Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/246

234 Oregon boundary had not been included with that of Maine. This omission, taken together with intimations that soon reached the public that the two governments were again engaged in negotiations on this subject, began to awaken, in some quarters, at least, fears for the result. The nature and ground of these fears, as far as they were capable of being denned, may be seen in the declaration of the legislature of Illinois, prefixed to resolutions on the Oregon Question presented to congress early the next session. That declaration was, that "the safety of the title of the United States [to Oregon] was greatly endangered by the concessions made in the late treaty in relation to the boundary of Maine, by her rights not being persisted in and made part of said treaty, and will be more endangered by longer delay."

In his annual message to congress, December 6, 1842, President Tyler, after giving as the reason for the omission of the Oregon boundary from the late treaty the fear that its discussion might imperil the treaty as a whole, went on to express the purpose of the administration to urge upon the government of Great Britain the importance of an early settlement of this question. A few days later, the senate passed a resolution calling upon the President to communicate to the senate the nature of any "informal communications' that might have passed between the Secretary of State and the Special Minister of the British Government on the question of the Oregon boundary. To this resolution the President, in his message of December 23, answered that measures had been already taken in pursuance of the purpose expressed in his annual message, and, under these circumstances, he did not deem it consistent with the public interest to make any communication on the subject. But neither the President's expressed purpose, nor his subsequent decla-