Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860Blaine, James Gillespie
History
Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860
Blaine, James Gillespie
United States -- History; United States -- History -- 1865-1898
Nothing had been done towards an adjustment during the ten years
of joint occupancy, and when the term was about to expire, the
arrangement was renewed by special convention in 1827, for an
indefinite period,--each power reserving the right to terminate
the convention by giving twelve-months' notice to the other. The
President, John Quincy Adams, made the briefest possible reference
to the subject in his message to Congress, December, 1827; speaking
of it as a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims
of Great Britain and the United States to territory westward of
the Rocky Mountains. For many years thereafter, the subject, though
languidly pursued in our diplomatic correspondence, was not alluded
to in a President's message, or discussed in Congress. The
contracting parties rested content with the power to join issue
and try titles at any time by simply giving the required notice.
The subject was also overshadowed by more urgent disputes between
Great Britain and the United States, especially that relating to
the North-eastern boundary, and that touching the suppression of
the African slave-trade. The latter involved the old question of
the right of search. The two governments came to an agreement on
these differences in 1842 by the negotiation of the convention
known as the Ashburton Treaty. In transmitting the treaty to
Congress, President Tyler made, for the first time since the
agreement for a joint occupancy was renewed in 1827, a specific
reference to the Oregon question. He informed Congress, that the
territory of the United States commonly called the Oregon country
was beginning to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and
that "the tide of our population, having reclaimed from the wilderness
the more contiguous regions, was preparing to flow over those vast
districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean;" that Great Britain "laid claim to a portion of the country
and that the question could not be well included in the recent
treaty without postponing other more pressing matters." He
significantly added, that though the difficulty might not for
several years involve the peace of the two countries, yet he should
urge upon Great Britain the importance of its early settlement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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