Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/416

Rh advantage to the United States, and the best use that could be made of it was to leave it as a retreat for the red men. From Council Bluffs to the Rocky Mountains the country was sterile, without wood or water, and could never be cultivated. The mountains were inhospitable, and altogether the only purpose to which this region could be devoted was a range for buffaloes, and to serve as a frontier to prevent the too great expansion of the settlements.

To this Benton replied by giving a résumé of the arguments for the United States title, with which the reader of my Northwest Coast is familiar; and thus closed the debates on the subject of the occupation of the Oregon Territory for a term of years, the bill being laid on the table, from which it was never taken to be voted upon in the senate,

From and after this session of congress, for a period of more than three years, the subject of the occupation of the Columbia was suffered to lie perdu in the minds of the people of the United States, except as attention was called to it by the writings of Hall J. Kelley, or by some more obscure person. For this silence there is an explanation in the probable desire of the president that the negotiations between Great Britain and the United States should not become more involved by any overt act. The negotiations being finally terminated in 1827 by an indefinite renewal of the convention of 1818, which could be terminated by either party on a year's notice, left the subject where it was before they were commenced.

In December 1828 Floyd returned to the contest, being, as he said, more convinced than ever before of the importance of the question. In a speech of some length he reverted to the movement of population westward, and the means resorted to by governments to prevent it private enterprise being always in the