Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/355



Comax .■ 7.100 square miles

N'ancoTivcr Island 16,400 square miles

'I'otal 409..300 squar.' miles

The territnry wiiieli the Oreuou ])ioueers with (heir I'mvisidiial (loverument saved to the I'liited States is as follows:

Oregon IKj.Oiid s(juare miles

Washington 69,180 square miles

Idaho 84.600 square miles

Western Montana 28,000 square miles

Northwestern Wyoming 13.000 square miles

Total 290,810 square miles

This tabular statement shows, that the British secured, by bluffing President Polk, 119.100 square miles more of the Old Oregon Territoi-y than did the United States, when in fact Enfrland was not in law or equity entitled to a single acre of it.

The surrender of the northwest Oregon territory to the British was the most humiliating piece of diplomacy that ever disgraced our country. Fortunate that it is, it stands alone in the history of the Republic. Cowardly, truckling, and damaging, alike to national interests and national honor, the reason and excuse for it was even more infamous. The whole north and west was so outraged and incensed bej'ond any words to describe the public sentiment that Robert J. Walker. Secretary of the Treasurj' under President Polk, was compelled to give an excuse for the great wrong ; and in doing so admitted that the southern slave state president and senators (with, of course, their northern dough-faced sup- porters ^i had given up northwest Oregon to England, for the reason, it might at some future time come into the Union as an anti-slavery state.

We can have no conception now of the bitterness of the fight against Oregon, by the slave holders on one hand, and the British on the other; and of the tre- mendous odds and forces the friends of Oregon in Congress and the pioneers on the trail had to overcome. As a sample of the public sentiment in large portions of the eastern states we give two extracts from speeches of United States Sena- tors. Senator W. L. Dayton, of New Jersey in the Senate on February 23rd. 1844. said :

■'What there is in the territory of Oregon to tempt our national cupidity, no one can tell. Of all the countries on the face of the earth, it is one of the least favored of heaven. It is the mere riddling of creation. It is almost as barren as the desert of Africa, and C[uite as unhealthy as the Campania of Italy. We would not be subjected to all the innumerable and indescribable tortures of a journey to