Oregon Question

“ An attempt was made in the legislature of 1845 to establish the name Oregon Territory, but it was never adopted until the boundary was determined and the question of sovereignty set at rest. Again, in the judiciary act, the nineteenth article of the organic law is repealed, the same being a resolution that a committee should be appointed to "draw up a digest of the doings of the people of this territory, with regard to an organization, and transmit the same to the United States government for their information." ”

“ Congress.
Obviously
this conclusion that the
Oregon Question was
for
the most part a subordinate phase of some other national issue does not in any way affect one's opinions of the territory itself, history and its development. As a matter of fact Oregon gained immensely by being thus brought into prominence; no territory had been so liberally advertised for so long a period ”

“ This was a movement which led thousands of intrepid immigrants to anticipate the government in going to remote regions. Those who remained behind had now a greater interest in the country, and ere long it was to be the impulse from this movement which aroused the national consciousness to the importance of the Oregon question, gave it a place among the problems of the nation, put it upon the platform of a political party as a prominent issue, and forced a settlement of the boundary, and finally secured a civil government. ”

“ Beyond all question the protection of our laws and our jurisdiction, civil and criminal, ought to be immediately extended over our citizens in Oregon. They have had just cause to complain of our long neglect in this particular, and have in consequence been compelled, for their own safety and protection, to establish a provisional government for themselves. Strong in their allegiance and ardent in their attachment to the United States, they have been thus cast upon their own resources. ”

“ As to the justice of the cause of the American people against the companies, or the companies against the United States, there will be always two opinions, as there have always been two opinions concerning the Oregon boundary question. Sentiment on the American side as enunciated by the Oregon pioneers was as follows: They held that Great Britain had no rights on the west shore of the American continent ”

“ So certain is this, that the advocates of a peaceful settlement of the question are now universally designated as 49 men, in contradistinction to those who go for the whole of Oregon even at the risk of war, and are called 54.40 men. ”

“ In either case the Southern wing of the Democratic party had scored at least a technical point. There had never been any real question about the admission of Minnesota because it was in the old Northwest Territory, in part. Congress could, then, proceed with Oregon. Such, at any rate, was the opinion of those the debate
who
advocated the doctrine of popular sovereignty, for Oregon had, in the adoption of the constitution, exemplified that doctrine, untrammelled by such chicanery as had characterized the Kansas situation. Nevertheless the Senate still found objections to the Oregon bill. ”

“ And while this treaty of 1818 tied the hands of the respective governments, it did not provide for the arrest of independent movements of traders or settlers. It left the question of occupancy and final disposition of the country right where Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, under President Tyler, predicted it would be when he wrote to the American minister at London (Edward Everett) in 1840, saying : ' ' The ownership of Oregon is likely to follow the greater settlement and the larger population. ”

“ But the friends of Oregon in congress, who cared not overmuch about the question of slavery or of free soil, were touched by the fidelity to the government of the United States of the Oregon settlers, and anxious to have them rewarded as congress had, year after year, proposed to do—by liberal donations of land. The Linn bill had done its work in populating the Wallamet Valley, and the population of this valley had determined the title to the country. ”

“ To say that to save Oregon as rightful territory of the United States is too high a motive to be ascribed to the early pioneer homebuilders who crossed the plains and mountains to Oregon between 1842 and 1847 is unjust—as Daniel Clark, my traveling companion into Western Oregon, tersely put it in answer to the question of a British ship captain (who had just reached Vancouver with a cargo of goods for the Hudson Bay Company) , of where he came from and his purpose in coming here, replied, "We've come from Missouri across the Rocky Mountains ”

“ I have shown how, step by step, without the aid, of congress, a hundred Americans established a government in Oregon, and while professing allegiance to the United States, were in fact independent. But congress was not indifferent to the movement; and whatever opinion in their isolation the colonists may have held, the archives of the national legislature contain the proofs of a watchful care over the United States claim to the Oregon Territory, and a determination not to relinquish it to any foreign power ”

“ The country will be settled, and that speedily from some quarter, and it depends very much upon the action of congress what that population shall be, and what shall be the fate of the Indian tribes in that territory. It may be thought that Oregon is of little importance, but rely upon it, there is the germ of a great state. We are resolved to do what we can to benefit the country, but we are constrained to throw ourselves upon you for protection. ”

“ Eighteen hundred and forty finds Oregon with her little population all active and busy, laboring and toiling to provide the necessaries of life—food and raiment. And if a man did not wear the finest of broadcloth, his intelligence and good conduct secured him a cordial welcome to every house or shanty in the country among the American or French settlers and missions. This was an innovation upon Hudson’s Bay Company customs, and a violation of aristocratic rules sought to be enforced by foreign influences and sustained by the missionaries then in the country. ”

“ Now, sir, I hope this house, this congress, this country, will not allow that company to stealthily get possession of all the good land in Oregon, and thus keep it out of the hands of those who would become good and worthy citizens. ”

“ The day is not far distant when, if the general government shall do its duty in the matter, Oregon will be inhabited by a hardy, industrious, and intelligent population, and the enterprise of our citizens find a new channel of trade with the islands of the Pacific, the western coast of this whole continent, and perhaps with Eastern Asia. Notwithstanding the many obstacles at present in the way of the settlement of this territory, emigrants are rapidly pouring into it, and only demand of government that protection which is due to all our citizens, wherever they may choose to reside. ”

“ It soon became evident, notwithstanding the first impulse of the people to stand by their delegate, that a reaction was taking place, and the more generous-minded were ashamed of the position in which the eleventh section of the land bill placed them in the eyes of the world; that with the whole vast territory of Oregon wherein to pick and choose they must needs force an old man of venerable character from his just possessions for the un-American reason that he was a foreigner born, or had formerly been the honored head of a foreign company. ”

“ At last, amidst the multitude of oppugnant issues and factions, of the contending claims to life and liberty of men—white, red, copper-colored, and black—of the schemings of parties, and the fierce quarrels of politicians, democrats, national and sectional, whigs, know-nothings, and republicans, Oregon is enthroned a sovereign state! ”

“ Of the general condition of the country south of the Columbia at the period of the division, something may be here said, as I shall not again refer to it in a particular manner. The population, before the addition of the large immigration of 1852, was about twenty thousand, most of whom were scattered over the Willamette Valley upon farms. The rage for laying out towns, which was at its height from 1850 to 1853, had a tendency to retard the growth of any one of them. [7] Oregon City, the oldest in the territory, had not much over one thousand inhabitants. ”

“ He predicted that the great migration to California would benefit Oregon, as many of the gold-seekers would remain on the Pacific coast, and look for homes in the fertile and lovely valleys of the new territory. And last, but by no means least in importance, was the reference to the expected donation of land for which the people were waiting, and all the more anxiously that there was much doubt entertained of the tenure by which their claims were now held, since the only part of the old organic law repealed was that which granted a title to lands. ”

“ The result of these efforts was to fill up the eastern portion of Oregon and Washington with an active population in a few years, and to materially increase the wealth of the state, both by addition to its producing capacity, and by a consequent rise in the value of lands in every part of it. The travel over the Northern Pacific, chiefly immigration, was large from the moment of its extension to the Rocky Mountains, and was in 1885 still on the increase. ”

“ The whole community were again aroused to the necessity of finding a remedy for an evil so distressing and calamitous. Two road companies were chartered by the Legislature, and a large amount raised by subscription, to encourage individual enterprise; and the year 1846 is not more an epoch to be remembered in the history of Oregon, for the quiet settlement of its boundary, than for the arrival of emigrants from the United States with their wagons, at both ends of the Willamette valley. ”

“ The country was two thousand miles from the nearest American settlement on the Missouri river; and separated from it by thousands of miles of trackless plains, rugged mountains, inhospitable deserts, and savage tribes of Indians. Why should any American citizen with a family go to such a country as that? About all that anybody knew about Oregon that could be relied on before the emigration started, was to be found in the following brief notice of the country, in Mitchell's Common School Geography, of 1842, as follows:
"Oregon Territory is the most western part of the United States. ”

“ What there is in the territory of Oregon to tempt our national cupidity, no one can tell. Of all the countries on the face of the earth, it is one of the least favored of heaven. It is the mere riddling of creation. ”

“ Although ardently labored for, the bill for the occupation of Oregon failed of its passage in the senate. But Linn's report furnished that kind of information to the American people in which they were deeply interested. Pioneer sons of pioneer ancestors, they delighted in the thought of founding another empire on the Pacific Ocean as their sires had done on the Atlantic seaboard. ”

“ But we are more anxious that Oregon should be built up by the gradual incoming of men of serious purpose, possessed of moderate capital, who shall disperse over the face of the country as they would at home, and strengthen the State by the force of attraction each will exercise over the friends and acquaintances he has left behind, than we are to create here a bit of interjected foreign life. ”

“ It was the beginning, too, of a struggle for possession between this country and Great Britain, dating from the meeting of the North-west Company's men with the men of the American expedition at the Mandan villages. Happily, all these struggles for precedence are matters of past history now; and, to-day, both English and American citizens seek and find homes on Oregon soil, where, according to a wise act of Congress, one may be had for the taking. ”

“ One of the burning questions for many years with us is "Who saved Oregon?” Many seem obsessed with the idea that some single man or single event rescued her from the clutches of Great Britain. On the contrary it was the task of a good many men for a great many years. It is a satisfaction to know, amid the clash of many claims, that she is really saved , but credit for the splendid service in bringing this about should be equitably distributed , and not monopolized by any one man or any one group. Historic truths do not rest on romance, or raphsody, or hysterical rhetoric. ”