Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/69

 FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON

61

5 Isaac Parrish States to lose the key to Asiatic commerce. of Ohio contended that there was no good reason for stopping

at

54

was an area of 500,000 square miles north

40'; there

of that line, exclusive of the islands to which Russia had good title, to which the United States had as good a claim as

Great

If

Britain.

Great

Britain

wanted war she would

find a pretext in any case, and if her desire for peace was sincere she would, if met with firmness, yield all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. John Quincy Adams maintitle of the United States was founded on made a 54 40' speech in which he asserted and Genesis :26-28 that Great Britain wanted the land for hunters while the United States would fill it with settlers.

tained that the 1

When the eloquence, as well as the patience, of the House was well nigh exhausted the Committee of the Whole came to the point of voting on the various propositions before it. In addition to the two reports of the Committee on Foreign Affairs some twenty other sets of resolutions and amendments had been offered, varying in vehemence from Parrish's demand for the whole northwestern portion of the continent to Winthrop's where he asserted that the matter was still a subject for negotiation, that it would be a "dishonor to the age in which we live" if war resulted. If direct negotiation failed Winthrop was in favor of arbitration, for the news that Polk had rejected such a proposal had been brought before resolution calling for late correspondence. 6 after another the substitutions and amendments were

House by a

the

One voted

down

after the

word "forthwith,"

at

Ingersoll's

own

suggestion, had been removed from the original resolution. An attempt to insert the words "that the question is no longer a question for negotiation or compromise" was defeated likewise every amendment that would seem to direct the President how the settlement must be made was rejected. The form

5

Appendix

to

XV,

212-7.

6 Immediately after Winthrop introduced his resolutions Douglas sought to counteract their influence by some of his own in which he stated that the title and 54 to any part between 42 40' was not open to compromise, and the question of territory should not be left to arbitration.