In his annual message to congress, December 6, 1842, President Tyler, after giving as the reason for the omission of the Oregon boundary from the late treaty the fear that its discussion might imperil the treaty as a whole, went on to express the purpose of the administration to urge upon the government of Great Britain the importance of an early settlement of this question. A few days later, the senate passed a resolution calling upon the President to communicate to the senate the nature of any “informal communications” that might have passed between the Secretary of State and the Special Minister of the British Government on the question of the Oregon boundary. To this resolution the President, in his message of December 23, answered that measures had been already taken in pursuance of the purpose expressed in his annual message, and, under these circumstances, he did not deem it consistent with the public interest to make any communication on the subject. But neither the President’s expressed purpose, nor his subsequent declaration that measures in pursuance of that purpose had already been taken, stayed the progress of measures in congress. On the nineteenth of December, in accordance with his promise made at the close of the last session of congress, Mr. Linn introduced a bill of like import with that of the former session. This bill was referred to a select committee, of which Mr. Linn was chairman, and was soon reported back to the house, when it was made a regular order for immediate discussion. The discussion was continuous and earnest for more than a month, when by a vote of twenty-four to twenty-two it passed the senate. A vote of reconsideration failing to pass, the bill went to the house, and was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, of which John Quincy Adams was chairman, by whom, a few days later, it was reported to the house with the recommendation that it should not pass. Thus the bill failed of finally becoming a law, and doubtless many who advocated it in the senate, on cooler reflection, felt that it was well that it did fail. In a wider view, however, the measure was not a failure, for it served its object well, though not in the way its supporters intended. Few bills ever have called out from the senate a more earnest or an abler discussion. The best talent of the body was enlisted in the discussion, the spirit in which the debate was carried on was broad and patriotic, and for the progressive illumination of the subject under discussion the debate has never been surpassed. When it closed there remained little to be said. The future course of congress in the matter was practically settled in this debate and the action which followed; while in the course of the discussion, the pathway by which the question was ultimately to reach its solution was again and again pointed out. This was done by no one more clearly than by Calhoun, who spoke twice at length in opposition to the measure.