Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/357



THE CENTENNIAL HISTOKY OF OKEfiON 223

In J^tl. Miir foruiyn relations wcro in a very rritical nindil imi. Daniel Welislrr was Secretary- of State. Wise, practical statesman that he was, he saw that the only way to a peaceful adjustment was by the balancing of equivalents: that is, by giving ami taking on both sides. To this end he reihiced the related issues to the fewest number, and these to their vital points. He found the Oregon boundary anu)ng ([uestions at issue. He saw that this was an issue wholly unrelateil to the other and more pressing ones, th.at it could afford to wait until its consideration could Ije taken up entirely independent of other issues and settled on its own merits; that its introduction alongside the older and more pressing ones would inevitably lead to siune unfavorable cominoniise on the Oregon issue itself, or compel an unfavorable compromise on the other issues in its behalf. He there- fore rejected it entirely from consideration, and sul)sei|UeMt events fully justified hiis action in doing so. He was comjiletely successful in adjusting the other issues in the memorable treaty of 1842; and four years later, wiien the Oregon Treaty came before the Senate, amicably proposing the forty-ninth parallel as the boundary line of the two governments in the territory, Mr. \\ebster was there as Senator from Massachusetts to give the treaty his hearty sujiport. The history of the diplomatic negotiations between England and the United States over the Oregon boundary question shows that our govern- ment from the beginning maintained that the forty-ninth parallel w-as the proper boundary line, and that the key-note of Mr. Webster's policy Avas this line and nothing else. The people of the region of the Columbia, therefore, owe a special debt of gratitude to Mr. Webster for his wisdom in keeping the Oregon question distinct from the unrelated issues with which lie had to deal in the perplexing negotiations of 1842.

The plain, iiifoutrovertible historical facts were, that Webster was preferring to settle the dispute about the eodfisheries on the New Foundland coast before he took up the Oregon question. And when Fiske says, "that our government from the beginning maintained that the forty-ninth parallel was the proper boundary line," he ought to have said that our government as represented by Daniel AVebster held that view. For when the_ question was referred to the voters of the United States in the Polk campaign, the people overwhelmingly decided, that the position of Daniel Webster on the Oregon boundary line was not the position of the people of the United States.

Now, sixty years after that disgraceful surrender to England, the commer- cial interests, and all the people of this state, and the Pacific Coast, can see the damage wrought to national interests by having a British state sandwiched in between the state of Washington and our territory of Alaska. Here is our old inveterate and historical enemy with all its forts, and harbors and battlesliips, and transcontinental railroads, ready to harbor the Japanese and combine against American interests, and Oregon commerce, and do us more damage from these advantages cowardly given away by the Polk administration, than any army of a hundred thousand men could do attacking us from anj' point east of the Rocky mountains. If our government had courageously held on to all of Oregon, as the people told them to do in the presidential election of 1844, and as Senators Bentou and Linn vainly besought them to do, we would have had all of old Oregon today, and the Pacific ocean with all its vast commercial advantages would be practically an American lake. And for just retribution of this great wrong, some day the American people will rise up and place another Andrew Jackson in the presi- dential chair, and then look out, if the British flag is not pulled down from New- foundland to Vancouver Island, and the Canadians told to go it alone or come in under the Stars and Stripes.

And now, after reviewing the history of the iMiuntry for over sixty years, and considering the desperate and horrible course of the slave states in plunging the nation into all the horrors of the civil war, and putting the life and existence of the nation at stake, there can be but little doubt that had it not been for the Amei'ican settlements in the Willamette Valley, and the organization of the Pro-