"The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as a convenient, natural, and everlasting boundary. Along this ridge the western limits of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled god Terminus should be erected upon its highest peak, never to be thrown down." In justice to Benton, we may observe he later on was convinced of the unwisdom of the sentiment, and became, with his co-worker, Senator Linn of Missouri, an ardent friend of Oregon. But his colleague, Senator Winthrop of Massachusetts, as late as 1846, when the Oregon treaty was before the Senate, and when the question had reached almost a war stage, repeated the words of Benton's speech of 1825, and commended it for its wisdom and statesmanship. General Jackson, who was a power in the nation's counsels in that day, in a letter to President Monroe, concisely stated his opinion in these words: "It should be our policy to concentrate our population, and confine our frontier to proper limits, until our country in those limits is filled with a dense population. It is denseness of population that gives strength and security to our frontier." That was a diplomatic and conservative opinion, which doubtless reflected the sentiment of the multitude. The Calhouns, the Websters, the Daytons, and a host of others were more pronounced, and less diplomatic. They pointedly hated the very name of Oregon, and did not propose to endanger the nation's safety or defile its garments by making it a part of the Union. To all that class, and I shall mention but few of them in illustration, Oregon was an aversion. The great Webster said: "Oregon is a vast worthless area, a region of savages, wild beasts, deserts of shifting sands, cactus, and prairie dogs. What can we ever hope to do with a coast of three thousand miles, rock bound, cheerless, and not a harbor on it. What use have we for such a country?" Senator McDuffie of South Carolina, was fiery with his oratory, and can easily be understood. He said in one of his several speeches: "The whole of Oregon is not worth a pinch of snuff." Again he said: "As I understand it, there are seven hundred miles this side of the Rocky Mountains uninhabitable, where rain never falls, mountains wholly impassable except through gaps. What are you going to do in such a case? Can you apply steam? Have you estimated the cost of a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia? The wealth of the Indies would not build it. I wish the Rocky Mountains were an impassable barrier. If there was an embankment five feet high to be removed, I would not vote five dollars to remove it, and encourage our people to go there."