Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/204

 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

194

circumstance which first suggested to me the idea, if not the necessity, of keeping a journal or diary of events and transactions which might occur during my presidency."

The

resolution

was

faithfully carried out

and to Folk's care-

each day's events is due in considerable of the inside factors of the political game our knowledge part Shrewd comments on men in public of that eventful period. life afford glimpses which illuminate otherwise obscure occurful transcription of

rences. Yet in one respect the Diary is most exasperating: nowhere does Polk let us see completely enough the workings of his own mind to ascertain how he came to adopt the course he followed with respect to Oregon. So far from explaining his apparent volte-face Polk assumes or seems to assume that his course from the beginning was undeviating and that which happened, so far as he personally was concerned, was exactly what might have been expected. Consequently there is no help in his definite statements, and it becomes necessary to gather hints as they seem to have been casually, perhaps, un-

consciously, dropped.

Three possible explanations of Polk's course naturally suggest themselves



the declaration of the Baltimore convention

political thunder which was intended to influence voters in a certain section, and Polk's inaugural was in harmony with it in order to maintain the ruse for a decent time; a second possibility is that while Polk really took the Baltimore plat-

was

form in good faith, events, too strong for him to resist, forced him to depart from its pronouncement; a remaining solution would attribute to Polk a plan by which he intended from the outset to accept a compromise at the proper moment. Although leading to the same end this last explanation differs from the first in that a policy of laissez-faire finds no place in it. It is necessary to recall the words of the Baltimore convention respecting Oregon: "Resolved, That our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or

any other power." Compare this with the statement in Polk's Inaugural Address: "Nor will it become in less degree my