Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/263



THE OREGON QUESTION 1818-1828 215

(10) Capital and population would be drawn from the United States.

(11) No surplus population.

These are all answered or refuted in the earlier de- bates, but the later ones show on the whole a wider knowledge, and therefore the existence of more accurate information. Both the opponents and defenders of the measure had much greater armaments of facts at their disposal.

An entry in the Register of Debates for Tuesday, December 23, 1828, reads with a very familiar ring. 41

"On motion of Mr. Floyd of Virginia, the House then went into Committee of the Whole upon the state of the Union and proceeded to the consideration of a bill to authorize the occupation of the Oregon River."

The only thing new in his speech was the principle that "the best way to settle a new country was to leave it to the enterprise of private individuals, merely ex- tending to them the arm of national protection." This is in direct reference to a petition then before Congress from a company of persons in New Orleans offering to found a colony in Oregon at its own expense.

This is of some importance for at the same time there were like petitions before Congress from Kelley and his associates in Massachusetts, 3000 in number, and Albert Town and his company in Ohio. It indicates a great change in popular opinion of a few years before when eight Marylanders presented their petition as has been recorded. The geographical location of these three movements showed how widespread interest was : North- east, West, and South.

Their demands were colonizing grants pure and sim- ple and the attack came on that ground. On the 29th of December, Bates, a Missourian, made a long and tell- ing argument against the establishment of such a system.

41 The source of authority is the Congressional Register of Debates, Vol. V. Page numbtrs standing alone will refer to this.