Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/12

 4 William D. Fenton. United States was the boundary of what was then known as the Oregon Country. Baker, although a Whig, ardently supported the policy of President Polk, and was willing to justify our claims, if necessary, by an appeal to arms. On January 16, 1846, he offered a resolution in the House of Representatives by which it was declared that in the opinion of the House the President of the United States could not consistently, with a just regard for the honor of the nation, offer to surrender to any foreign power any territory to which in his opinion we had a clear and unquestioned title. On the 29th day of January, 1846, speaking upon the res- oluiion reported by the Committee on Foreign Affairs re- questing the President to notify Great Britain of the inten- tion of the Uniled States to terminate the joint occupation of Oregon, and to abrogate the convention of 1827, Baker made his first great speech, in favor of its adoption. After stating the cause with clearness, and realizing the weighty issues involved in the contest between the two countries, he said: ' ' I admit the power of England ; it is a moral as well as a physical supremacy. It is not merely her fleets and her armies; it is not merely her colonies and her fortresses— it is more than these. There is a power in her history which compels our admiration and excites our wonder. It presents to us the field of Agincourt, the glory of Blenheim, the for- titude of 'fatal Fontenoy,' and the fortunes of Waterloo. It reminds us how she ruled the empire of the wave, from the destruction of the Armada to the glories of Trafalgar. Nor is her glory confined to arms alone. In arts, in science, in literature, in credit, and in commerce, she sits superior. Hers are the princes of the mind. She gives laws to learning and limits to taste. The wa ch-fires of her battle fields yet flash warning and defiance to her enemies, and her dead heroes and s atesmen stand as sentinels upon immortal heights, to guard the glory of the living. * * * She has considered her honor and her essential interests as identical, and she has been able to maintain them. Sir, I would profit by her example. I would not desire to rest upon light and trivial grounds. I would be careful about committing the national