The question of sovereignty has never been decided. Simply to give notice of the abrogation of the convention, would leave the question in the same situation: it would remain in abeyance. But when the President has recommended that the notice should be given with the avowed object of assuming exclusive sovereignty, an Act of Congress, in compliance with his recommendation, necessarily implies an approbation of the object for which it is given. If the notice should be given, the only way to avoid that implication and its fatal consequences, is to insert in it, an explicit declaration, that the sovereignty shall not be assumed. But then why give the notice at all? A postponement is far preferable, unless some other advantage shall be obtained by the abrogation of the convention. This must be examined, and it is necessary to inquire whether any and what measures may be adopted, without any violation of the convention, that will preserve the rights and strengthen the position of the United States. NUMBER IV. The acts which the government of the United States may do, in conformity with the convention, embrace two objects: the measures applicable to the territory within their acknowledged limits which may facilitate and promote migration; and those which are necessary for the protection of their citizens residing in the Oregon territory. It is a remarkable fact that, although the convention has now been in force twenty-seven years, Congress has actually done nothing with respect to either of those objects. Enterprising individuals have, without any aid or encouragement by Government, opened a wagon-road eighteen hundred miles in length, through an arid or mountainous region, and made settlements on or near the shores of the Pacific, without any guaranty for the possession of the land improved by their labors. Even the attempt to carry on an inland trade with the Indians of Oregon has been defeated, by the refusal to allow a drawback of the high duties imposed on the importation of foreign goods absolutely necessary for that commerce. Thus the fur trade has remained engrossed by the Hudson Bay Company; missionaries were, till very lately, almost the only citizens of the United States to be found in Oregon; the United States, during the whole of that period, have derived no other advantage from the convention than the reservation of their rights, and the express provision that these should in no way be affected by the continuance of the British factories in the territory. And, now that the tide of migration has turned in their favor, they are suddenly invited to assume a hostile position, to endure the calamities and to run the chances and consequences of war, in order to gain an object which natural and irresistible causes, if permitted to operate, cannot fail ultimately to attain.