Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/255

Rh efforts, however, to bring negotiations to a happy issue failed, and his administration closed with the question still pending. The negotiations of this time show a zealous purpose on the part of the President to effect a settlement, but show no real progress toward that end. The same may be said of the measures in congress of this period. Discussion of the question had been resumed in the house, and went on in the senate, but since negotiations on the part of the government with a view to a speedy settlement were almost continuously pending, congress was induced to refrain from any action that might thwart or trammel the government in its efforts.

It has already been pointed out in this paper that the correspondence between the two governments precedent to the convention of 1818, pointed to the line of the fortyninth parallel as the final position of our government in this question. In subsequent negotiations between the United States and Great Britain, this line came to be regarded as in some sort traditional with our government, and as such became increasingly influential in shaping the proposals of succeeding administrations. We have just seen how under pressure of considerations external to the Oregon Question the administration of Mr. Tyler had been momentarily in danger of yielding this our traditional line for one to the south, on the Columbia. We have now to see how under pressure of another sort the government under the administration of Mr. Polk came near abandoning this traditional position for a line farther to the north.

In 1824, in a treaty between the United States and Russia, the line of 54 and 40' was fixed as the limit of the claim of the United States northward as against Russia, and of Russia's claim southward as against the United States. This line was thenceforth considered as the northern limit of the Oregon Territory. In the course of ne-