Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/76

 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

68 both the Oregon clusions

from

men and moderates

could draw soothing con-

it.

On the night of February twenty- fourth, after a day largely taken up by the Oregon discussion, Haywood of North Carolina called upon the President and informed him that there was a plan on foot, devised by Calhoun and McDuffie and perhaps others, to bring forward in Executive Session a resolution advising the President to reopen negotiations with a view of Benton had told Haywood settling the issue by compromise. that he

would oppose

this as

it

would

virtually take the

whole

question out of the President's hands; Calhoun, he thought, would be willing to agree to any terms in order to get the credit of settling the controversy. Haywood himself, while against the proposed action, was in favor of settling with Great Britain approximately at 49. Later on in the same

evening Allen called, for he too had heard of the scheme, and warned the President that there were "certain men" in the Senate who wished to induce him to compromise; if they succeeded, Allen said, it would break him down and destroy his popularity nine or ten States of the West and Southwest would oppose .any compromise. Polk assured the Senator that he had no political aspirations and would not be a candidate for re-election so that whatever he did would not be with

20 that possibility in view.

The next day Haywood's pearance

story

was confirmed by the apCalhoun and Colquitt, of

at the President's office of

Georgia, armed with a letter from McDuffie. They said that they thought the time had come for some action looking toward a peaceful settlement so that news might go to Eng-

land by the next steamer. When Calhoun mentioned the plan proposed for Executive Session Polk said he could not advise

such a step at that time, although confidentially he would state that if a proposition came from Great Britain he would feel

it

his duty to

submit

it

to the Senate for advice.

jected Calhoun's suggestion that a 20 Polk, Diary,

I,

246-8.

compromise

at

49

He

re-

would