The speech was unanswered, the bill passed, and probably Douglas knew no prouder moment than when, a few months later, upon a visit to the Hermitage, he received the earnest thanks of the venerable commander for his masterly vindication. Two of the salient and far-reaching questions confronting the statesmen of that eventful Congress pertained to the settlement of the Oregon boundary question, and to the annexation of the republic of Texas. The first-named question--left unsettled by the treaty of Ghent--had been for two generations the apple of discord between the American and British governments. That it at a critical moment came near involving the two nations in a war is a well-known fact in history. The platform upon which Mr. Polk had, in 1844, been elected to the Presidency, asserted unequivocally the right of the United States to the whole of the Oregon Territory. The boundary line of "fifty-four-forty" was in many of the States the decisive party watchword in that masterful contest. Douglas, in full accord with his party upon this question, ably canvassed Illinois in earnest advocacy of Mr. Polk's election. When, at a later day, it was determined by the President and his official advisers to abandon the party platform demand of "fifty-four degrees and forty minutes" as the only settlement of the disputed boundary, and accept that of the parallel of forty-nine degrees--reluctantly proposed by Great Britain as a peaceable final settlement--Mr. Douglas earnestly antagonizing any concession, was at once in opposition to the administration he had assisted to bring into power. Whether the part of wisdom was a strict adherence to the platform dicta of "the whole of Oregon," or a reasonable concession in the interest of peaceable adjustment of a dangerous question, was long a matter of vehement discussion. It suffices that the treaty with Great Britain establishing our northwestern boundary upon the parallel last named was promptly ratified by the Senate, and the once famous Oregon question peaceably relegated to the realm of history.