Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/264



216 VERNE BLUE

To him the danger of a proprietary government loomed large. "The settlers would be entirely dependent upon the will of the individuals for whom such great and ex- clusive privileges were asked."

One of the best and carefully balanced speeches was made by James K. Polk. 42 For him it was a matter of formal legalism. He called attention to existing treaties ; all action must be inside, not outside, these. His cold, precise manner shows the literalist in every phrasing; it sounds like the chipping of ice and is a beautiful example of chill exposition from which all the fire of vision has been extinguished.

Day after day the debate went on. 43 Mitchell of Tennessee, an orator of approved Western type, made a flamboyant speech in which he opposed the scheme in toto. One reads these later speeches in the vain hope of finding some new argument advanced. The impossibil- ity of keeping Oregon in the federal union is repeated to weariness. No one appears to doubt our legal right to the country, but to many this is an irrelevant argu- ment for occupation.

After sitting in Committee of the Whole for five days the House rose. Polk endeavored to secure the transfer of the Oregon bill to the Committee on Territories where it would have slept its life away, in all likelihood, but the House adjourned before the motion was taken.

The discussion was resumed on the 31st of December but it makes disheartening reading as it gets nowhere. It would seem to the average reader that the objections to the measure were in each case matched and overcome by its protagonists, but against pure inertia they could make little headway. One definite piece of action taken this day was the vote not to include the Ohio association among the settlers to whom certain privileges were to be granted. This foreshadowed the fate of the entire bill.

42 P. 130.

43 Pp. 134, 135, 136, 137, 138.