Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/72

66 That he organized and was elected leader of the first large overland migration, which left the Missouri frontier May 26, 1842.

We have already seen (pp. 32-34 ante) how carefully Dr. Mowry avoids giving his readers any information about Lord Ashburton's instructions on the Oregon boundary question, and Webster's positive denials January 18 and February 3, 1843, that he had made, entertained or meditated accepting the Columbia river, or any other line south of 49 degrees as a negotiable boundary line for the United States.

It is now more than 16 years since in a letter to Rev. Dr. Eells I called his attention to this twice-repeated denial by Webster on the floor of the Senate, through his lifelong personal and political friend, Rufus Choate, of that indispensable postulate of the Whitman Saved Oregon Story, that Webster and Tyler were indifferent as to the fate of Oregon, and ready to surrender it to England, when Whitman, an utterly unknown man reached the states, and in some mysterious way prevented it, but in all his study of the subject since that time, and all his writings on it he has never apparently found, and certainly has never intimated to his readers that they could find this "authorized" statement by Webster of his position on the Oregon boundary, in the Congressional Globe, 27 Cong., 3d Sess. (pp. 171-2) and its Appendix (pp. 222-9.)

We have already in exposing Dr. Mowry's ingenious avoidance of giving his readers any information of value about this great debate (Cf. pp. 32-35 ante) shown how vital a full knowledge of it is to any understanding of the truth or falsity of the claim that Whitman Saved Oregon, on account of (a.) the great interest the Oregon question excited, as shown by the fact that 27 out of 50 Senators took part in the discussion, including nearly all the leaders of both parties; (b.) the fact that it was stated over and over again in the discussion that the Senate was "unanimously of the opinion that our title to Oregon was incontestable, at least as far north as 49 degrees;" (c.) the two explicit declarations of Webster, by his friend Choate, hereinbefore quoted, which definitely committed