Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/190

 declared that "Neither the West nor the country at large had any real interest in retaining Oregon; that we would not be straitened for elbow room in the West for a 170 thousand years," was aroused to something of enthusiasm, and said in his place in the Senate: "For myself, certainly, I believe that we have a good title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude up to fifty-four, forty."

Senator Benton had long since materially changed his views from those he held when he had said that "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as the convenient, natural and everlasting boundary." Fremont, not Whitman, had converted him. Benton was aggressive and intelligent. In the discussion of 1844, he said: "Let the emigrants go on and carry their rifles. We want thirty thousand rifles in the valley of the Oregon. The war, if it come, will not be topical; it will not be confined to Oregon, but will embrace the possessions of the two powers throughout the Globe."

In the discussion, which took a wide turn, many of the eminent statesmen at that time took a part. Prominent among them was Calhoun, Linn, Benton, Choate, Berrien and Rives. Many of them tried the most persuasive words of peace, yet no one who reads the speeches and the proceedings, but will perceive the wonderful changes in public sentiment during a