Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/210

 New York, Badjer and Mangum of North Carolina, Buchanan and Cameron of Pennsylvania, Greene of Rhode Island, Butler of South Carolina, and Mason of Virginia. In the House, too, were both brilliant and balanced men; some with a past of weight, and some with a future of promise; while conspicuous above all was ex-President Adams, styled "the old man eloquent," not from the grace, but from the fervor of his utterances.

The questions on which Houston during Polk's administration was called to take decided ground were the Oregon boundary treaty, the Mexican war, and the incorporation of the Texan navy into that of the United States; and as these had each collateral and associated issues, there were no less than seven different occasions on which he was specially called out. The engrossing question on his entrance into Congress was the Oregon boundary; the discussion involved questions of territorial extension at the North, which led to review of those made at the South; and yet more, the debate brought in various suggestions as to armed conflict with England and other European powers on account of territory claimed upon the American continent; this again to criticisms of men and measures, especially of Mr. Clay, as the champion of home compromise, and of Gen. Jackson, as the hero of foreign war. The first set speech of Houston in the Senate, reported at length in the Congressional Globe, though its connections were logical to his fellow-Senators, might perhaps seem discursive and almost pointless to the reader unfamiliar with the varied issues which he was called to meet. The pending question before the Senate was the message from the President asking concurrence in his purpose to give notice to Great Britain that the United States would abrogate on a certain day the treaty as to the line between the British and American territory on the Pacific coast. The recognized principles of international law controlling the case were: first, the right of prior discovery; second, of military occupation; third, of colonial settlement. In modern, as in ancient diplomacy, all civilized nations were agreed that, first, when any nation, through its citizens, has discovered unoccupied territory, the prior claim to future occupation belongs to that nation; that, second, this claim of prior discovery is superseded if, before the territory be occupied, another nation has taken military possession by planting their flag, and leaving a permanent military force in charge; and that, third, civil occupation by a colony of settlers who make improvements in cultivated lands and permanent dwellings, may supersede the claim of military occupation. As to the Oregon territory, all agreed that the prior discovery was that of Spain; since De Fuca, in 1592, and Admiral Fonte, in 1640, as also later explorers, had traversed and