yond this, that it is the sole business of this government to obtain as much money as it needs, and to obtain it in the best way it can, if he means to say that there is any other object belonging to the revenue standard which is not incidental, which may or may not happen-is all visionary, vague, ideal, and, when touched by the principles announced by General Jackson, explodes like gun-cotton. You perceive, Gentlemen, that in his message to Congress General Jackson addressed himself directly to the object. He says, in raising revenues, consider that your duty is so to arrange duties on imports as to give to the manufacturer of the country a fair competition, and, in certain articles, to suppress foreign competition. There is an object, a purpose, a motive, in protection and for protection, and it is not left to the cabalistic word "incidental."

I have said that I believe that the people of this country see the difference between the principles of General Jackson and the principles of this administration on the great subject of protec tion, and I have endeavored to present that difference plainly, and in the very words of each. I think they see the difference, also, upon other important subjects.

Take, for instance, the war with Mexico. I am accustomed, Gentlemen, to mix so far as I am able, and as my circumstances will allow, with men of all classes and conditions in life; men of various political opinions. Your own avocations and concerns in life will have led you to do the same; and I now ask you, if you ever found a sensible and reasonable man who said to you that he believed that, if General Jackson or Mr. Van Buren had been at the head of the government, we should have had this Mexican war. I have found none such. Why, we all know, Gentlemen, that the President,— I have not to settle questions of greater or less worth, or the peculiar claims between members of a party to which I do not belong, but we all know the fact that Mr. Polk came into office against Mr. Van Buren; that he came in on the Texas interest and for a Texas purpose; and we all know that Texas and Texas purposes have brought on this war. Therefore I say, I know no man of intelligence and sound judgment who believes that, if the Baltimore Convention had nominated, and the people elected, Mr. Van Buren to the Presidency, we should now have on hand a Mexican war.

The purpose of these remarks has been to show you, Gentle

men, what I consider to have been the causes of the great change which has taken place in public opinion itself; and it is vain for any body to say, that any local causes here, or local causes there, have brought about this result. That Anti-rentism in New York and some other ism in Pennsylvania have produced such important consequences, it is folly to say; there is nothing at all in it. The test is this. Do you say that questions of State policy or State elections only have influenced this result? If you say so, then look at the elections for members of Congress. Members of Congress have nothing to do with these State questions; and the truth is, that elections of members of Congress in this State and in New York have been carried by larger majorities than any other elections. These elections have been governed mainly by questions of national policy. There were counties in New York in which there was no Anti-rentism. There were others in which Anti-rent influence was as much on one side as the other. But take the test even in regard to them. I find it stated, and I believe correctly, that Mr. Fish, the Whig candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, a most respectable and honorable man, but certainly not a supporter of those who profess themselves in favor of Anti-rent doctrine,-I find it stated that he obtained more votes for the office of Lieutenant-Governor than Mr. Wright received as the Democratic candidate for Governor. That flattering unction, therefore, gentlemen cannot lay to themselves. There is, in truth, no

getting over the result of the popular election, nor getting beyond it, nor getting around it, nor behind it, nor doing any thing with it, but acknowledging it to be the expression of public opinion against the measures of the present administration.

I proceed to make some remarks upon the occurrences of the session, connected with the previous course of the administration, since Mr. Polk assumed the office of President.

The question respecting the territory of Oregon is a settled question, and all are glad that it is so. I am not about to disturb it, nor do I wish to revive discussions connected with it; but in two or three particulars it is worth while to make some remarks upon it.

By the treaty of Washington of 1842, all questions subsisting between the United States and England were settled and adjusted, with the exception of the Oregon controversy. (Great

applause.) I must beg pardon for the allusion. I did not mean by any allusion of that sort to give occasion for any expression of public feeling in connection with my own services. As I said, the Oregon question remained; and it is worthy of remark, that its importance, and the intensity with which it was pressed upon the people of the United States, increased when every other subject of dispute was adjusted.

I do not mention it as a matter of reproach at all, for I hold every man, especially every man in public life, to have an undoubted right to the expression of his own opinion, and to discharge his own duty according to the dictates of his own conscience; but I hope it may not be out of place to say, that, upon his accession to the Presidential office, it pleased the President of the United States to intrust the duties of the State Department, which has charge of our foreign relations, and pending this Oregon controversy, to the hands of a distinguished gentleman,* who was one of the few who opposed-and he did oppose with great zeal and all his ability - the whole settlement of 1842.

The Baltimore Convention assembled in May, 1844. One of its prominent proceedings was the sentiment which it expressed respecting our title to Oregon. It passed a resolution in these memorable words:

-

"Resolved, That our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable; that no part of the same ought to be ceded to England, or any other power."

Mr. Polk, in his inaugural address, makes the same declaration in the very same words, with marks of quotation, as if in acknowledgment of the authority of the Convention. Mr. Buchanan, by direction of the President, repeats the declaration in his letter to Mr. Packenham, of the 30th of August, 1845; and the President, in his message to Congress, last December, having made some apology for entering into a negotiation on the basis of former offers of this government, informs them, that our title to the whole of Oregon had been asserted and maintained, as was believed, by irrefragable facts and arguments. Through all the debates in the two houses, on all occasions, down to the

Mr. James Buchanan.

day of the treaty, our right to the whole territory was pronounced "clear and unquestionable."

In and out of Congress, the universal echo was, that "our title to the whole of Oregon was clear and unquestionable." The Baltimore resolutions, in sentiment and in words, ran through all documents, all speeches, and all newspapers. If you knew what the Baltimore Convention had said, you knew what all those who were attached to the party had said, would say, or might, could, would, or should have said.

I remember, Gentlemen, that when I was at school I felt exceedingly obliged to Homer's messengers for the exact literal fidelity with which they delivered their messages. The seven or eight lines of good Homeric Greek in which they had received the commands of Agamemnon or Achilles, they recited to whomsoever the message was to be carried; and as they repeated them verbatim, sometimes twice or thrice, it saved me the trouble of learning so much more Greek.

Any body who attended the Baltimore Convention, and heard this resolution, would, in like manner, be familiar with what was to come, and prepared to hear again of "our clear and unquestionable title."

Nevertheless, Gentlemen, the clearness of the title was a good deal questioned by a distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Benton), and the end was, I think, a just and satisfactory settlement of the question by division of the Territory; forty-nine carrying it against fifty-four forty.* Now, Gentlemen, the remarkable characteristic of the settlement of this Oregon question by treaty is this. In the general operation of government, treaties are negotiated by the President and ratified by the Senate; but here is the reverse, here is a treaty negotiated by the Senate, and only agreed to by the President. In August, 1845, all effort of the administration to settle the Oregon question by negotiation had come to an end; and I am not aware that, from that day to the absolute signature of the treaty, the administration, or its agents at home, or its agents abroad, did the least thing upon earth to advance the negotiation towards settlement in any shape one single step; and if it had

*The claim of the United States, as asserted by President Polk, extended to 54° 40′ of north latitude; the 49th degree was adopted as the boundary in the final arrangement.

stood where they left it, it would have remained unsettled at this moment. But it was settled. The discussions in Congress, the discussions on the other side of the water, the general sense of the community, all protested against the iniquity of two of the greatest nations of modern times rushing into war and shedding Christian blood in such a controversy. All enforced the conviction, that it was a question to be settled by an equitable and fair consideration, and it was thus settled. And that being settled, there is only one other topic connected with this subject upon which I will detain you with any remarks. I would not do this, if I did not think the honor of the country somewhat concerned, and if I did not desire to express my own. dissatisfaction with the course of the administration.

What I refer to is the repeated refusal, on the part of the ad ministration, to submit this question to honorable, fair arbitration. After the United States government had withdrawn all its offers, and the case stood open, the British Minister at Washington, by order of his government, offered arbitration. On the 27th of December, 1845, Mr. Packenham wrote to Mr. Buchanan as follows, viz.:

"An attentive consideration of the present state of affairs, with reference to the Oregon question, has determined the British government to instruct the undersigned, her Britannic Majesty's Envoy, &c., again to represent, in pressing terms, to the government of the United States, the expediency of referring the whole question of an equitable division of that territory to the arbitration of some friendly sovereign or state.

"Her Majesty's government deeply regret the failure of all their efforts to effect a friendly settlement of the conflicting claims, by direct negotiation between the two governments.

66

They are still persuaded that great advantages would have resulted to both parties from such a mode of settlement, had it been practicable; but there are difficulties now in the way in that course of proceeding, which it might be tedious to remove, while the importance of an early settlement seems to become, at each moment, more urgent.

"Under these circumstances, her Majesty's government think that a resort to arbitration is the most prudent, and perhaps the only feasible step which could be taken, and the best calculated to allay the existing effervescence of popular feeling," &c.

To this Mr. Buchanan replied, on the 3d of January, 1846, that