Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/207

 THE FEDERAL RELATIONS The

Whig and

press,

Calhoun had into the to

its

seen, for

if

OF OREGON

197

Democratic, saw in the Inaugural what the Oregon Question had been pushed

background during the presidential campaign, it came in the publicity attained from the time the Inaugural

own

was pronounced

to the

Treaty of 1846. With growing intensity was waged, for the most part along

the newspaper discussion

party lines. The Whig papers deplored the tone of the President and brought forward arguments and assertions as to why negotiations should be continued and a compromise

On

reached.

hand the Democratic papers, taking the

the other

new Administration paper, the Union, backed the cry for all of Oregon, although some portions of the Southern press would not take the same stand. The Charleston lead from the

Courier,

5

for example,

showed the influence of Calhoun's views

when, discussing the Inaugural, it advocated a compromise "in which each party may relinquish a part of its extreme claim, with no loss of honor, nor surrender of dignity, or sacrifice of material interests." But the New York Evening Post 6 had

gathered a large number of leading articles from western papers and was gratified to see "the cordial unanimity of opinion with which (the Oregon Question) is taken up, and the universal determination that our rights to the territory should be stoutly

and ably advocated. There is but one sentiment and one voice on the subject. What is clearly ours will be so claimed and maintained, let Great Britain take offense as she may." "Undoubtedly," was the reply of the National Intelligencer is clearly ours' ought to be 'so claimed and maintained,' at the proper time and in a proper manner. But the very question at issue, in this case, between the United States and Great Britain, was deemed a fit subject for

(Whig), "'what

tions

now The

negotiaprevious administrations of this government, and admitted by the present to be such, is, what is ours ?

by

all

'universal determination,' the

clearly will grant,

Evening Post

cannot determine a question of right." Between the National Intelligencer and the Union arose an



5

p^oted

Register, 31

May,

1845.