Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/277

271 ASPECTS OF OREGON HISTORY BEFORE 1840. 271 most vigorously opposed the renewal of the treaty of Joint Occupation, and advocated the settlement by England and the United States of their respective claims. Little progress was made for four years, but in December, 1828, Mr. Polk of Tennessee moved in the House, as an amendment to the Oregon bill, the extension of the juris- diction of the courts of Michigan Territory beyond the Rocky Mountains between 42 and 54 40', 16 and an ex- ploration of the Pacific Coast between these points and of the Columbia River. Here is the first proposition in Congress to assert jurisdiction in "the whole of Oregon" in the sense of all the territory between California and the southern extremity of Russian America. It was this ad- vanced position that was taken aggressively ten years later by Senator Linn of Missouri when he reopened the campaign begun eighteen years before by Floyd who was now dead. The spirit of territorial expansion was now rapidly dominating the Democratic party, and diplomatic feeling after Texas and California was begun in good earnest in the later years of Jackson's administration. 17 This spirit was destined to become stronger and stronger; it reached its climax when "the reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon" became the party cry in 1844, and bore its fruit in President Polk's stroke for California. For a time this spirit was so imperious and aggressive that it threatened war with England in its defiant shout of "54 40' or fight." But these matters belong to the period following that which I have selected for treatment. I will allow myself only one remark in regard to it. As one follows the his- tory of Oregon in Congress and in public opinion from 1820 there appears to be a steady development of interest in the Pacific Northwest and an increasing diffusion of 16 The texts of this resolution as printed read 44 40', but the debates in. dicate that the readings should be 54 40'.