cerned, while "British occupation " was the fact so far as the country was concerned. As we have seen elsewhere, every attempt of the citizens of the United States to establish commercial en- terprises in the valley of the Columbia had been frustrated and defeated by the Hudson's Bay Company, the potent representatives of British interests on the Pacific coast. Astor's great plans, conceived in a broad intelligence, prosecuted at enormous expense, and represent- ing American interests in Oregon, had failed. Wyeth had sunk a fortune between the Rocky mountains and the Pacific, and all other Ameri- cans who had adventured kindred enterprises had been equally unfortunate, and after a quarter of a century of "joint occupancy " England had almost exclusive possession of the country.

What is known as the " Ashburton-Webster Treaty" was negotiated at Washington, in 1842, Lord 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. Lord 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 thoughi Mr. Fox was then the resident British minister at Washington, so thoroughly did the Govern- ment trust Lord Ashburton that even Mr. Fox was not joined in the mission. Neither did

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

the president associate any one with Mr. Web- ster. The English plenipotentiary came, profess- edly, 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 Ashburton about anything further than the adjournment of this question, does not appear in any record, and about the only reference to it made of record is the state- ment 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 coming to any agreement at present."

The treaty was ratified by the Senate on the 26th day of August, 1842. After its ratifica- tion by the Queen of England, and its proclama- tion as the supreme law of the land on the 10th day of November, England was more firmly in- trenched, so far as the 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 qnes- tion and went before the Government. What they determined, the Government must soon affirin. 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 understood that adjournment of the question by himself 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 po- litical action in our National Legislature, as those sentiments appeared in the debates of the Senate on the question of the ratification of the

Webster-Ashburton treaty, were criticised, ap- proved or condemned by the people in all the land. One sentiment was for the ratification, with postponement of the Oregon question and its easy forbearance with the crafty and insid- ious policy of England; the other was for the rejection of the treaty, a withdrawal of the United States from joint occupancy, and an act of colonization which would assume the full sovereignty of the United States over the terri- tory in question by granting lands to emigrants, and otherwise encouraging their settlement in Oregon. Representing the first class, and speak- ing for it, as well as for Mr. Webster the nego- tiator of the treaty, was Mr. Rufus Choate, sen- ator from Massachusetts, who spoke in his place in the Senate as follows: "Oregon, which a growing and noiseless current of agricultural immigration was filling with hands and hearts the fittest to defend it-the noiseless, innumer- ous movement of our nation westward. * * We have spread to the Alleghanies, we have topped them, we have diffused ourselves over the imperial valley 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 negotiations and emigration. Are not the rifles and the wheat growing together. side by side? Will it not be easy, when the in- evitable hour comes, to beat back ploughshares and pruning-hooks into their original forms of 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 favorable thought of inany. 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 radi- cal advocates of the right of the United States to the possession of Oregon. Their views were better expressed by Senator Benton, who on the "Oregon Colonization Act" elosed a speech of great vigor and power by saying:

"Time is invoked as the agent that is to help

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ns. Gentlemen object to the present time, refer us to the 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 dis- cussions with Great Britain. Time has been constantly working for her and against ns. She now has the exclusive possession of the Colum- bia, and all she wants is time to ripen her pos- session into a title. For above twenty years * * the present time for vindicating our rights on the Columbia has been constantly ob- jected to, and we were bidden to wait. Well, we have waited, and what have we got by it? Insult and defiance !- a declaration from this British ministry 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 [Lord Ashbur- ton] to include this question among those which his peaceful mission was to settle! No, sir; time and negotiations 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' pos- session 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 now go for vindicating our rights on the Columbia, and, as the first step toward 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."

The bill of Mr. Benton passed the Senate by a vote of twenty-four to twenty-two. It went to the House, where it remained unacted upon during the session. But its moral effect was to assure the enterprising people of the West that the period of national procrastination and timid- ity was well-nigh over, and that it would be but a very short time before snch decisive action would be taken as would compel a settlement of the controversy with England.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER VI.

RIVAL CLAIMS AND PRETENSIONS, CONTINUED.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1844 -WATCHWORDS OF THE CAMPAIGN-NEGOTIATIONS AGAIN-WHY NOT SETTLED IN 1844-NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN SECRETARY BUCHANAN AND MR. PACKENHAM- ACTION OF CONGRESS-FORTY-NINTH PARALLEL AGREED UPON-AN ANNOYING ERROR-THE CODFISH STORY-DR. WHITMAN AND THE TREATY OF 1842-WEBSTER'S STATEMENT-CON- TINUED DISAGREEMENT ABOUT THE LINE ALONG THE STRAITS OF FUCA-DANGER OF WAR- THE PACIFIC PIONEERS TAKE UP THE QUESTION-ACTION OF THE OREGON LEGISLATURE- SAN JUAN ISLAND HELD BY THE MILITARY-GENERAL SCOTT ON THE FIELD-AGREEMENT BETWEEN SCOTT AND DOUGLAS-ARBITRATION PROPOSED-DECLINED BY THE UNITED STATES-EMPEROR WILLIAM FINALLY SELECTED AS ARBITER IN 1871-HIS DECISION.

F HOLLOWING immediately in the train of the events just related, came the presi- · dential election of 1844. The Oregon question was too available a question for the uses of a political campaign to be kept out of the preliminary canvass. Besides, there were too many Americans, and they were too intelli- gent and patriotic, already settled in the valley of the Willamette, whose letters to their friends at home and to the public through the periodi- cal press extolled the beauty and salubrity of the country, not to thoroughly awaken the public mind on the entire issue involved. "America for Americans," "The Monroe Doc- trine," "Fifty-four Forty or Fight," became the catch-words, if not the watchwords of the honr. The politicians of one party took their cue from the obvious tendency of this popular cry. The annexation of Texas and the imme- diate occupation of Oregon were very skillfully united together in the platform of the conven- tion that nominated James K. Polk for presi- deut. On the Oregon question it declared that our title to the whole of Oregon up to 54° 40' north latitude was "clear and indisputable," thus denying and defying the pretensions of Great Britain to any territory bordering on the Pacific. The nominee of the Democratic party for president, Mr. James K. Polk, indorsed the platform, and the canvass for him proceeded on that issue. Mr. Folk was elected over Henry Clay, who, although the idol of his party and one of the most popular of American states-

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 8

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902 Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1056

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056