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Rh of the United States should be extended over it as soon as possible. Moore of Ohio presented in the lower house a declaration of the citizens of the Mississippi Valley in convention assembled at Cincinnati, on the 5th of July previous, and indeed, from this time forward till the final settlement of the Oregon boundary in 1846 the agitation increased, as I have already shown in the chapters on the Oregon title in the second volume on the Northwest Coast.

The president in his annual message to congress, December 5, 1843, in remarking on the subject of the Oregon boundary, announced the ultimate claim of the United States to be to all the territory north of 42° and south of 54° 40′ on the Northwest Coast. Great Britain, he said, controverted this claim, and the American minister at London, under instructions, had again brought the subject to the consideration of the British government. A happy termination of the negotiations was expected; but in the mean time many citizens of the United States were on their way to Oregon, many were there, and others were preparing to emigrate, and he recommended the establishing of military posts along the line of travel.

This was the first formal announcement of the intention of the United States to ignore any claim of Great Britain to territory on the Pacific; but it quickly became the watchword of a majority of the