Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/213

 THE FEDERAL RELATIONS

OF OREGON

203

It is clear that negotiators will not follow their example." the editors of the Examiner had not learned that American

diplomacy differed from all other in the world. So the war talk on both sides of the ocean grew as the uncompromising stand of Polk during 1845 prevented any immediate adjustment. If this stand was maintained in order

manner a political game, a mere with a promise never intended to of up appearances keeping 17 be kept, then it came dangerously near producing a tragedy. Yet those who were close to the President found in his words to carry out in a realistic

same meaning that the more sanguine westerners approved, and that the British public and conservative elements in Amer-

the

ica feared.

The Inaugural had its share in making it President to find a man to his liking to replace

difficult for

Edward

the

Everett

Calhoun, who declined the honor, wrote Francis W. Pickens, who had also been approached, 18 "In addition to the reasons you have assigned, there are others as minister to Great Britain.

connected with the Oregon question as it stands, which I fear, would make the position of a minister in England who true to the South embarrassing, should he be charged with any duties connected with it." Martin Van Buren was sounded is

on the subject and refused the mission

after he

had consulted

One

of these, 19 after talking the question over with Governor Silas Wright of New York, wrote that the

with his friends.

President had no right to make such a request of an exPresident unless he put it on the ground of a great emergency "if the President would call an extra session of Congress and

present your name, then the country would say you ought not to decline, "but the demand should be so strong as to take the whole matter of the Oregon Question out of the "hands of 17 The Paris Journal des Debates and the Globe, both) Guizot papers and proBritish, held that the American demands were unreasonable, and it was hinted that a rupture between the United States and Great Britain would show the sympathy, if not actual intervention, of France would be for England. (Register, 7 Jun.) La Presse, hostile both to the French ministry and to England, said the stand of the United States "as to the territory of Oregon not sustainable." La Constitutionel, Thiers' organ, attacked the French tendency to lean toward Great Britain "to the prejudice of an ancient and faithful ally like the United States." (Register, 14 June.) 18 Correspondence of Calhoun, 653. 19 N. C. Flagg to Van Buren* 16 May, 1845. Van Buren Papers, 53.