Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/370

 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

3S2

culties in the land situation

which had arisen from the Terri-

torial Act.

The

of the organic act of 1848 had confirmed of lands occupied as missionary stations to an amount not exceeding 640 acres each, and the fourteenth section had

the

first section

title

declared null and void the laws of the Provisional Government making grants to settlers. The result was that of all the people living in Oregon only the missionaries, and they only for their religious organizations, and persons whose "possessory rights" had been guaranteed under the Treaty of 1846, had any valid claims under the law. 15 The title to all land, no matter what improvements might have been made or how long it had been occupied, was in the United States there to remain until Congress saw fit to pass an act relieving the situation. Those already in Oregon and those about to emigrate thither petitioned Congress to act but though several bills were introduced nothing was done and it was left to the Thirty-first

Congress, under a

new Administration

to deal with the re-

maining problems which Oregon presented to the attention of the Federal Government. This new administration appeared to Polk to have at its head a man with the most astounding ideas. When President Taylor and ex-President Polk were riding back from the inaugural exercises the former said, in reference to a chance remark, that in his opinion both Oregon and California were too far distant to become members of the Union and it would be better for them to set up independent establishments. Well might the man who had made the acquisition of California the paramount purpose of his Administration note that these were alarming sentiments to be heard spoken by a President of the United States. 16 15 See letter of the Secretary of the Treasury transmitting the annual report of the Commissioner of the Land Office, Ex. Doc. (House) No. 12, pp. 14-15, 30th Cong., ad Ses. He had discussed this possibility with his cabinet in the 16 Diary, IV, 375-6. previous December and had stated that he thought the leading Whigs would be glad to give up California in order to get rid of the Wilmot Proviso; consequently If California went, thought Polk, Taylor's remark must have seemed significant.

Oregon would join

her.