Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/152



142 CLARK E. PERSINGER

to instruct the President to give immediate notice to Great Britain of our intention to abrogate the joint-occupancy agree- ment of 1828. To their apparent surprise, Calhoun led the Southern Democrats in opposition to the "notice" resolutions, insisting upon the certainty of war with Great Britain should our Government thus assert our exclusive claim to the "whole of Oregon." Hannegan, of Indiana, at once arose in the Senate and denounced the "singular course" of the Southern Democrats. "Texas and Oregon," he announced, "were born the same instant, nursed and cradled in the same cradle the Baltimore convention and they were at the same instant adopted by the Democracy throughout the land. There was not a moment's hesitation until Texas was admitted; but the moment she was admitted the peculiar friends of Texas turned and were doing all they could to strangle Oregon." 1 Calhoun promptly replied to the charge of Southern Democratic treachery. "If I acted boldly and promptly on that occasion," he explained, "it was because boldness and promptness were necessary to success. * * * If I am for deliberate meas- ures on this occasion it is not because I am not a friend to Oregon. * * * If you institute a comparison between Oregon and Texas I would say that the former is as valuable to us as the latter and I would as manfully defend it. If the Senator and myself disagree, we disagree only as to the means of securing Oregon and not as to its importance." 2 Calhoun's reply sounds candid and convincing, but Folk's "Diary" in- forms us that, while asserting and reasserting his disagree- ment with the Northwestern Democrats "only as to the means of securing Oregon," Calhoun was secretly confiding to Polk his opinion that "the two Governments" ought to settle the Oregon question "on the basis of 49. " 3 Hannegan answered Calhoun's defense of the Southern Democratic position with the assertion that he "did not intend to charge any improper motives ; * * * but it appeared strange to him that when a question of territorial acquisition arises in the northwest

1 Ibid., 15, no.

2 Ibid., no.

3 Quaifc, "Diary of Polk," I, 313.