He opposed the bill with the whole force of his power of keen analysis and convincing logic, but he opposed it because he saw in its adoption certain defeat of the very object which he in common with the promoters of the bill desired to reach. He counseled patience, and a strict abiding by the terms of the convention, at the same time assuring his countrymen that time and the sure movement of population toward and into the region in question were certain to bring the solution desired. So accurately did he foresee and describe the course by which the question would advance to its final settlement, that his words at this day read rather like an epitome of history than what they were, a forecast of events. American colonists in Oregon at that moment were not indeed sufficiently numerous to promise a speedy fulfillment of this prophesy. All told, they scarcely numbered five hundred, men, women, and children, and included not more than two score American families. They were enough, however, to test the excellence of the land, and enough of them had entered through the gateway of the mountains to prove that the country was accessible to men and women who were serious in their purpose of reaching it. Then, too, at the moment when Mr. Calhoun was speaking, at various centers throughout the union and on the frontiers of Missouri, a colony was organizing of men and women of the best stuff of which new states are made, setting their faces toward the new land with the full purpose of making it their home. This colony, nearly double in its numbers the total American population then in Oregon, before the year ended, successfully passed the barrier of the mountains, and with its whole great caravan safely reached the valley of the Columbia. Thus, sooner perhaps, and with a stronger and bolder movement than Mr. Calhoun himself had expected when he spoke, the onward movement of population began to make good the words of his prophesy.