USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. II > Part 6
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36
At the beginning of the next session, in December 1823, Mr. Floyd again moved for the appointment of a committee, and seven members were named, with himself as chairman, after the usual custom. This committee reported a bill in January 1824 which subsequently passed the House by a vote of one hundred and thirteen to fifty-seven, but like the former measure, it was thought to be so plain a violation of the con- vention of 1818 that it was laid on the table in the Senate by a vote of twenty-five to fourteen, after a debate which occu- pied a large part of two days. In this debate Mr. Barbour of Virginia and Mr. Benton of Missouri favored the bill, while Mr. Dickerson of New Jersey opposed it. Mr. Benton, who was the last speaker, ably reviewed the whole history of the negotiations, so far as they had taken place, and all the circumstances out of which the claims of title of both countries arose. Both he and Mr. Barbour contended that the claim of Great Britain was without foundation, and that the United States could yield no further than it had done. Mr. Barbour believed that our title could be held " as unques- tionable many degrees to the north of the proposed settle- ment," which was the forty-ninth parallel. He reviewed the objections urged, first among which was that the posses- sion of the Columbia River country would give us "an unwieldy extent of empire." He held that we must either settle the country ourselves, or give it to some European
67
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
power, and that, he was confident, no senator would propose. The territory was not to be kept as a jungle for wild beasts. That was not in the order of providence. The movement of population toward the west was already irresistible. Fifty years earlier the valley of the Mississippi was as wild as that of the Columbia now was, and yet it was already "teeming with a mighty population-a friendly and happy people." Its history would without doubt be repeated in the valley of the Columbia.
Mr. Dickerson said this country had never adopted a sys- tem of colonization and he hoped it never would. Oregon could never be one of the United States; if we extended our laws to it we must consider it as a colony. The Union was already too extensive. To further enlarge it would plant the seeds of dissolution. Every member of Congress ought to see his constituents once a year, but at the rate of travel by which senators now reached the capitol and returned from it, a representative of Oregon would require four hun- dred and sixty-five days to come to the seat of government and return, and if he were not inclined to travel on Sunday, he would require five hundred and thirty-one days. If, by hard travel, he should be able to make thirty miles a day instead of twenty, the usual rate, and should rest on Sundays, three hundred and fifty days would be re- quired, and he would only be able to remain at Wash- ington a little more than two weeks each year, and would have no time to spend with his constituents after he should return.
During the course of his reply Mr. Benton used the fol- lowing language, which sounds strangely to those who are familiar with the positon he so strongly maintained during the later years of his life :
68
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
"In planting the seeds of a new power on the coast of the Pacific Ocean it should be well understood that, when strong enough to take care of itself, the new government should separate from the mother empire as the child separates from the parent at the age of manhood. The heights of the Rocky Mountains should divide their possessions, and the mother Republic would find herself indemnified for her cares and expenses about the infant power, in the use of a post on the Pacific Ocean, the protection of her interests in that sea, the enjoyment of the fur trade, the control of the Indians, the exclusion of a monarchy from her border, the frustration of the hostile schemes of Great Britain, and above all in the erection of a new Republic devoted to liberty and equality, and ready to stand by her side against the combined powers of the old world. Gentlemen may think this is looking rather deep into the chapter of futurity, but the contrary is the fact. The view I take is both near and clear. Within a century from this day a population greater than that of the present United States will exist on the western side of the Rock Mountains."* The entire population of the country would then be one hundred and sixty millions, of which "one hundred millions will drink the waters which flow into the Mississippi, and sixty millions will be fed on the lateral streams which flow east and west toward the rising and setting sun." In closing he said : "The proposition is to execute the Ghent treaty; to expel the British from the Columbia River; to perfect our title by reducing the disputed territory to pos- session; and whatever use we may make of it afterwards, whether we shall hold it as a military post or naval station, settle it as a colony or found a new republic upon it, there are
*Debate in Congress-Eighteenth Congress, Second Session, Vol. I, pp. 699-713.
69
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
certain preliminary points on which he believed that both the Senate and the people of the United States would cordially agree, viz., neither to be tricked nor bullied out of their land, nor to suffer a monarchical power to close up upon it."
It was in the opening of this session of Congress that President Monroe had, in his message, made the declaration in regard to the colonization of this continent by European powers, that had so much interfered with the negotiations then about to begin between the United States, Great Britain and Russia, and it was in answer to an invitation from Mr. Floyd's committee of seven, that General Jessup of the army had presented his report which had also given much offence abroad. This report contained a great deal of valuable information, not only in regard to the country and its natural resources, but also as to the routes by which it might be reached, and the difficulties of making them practicable for travel. "These difficulties are not impossibilities," it said. We had only to refer to the chapters of our own history to learn that many undertakings, infinitely more arduous, had been accomplished by Americans. He believed he could say without fear of contradiction "that the detachment might be supplied during the whole route with less difficulty than, in the war of 1756, was experienced in supplying the forces operating under Generals Washington and Braddock."
In the debate in the House which took place in December 1824, Mr. Floyd again urged the passage of his bill, in a forcible speech, in which he reviewed the arguments formerly made, and urged more at length than he had previously done, the value of the country, both on account of the natural resources it contained-on which subject he displayed a surprising amount of information for that day-and because of the desirability of taking possession of it at once, in order that
70
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
we might control the trade with China, whence would come the riches of the East, which had been sought by all the great commercial powers of the world from the time of Solo- mon. He was supported by Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania, afterwards president, and Mr. Taylor of New York, by Mr. Smyth of Virginia and by Mr. Trimble of Kentucky, the latter contending that if we delayed much longer in asserting our rights, England might, at the expiration of the treaty, say to us, "Your mutual right of trade and navigation have been accorded thus far, and you have enjoyed it for the full term stipulated; but now the rights of both parties are re- turned back to their actual conditions at the date of the treaty at London. At that day we were in possession and, your mutual privileges being now ended, you must cease to trade with the Indians, or navigate these waters, until the king shall grant you the renewal of the favor in another treaty." Thus our rights will cease and instead of our people having the exclusive right to trade there, after October 1828, we shall be excluded from the trade entirely.
In his last message to Congress at the opening to the session in December 1824, President Monroe suggested the establishment of a military post at the mouth of the Columbia, and President John Quincy Adams renewed the suggestion in his message in December 1826, and further recommended that a public ship be equipped "for the exploration of the whole northwest coast of the continent." This part of the latter message was referred by the House of Representatives to a select committee, by which two reports were subse- quently made, that were so full and complete, and contained so much information not previously accessible, that they were frequently referred to and quoted in subsequent debates.
71
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
They were also printed for general distribution, and helped in a material way to inform the people as to what Oregon really was. All that Lewis and Clark had said of it was carefully summarized, in the latter report, which was the more valuable of the two, and the climate, products and all the other natural advantages, particularly of the great interior portions of the country, were carefully described. "These advantages," the report says, "great as they now are, will be trifling in comparison to what they will be, whenever a water communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, through the Isthmus, dividing North and South America, shall have been effected. Of the practicability of this com- munication there is no doubt. If Humboldt is to be believed, the expense at one place would not exceed that of the Dela- ware and Chesapeake Canal. Should it be done, a revolu- tion in commerce will be effected, greater than any since the discovery of America; by which both the power and the objects of its action will be more than doubled. The Indian commerce of Europe will pass through the Americas, and more commercial wealth will be borne upon the ample bosom of the Pacific, than ever was wafted over the waves of the Atlantic, in the proudest days of the commercial greatness of Spain, Portugal, France, Holland and Eng- land. If it were given to a civilized, commercial and manufacturing people where to choose their place of rest, the world affords no position equal to this, and it requires no prophetic spirit to foresee the wealth and grandeur of that fortunate race, whose happy destiny shall have placed their ancestry in this beautiful region."
After discussing at considerable length Great Britain's policy of extending her dominion in every sea, the report continues: "What then remains to enable her to encompass
72
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
the globe ? Columbia River and de Fuca's Strait. Pos- sessed of these she will soon plant her standards on every island in the Pacific. Except the Columbia there is no river which opens far into the interior on the whole western shore of the Pacific Ocean. There is no secure port or naval station from 39 degrees to 46 degrees. The possession of these waters will give her command of the North Pacific, enable her to control the commerce and policy of Mexico, Central America and South America.
"These rich nations will be her commercial colonies.
"She will then gather to herself all nations, and her ambi- tion will span the earth."
These reports, and the debates in the House and Senate are quoted thus fully here to show how well informed many of our leading statesmen were, not only in regard to our rights on the Columbia, but in regard to the value of the country as well. These reports and debates were printed, and quite generally circulated, considering the means of distribution which existed at that time. Copies were not as lavishly distributed as now, but in those days a single copy was suffi- cient for a neighborhood. It was passed from hand to hand until many had read it, for there was little else to read. We may therefore easily believe that people generally were at the close of the Twentieth Congress, beginning to under- stand that the Oregon country belonged to the United States, and that it was worth claiming and defending.
And yet notwithstanding this general understanding the treaty of joint occupation was renewed, and indefinitely extended about this time. Its confirmation was opposed by a few members of the Senate, and most vigorously of all by Benton, but the Senate ratified it by a vote of thirty-one to seven.
73
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Soon after the second session of the Twentieth Congress had convened in December 1828, Mr. Floyd again called the attention of the House to the claims of Oregon, which he had now so ably and persistently championed for a period of nearly eight years. For the first time his measure was entitled "a bill to authorize the occupation of the Oregon River." Several important changes had taken place since the subject had last been discussed by the House. A new convention extending the term of joint occupation indefi- nitely, but making it terminable upon a year's notice from either party to it, had been made and ratified. Any measure which Congress might adopt could therefore be put into effect after the expiration of twelve months. Hitherto it had been proposed only to occupy the country by building a fort at some harbor near to the coast, to which our ships might resort in time of need, and which would afford protection to American trappers and fur traders, similar to that furnished by the Hudson's Bay posts to the British Canadians. The encouragement of actual settlement by gifts of land to indi- viduals of colonies had not as yet even been suggested. The public lands were then looked upon as a principal source of revenue. No statesman had begun to realize that the best and most profitable disposition that could be made of them, would be to give them outright to those who would subdue and make use of them, or provide the means by which their products could be cheaply and quickly delivered to those who would consume them. There had been no indication that anyone cared, or was likely to care to go so far to till the soil and make a home.
But now Congress was informed, by memorial, that a considerable number of people in New Orleans had asso- ciated themselves together for the purpose of going to the
74
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
Columbia to make actual settlement. Another and similar company, which Mr. Edward Everett thought might ulti- mately number two or three thousand persons, was forming in Boston, under the lead of Hall J. Kelly, and notice of still another was received from Ohio. These people wanted land and they asked, or it was asked in their behalf, that a tract forty miles square might be given them when they should take possession of it.
The debate on the bill and the several amendments pro- posed ran through the better part of seven days, and was participated in by several members, among whom two, Mr. Polk of Tennessee and Mr. Buchanan of Pennsylvania, were afterwards president, and two, Everett of Massachusetts and Bates of Missouri, were members of the cabinet. Mr. Floyd, who became governor of Virginia in the following year, subsequently received votes in a Democratic national convention for presidential nominee. He was by far the ablest, as well as the most persistent and untiring, advocate of the claims of Oregon in Congress, until Lewis F. Linn of Missouri arrived in the Senate in 1833.
Among those who, after Mr. Floyd, most heartily favored the measure, were Messrs. Everett and Richardson of Massa- chusetts, Ingersoll of Connecticut, Cambreleng of New York, Drayton of South Carolina, Buchanan of Pennsylvania, and Gurley of Louisiana; those most vigorously opposing were Bates of Missouri, afterwards attorney-general in Mr. Lincoln's cabinet, Polk and Mitchell of Tennessee, Gorham of Massachusetts and Strong and Taylor of New York. By none of these was our title to the country, at least as far north as the forty-ninth parallel, questioned or doubted. Some, including Mr. Everett, who was the close friend and confidant of Mr. Webster, and his successor in the cabinet
75
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
of Mr. Fillmore, and also in the Senate, believed it could be maintained as far north as 54° 40', the southern boundary of the Russian possessions.
Mr. Floyd led the debate in support of his bill. He reviewed the arguments he had previously made, and pre- sented a new array of facts in regard to the value of the country, its fur trade, fisheries, and other natural resources, and dwelt with particular force upon the value of the com- merce that would sometime exist in the Pacific, and of the importance of possessing Oregon in order that we might procure a proper share of it. He pointed out that this com- merce had already begun, and displayed an intimate knowl- edge of its present condition. Such a station as the bill proposed to establish at the mouth of the Columbia was already needed by our ships engaged in that trade, and the need would increase as time passed. In case of war with Great Britain it would be the base of operations for our ves- sels to attack her East India trade. Then after describing the nature of the coast, its physical advantages, the mildness of the climate and the fertility of its soil, he insisted that it was a most desirable spot for colonization. There was no other place where every interposing difficulty would more easily be overcome by the hardy pioneer.
Mr. Everett ably supported the representations made by Mr. Floyd. He believed the country to be fertile, and valu- able for all the purposes of trade claimed for it, and he thought something should be done immediately to assert and strengthen our claims to it. There were two main points in the bill-the erection of a military post, and the estab- lishment of a civil authority. We had a right to establish the post, and could do so without violating the joint agree- ment. It had been recommended by Mr. Monroe, when he
76
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
was president, as well as by Mr. Adams, his successor, under whose instructions the convention had been negotiated. The British had taken actual possession of the country, and now had an unbroken chain of posts extending from one of its borders to the other. The British authorities could right- fully make no objection to our doing what they were doing themselves, and he was informed by Mr. Gallatin, that they would probably make no objection to any fort that did not command exclusively the commerce of the Columbia.
The question of civil jurisdiction was a matter of more delicacy. He would certainly be the last to propose anything that would seem to do violence to any international agree- ment, unless the interests or the honor of the country de- manded it. The British had their posts on the Columbia; let us have ours. They had, by an act of Parliament in 1821, extended their civil and criminal jurisdiction "to all parts of America, not belonging to other powers, and not within the civil jurisdiction of any of the United States." Something should be done on our side to keep pace with what Great Britain was doing and had done. Under a nominal joint occupancy they were monopolizing it. They were in actual possession of the country and were keeping all American competitors out of it: If it should happen that a British hunter should be shot by an American, the act of Parliament would warrant the British hunting parties in arresting him and sending him to Canada for trial. Would the courts of Canada protect our citizens ? Ought we to leave our citi- zens to their protection ? Ought we to forbid our citizens from going into the territory, especially while British sub- jects were given free range? He was for allowing our citi- zens to go, and for protecting them while they were there. There might be some difficulties in the way, but our rights
77
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
were clear, and he was in favor of asserting and defending them. He was willing for the present to confine what we were to do, to acts of occupancy, similar to those in which the British government had already preceded us. Of such it could not complain. If it did he would be willing to go far- ther, and terminate the convention in the manner prescribed by the instrument itself.
Mr. Bates of Missouri opposed the measure with some vigor. He thought the proposed grant of land to companies of colonists too nearly resembled the proprietary governments that existed in some of the American colonies before the revo- lution. He hoped nothing of the kind would now be estab- lished. It would, in his opinion, sanction foreign coloniza- tion. He did not believe in setting up a colony of any kind, at a point so remote, and separated from the settled part of the country, as this would be, by thousands of miles of desert wastes. It could not be under the superintendence of the general government, and would be entirely dependent upon the will of the individuals for whom grants and powers were now asked. Besides, such a colony would be the resort of lawless and desperate characters, who would seek refuge from the punishment which their crimes demanded, in the bosom of that wilderness, to the exclusion of peaceable and orderly settlers. He did not believe in the favorable reports presented in regard to the character of the country. He did not believe in trying to build up any trade there. While he firmly believed that our claims to the country were just, they were still disputed by Great Britain. He did not believe in taking the risk of bringing on a long and expensive war, "for the sake of making an experiment on the hemlock forests of the Columbia," and he could not repress the utterance of "his solemn wish that the base of the Rocky
78
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
Mountains were an ocean bounding the United States, in- stead of the vast wilderness which extended beyond them."
The opposition of Mr. Mitchell of Tennessee was even more emphatic. He believed the disputed territory was "a country which we ought never to inhabit, and I hope we never shall inhabit." It was situated at such an immense distance "that there never can or will be any intervening links suffi- cient to unite it with the residue of our country." "It is a country from which we shall never export anything of value, or import to any considerable amount. We may indeed bring some small amount of goods into the narrow and miser- able strip of territory which intervenes between the moun- tains and the sea, but it is a trade which can never be disseminated in its benefits through the United States."
This emphatic statement sounds strangely now, and doubt- less sounded as strangely to those who had taken care to inform themselves as to what was really going on, at the time it was uttered. But it must be remembered that there was no such thing as a railroad at that time, and steamboats were still something of an experiment. Oregon was indeed far away. The utmost westward station on our western frontier was at Council Bluffs, on the Missouri. That very year the first wagons had crossed the Missouri, and been taken, with many a jolt, across the hidden buffalo trails, and around the deep gullies, bordering the lower Platte, or with creaking and shaking wheels over the prickly pear and bunch grass studded plains through which it flows in its upper part. The only Americans who had seen Oregon as yet were a few sailors, and the members of the Lewis and Clark and Astor parties. Of the stories they told on their re- turn, those pertaining to their adventures among the Indians, or in which their toils and sufferings were described, were
79
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
most eagerly listened to by the multitude, most talked about and longest remembered. Only a few whose discriminating minds selected the more valuable facts pertaining to the country, its character, resources, climate and possible advan- tages, from among the more generally engaging details of these narratives, and by calm reflection had endeavored to realize their value, not only at the time, but to future and grander times, were prepared to appreciate the possibili- ties that lay hidden in the future. These few-such men as Floyd, and Everett, and Ingersoll, and Benton, Drayton, Cambreleng, Gurley and others, were the pioneers who laid the foundation for the salvation of the Columbia River country. With these must also be remembered Jefferson, Madison, John Quincy Adams, Rush, Clay and Gallatin, who as presidents or diplomats dug those foundations deep and wide. But for the work they did, and did so well in their day, the whole Pacific Coast of the United States might today, like Canada, be a British province.
Several attempts to amend the bill were made as the debate on it progressed. One of these was by Mr. Drayton, who pro- posed that the president be authorized to establish and gar- rison a line of forts between the mountains and the coast, between the parallels of forty-two and fifty-four degrees; and also that he be authorized to send out a suitable expedi- tion to further explore the country, the establishment of the forts to be delayed if it should be best, until the exploration had been completed.
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.