Speech
of Jefferson Davis delivered in the House Feb. 6, 1846, on the Oregon question.
Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS addressed the committee during the hour. He knew not (he said) whether he more regretted the time at which this discussion has been introduced, or the manner in which it has been conducted. We were engaged in delicate and highly important negotiations with Mexico, the end of which we had hoped would be an adjustment of our boundary on terms the vast advantage of which it would be difficult to estimate. If, sir, (said Mr. D.,) by this exciting discussion we shall hereafter find that we have lost the key to the commerce of the Pacific, none who hears me will live long enough to cease from his regrets for the injury our country has sustained. Again, sir; a long peace has served to extend the bonds of commerce throughout the civilized world, drawing nations from remote quarters of the globe into friendly alliance and that mutual dependence which promised a lasting peace and unshackled commerce. In the East, there appeared a rainbow which promised that the waters of national jealousy and proscription were about to recede from the face of the earth, and the spirit of free trade to move over the face thereof. But this, sir, is a hope not so universally cherished in this House as I could desire. We have even been told that one of the advantages to result from war will be emancipation from the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham.
I hope, sir, the day is far distant when measures of peace or war will be prompted by sectional or class interests. War, sir, is a dread alternative, and should be the last resort; but when demanded for the maintenance of the honor of the country, or for the security and protection of our citizens against outrage by other Governments, I trust we shall not sit here for weeks to discuss the propriety, to dwell upon the losses, or paint the horrors of war.
Mr. Chairman, it has been asserted that the people demand action, and we must advance. Whilst, sir, I admit the propriety of looking to and reflecting public opinion, especially upon a question which is viewed as deciding between peace or war, I cannot respond to the opinion, nor consent to govern my conduct by the idea, that the public man who attempts to stem the current of a war excitement must be borne down, sacrificed on the altar of public indignation. Sir, may the day never come when there will be so little of public virtue and patriotic devotion among the representatives of the people, that any demagogue who chooses to make violent and unfounded appeals to raise a war clamor in the country will be allowed, unopposed, to mislead the people as to the true questions at issue, and to rule their representatives through their love of place and political timidity.
Mr. Chairman, I have been struck with surprise, only exceeded by mortification, at the freedom with which disgrace and dishonor have been mingled with the name of our country. Upon one side, to give notice, and involve the country in a war, is disgrace; upon the other side, not to give notice, to rest in our present position, is dishonor. And my colleague [MR. THOMPSON] says "notice" is the only way to avoid war; that to extend our laws over our people in Oregon is war—a war of disgrace. Sir, whence comes this decision, this new light upon the Oregon question? The leaders in the Oregon movement, in other times, held different views. And, sir, the discussions upon Oregon, at former periods, would certainly not suffer by a comparison with ours; nor, sir, did the commissioners who negotiated the convention of joint occupancy, either English or American, so understand it.
Mr. Gallatin has recently called public attention to the fact, that in 1827, our plenipotentiary refused to agree to any express provision that, in extending the convention of 1818, neither party should exercise any exclusive sovereignty over the territory. The probability that it might become necessary for the United States to establish a territorial or some sort of government over their own citizens was explicitly avowed. Sir, by discovery, exploration, and possession, we claimed exclusive sovereignty over the valley of the Columbia, and our exclusive possession as against England was admitted by the restoration of our posts in Oregon—the formal, actual surrender of Astoria. The convention for joint right to trade in Oregon did not destroy our exclusive possession of a part, nor limit the rights or powers we might exercise within their former bounds; and that this is the British construction, is sufficiently apparent by the assertion of rights as derived from the Nootka convention over the same territory.
Nothing can be more demonstrable than the unfitness of joint-occupation rights to an agricultural people. It was not designed so to operate, but was designed for a country in the hands of hunters, trappers, and Indian traders.
The Hudson Bay Company, so often represented as colonizing Oregon, has interests directly opposed to agricultural settlements. The fur-trappers have been (if my information is correct) aided in establishing themselves on the south side of Oregon. Fur-trading companies usually require their discharged hands to leave the country, and resist, instead of promoting, colonization of necessity destructive to their trade. The Puget Sound Company is agricultural, and its settlements are in violation of our convention with England; and the notice required is to forbid such infraction of the treaty. That no right to plant colonies can be deduced from the conventions of 1818 and 1827 is too plain to admit of argument. The claim, if any, must be drawn from the convention between England and Spain, called the Nootka convention. If that convention be still in force, it must be because it was the declaration of rights, not the grant of advantages; and thus, for the sake of argument, I will consider it.
That Spain had the exclusive right of occupation on the northwest coast of America, as far as her discoveries extended, was not denied; but the question was, Had she, without having occupied the country, an exclusive sovereignty over it? Denying this pretension of Spain, Great Britain demanded indemnification for the seizure of British vessels at Nootka sound by the Spanish authorities. This led to the agreement upon which Great Britain has built her claim to territory in the Oregon country. Before entering upon the consideration of the terms of the convention itself, I will refer to the events that led to it.
Long before the voyage of Meares, the port of Nootka sound was known to the Spanish navigators. It was the usual resort of the trading vessels in the north Pacific. Meares, in 1788, visited it, and built a vessel there. For the use of his men, he erected a hut on the shore, by permission of the Indian king, and threw some defences around it, enclosing (according to Vancouver) about an acre of land. Meares, in return for the kindness of the Indian, (Maquinna,) gave him a pair of pistols. In his narrative, he gives a detailed account of the transaction, but does not call it a purchase; that was an after-thought, and first figured in his memorial. Sir, if there had been nothing beyond the narrative of Meares, the temporary character of his location would be fully established. There it appears that when about to sail, leaving a part of his men behind him, he bribed the Indian king, by offering him the reversion of the hut and chattels on shore, to permit his men to remain in peace, and complete the building of the vessel they had commenced.
To show the character of Meares, the purpose of his voyages in the north Pacific, and the country along which Great Britain claimed the right to trade, I will refer to the work of an Englishman, contemporary with Meares, and one of the most enterprising of the navigators of the north Pacific. It is "Dixon's Voyage around the World." Thus it appears that Meares was a furtrader, and of poor character for his calling; and more important still, it appears that the coast, from Cook's river to King George's sound, was the extent of the region in which British cruisers traded. This, taken in connexion with the 5th article of the Nootka convention, serves to fix the latitude in which joint settlement would be permitted.
The message of the King of Great Britain, communicating the transaction at Nootka, refers only to the seizure of vessels; not a word about lands of which British subjects had been dispossessed.
And when the proposition to vote an address of thanks to his Majesty for the conduct and successful termination of the negotiation, neither in the House of Lords or Commons did any one claim an acquisition of territory; and to the bitter irony and severe assaults of Mr. Fox upon the position in which the territorial pretensions of England had been left, his great rival, Mr. Pitt, then minister, made no reply, but pressed the commercial advantages gained by England.
The only link remaining to be supplied, and which completes the claim of construction, is the examination and final action of Quadra and Vancouver, when sent as commissioners to carry out the first article of the convention.
If, then, no tracts of land could be found which had been purchased by Meares; if no buildings of which he had been dispossessed, and the Spanish flag was never struck to that of Great Britain, Spain still maintaining her settlement at Nootka; the parallel north of which the joint right of settlement exists must be drawn through the northern extremity of Quadra and Vancouver's island; the established rule of nations being, that settlement on an island is held to extend to the whole of the island.
Oregon territory, then, is divided into a portion where we have possession above the treaty, and over which we can exercise all the rights not inconsistent with the trade permitted to England; another portion, in which, admitting the Nootka convention to be still in force, we have, with England, a joint right of trade and settlement; this being limited to the south by a line down through the head of the Quadra and Vancouver island. Between these portions, if there be any territory, it is in the condition of a joint right in England and the United States to occupy for fur trade, and the agricultural settlements are in violation of the spirit of the treaty.
Whenever the joint right by convention ceases, we must at once assert our exclusive right, or thenceforward possession matures into right on the part of Great Britain. During the continuance of the convention the title remains unimpaired; we are in possession; can establish over the undisputed part of the territory whatever regulations may be necessary to promote good order, and encourage emigration of agriculturists. Between England and the United States, the party having bread in Oregon must triumph.
No army can be sustained there for any considerable time by either country if the food must be transported from abroad to support it.
Never had man better right to cry "save me from my friends" than the President of the United States on this occasion. His positive recommendation has been made subordinate to his suggestion. He has urged to extend protection to our citizens in Oregon, but advised that notice be given to terminate the treaty of joint occupancy for reasons given. All this has been reversed, and the positive, unqualified declaration of a perfect title to the whole of Oregon up to 54° 40' comes strangely from those who claim to support an Administration that has offered nearly the same compromise line which had been time and again proposed by his predecessors. Sir, for the honor of my country, I hope that we have not been for thirty years negotiating when there was no conflicting claim; and for past as for the present Executive, I utterly deny that they have ever proposed to cede away a part of the territory, when our title was complete, to appease the voracious demands of England. It was a difficult and doubtful question; it was the adjustment of an undefined boundary. If the President should find himself compelled to close this question in twelve months, without any appropriation, without any preparation, he will be constrained to choose between compromise or war measures with the country unprepared. This will be the result of our action; and if he should effect a treaty by such a boundary as will not compromise the honor of the country, I for one-much, sir, as I wish to retain the whole territory—will give my full support as heretofore, and prepare for my share of whatever responsibility attaches. Sir, why has the South been assailed in this discussion? Has it been with the hope of sowing dissension between us and our western friends? Thus far, I think it has failed. Why the frequent reference to the conduct of the South on the Texas question? Sir, those who have made reflections on the South, as having sustained Texas annexation from sectional views, have been of those who opposed that great measure, and are most eager for this. The suspicion is but natural in them. But, sir, let me tell them that this doctrine of the political balance between different portions of the Union is no southern doctrine. We, sir, advocated the annexation of Texas from high national considerations; it was not a mere southern question; it lay coterminous to the Western States, and extended as far north as 42d degree of latitude; nor, sir, do we wish to divide the territory of Oregon; we would preserve it all for the extension of our Union. We would not arrest the onward progress of our pioneers. We would not, as has been done in this debate, ask why our citizens have left the repose of civil government and gone to Oregon? We find in it but that energy which has heretofore been characteristic of our people, and which has developed much that has illustrated our history. It is the onward progress of our people towards the Pacific, which alone can arrest their westward march; and on the banks of which, to use the idea of our lamented Linn, the pioneer will sit down to weep that there are no more forests to subdue. Sir, the gentleman from Missouri has, in claiming credit to different States for services in time past, wandered round Mississippi, and passed over it unnoticed. I wish not to eulogize my State, but, thus drawn to my notice, let me tell him that at Pensacola, at Bowyer, in the Creek campaigns, and on the field to which he specially alluded, (New Orleans,) the people of Mississippi have performed services that give earnest for the future, and relieve her sons of the necessity of offering pledges for her. It was Mississippi dragoons, led by her gallant Hinds, that received from the commanding general the high commendation of having been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other.
It is as the representative of a high-spirited and patriotic people that I am called on to resist this war clamor. My constituents need no such excitements to prepare their hearts for all that patriotism demands. Whenever the honor of the country demands redress, whenever its territory is invaded, if then it shall be sought to intimidate by the fiery cross of St. George—if then we are threatened with the unfolding of English banners, if we resent or resist—from the gulf shore to the banks of that great river—throughout the length and breadth, Mississippi will come. And whether the question be one of northern or southern, of eastern or western aggression, we will not stop to count the cost, but act as becomes the descendants of those who, in the war of the Revolution, engaged in unequal strife to aid our brethren of the North in redressing their injuries.
Sir, we are the exposed portion of the Union, and nothing has been done by this Government adequate to our protection. Yet, sir, in the language of our patriotic Governor on a recent occasion, if "war comes, though it bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the crisis." We despise malign predictions, such as the member from Ohio who spoke early in these debates, made, and turn to such sentiments as those of another member from that State, the gentleman near me. In these was recognised the feelings of our western brethren, who, we doubt not, whenever the demand shall exist, will give proof of such valor as on former occasions they have shown; and if our plains should be invaded, they will come down to the foe like a stream from the rock.
Sir, when ignorance and fanatic hatred assail our domestic institutions, we try to forgive them for the sake of the righteous among the wicked—our natural allies, the Democracy of the North. We turn from present hostility to former friendship from recent defection, to the time when Massachusetts and Virginia, the stronger brothers of our family, stood foremost and united to defend our common rights. From sire to son has descended the love of our Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of Moultrie and Plattsburg, of Chippewa and Erie, of Bowyer and Guilford, and New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. And where is the southern man who would wish that monument were less by one of the northern names that constitute the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looked upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men, and the event that it commemorates, built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or moulding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on, and pointing like a finger to the sky to raise man's thought to philanthropic and noble deeds.
