314 NILES' NATIONAL -JAN. 13, 1844 1844-CONGRESSIONAL. 4 CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION. SENATE. Resolved.
That the president be requested lay before the senate. if in his judgment that may be done without prejudice' to the public interests, a copy of any instructons which may have been given by the executive to the American minister in England on the subject of the title to and occupation of the territory of Oregon since March, 1341. Also, 3 copy of any orrespondence which Ina: have passed between this government and that of Great Britain in relation thereto since that time. Mr. Morehead apprehended its adoption might create a precedent.
Mr. said the precedent is already established in the long settled practice of this body. The president has the power to initiate negotiations leading to treaties. but they must be consummated here.The president has no absolute power over their conclusion. The senator from Kentucky asks us why we should call for information as to a negotiation while that negotiation is pending? I ask why shonld we call for It after the negotiation is concluded? When the negotiation is brought to a close.
for good or for evil, and the matter is concluded, so far as the president has power over it, why should we ask for inforination then? It is before the matter has arrived at that stage that the president must furnish us with the grounds of his proceeding. The late British treaty should admonish us, sir, that the senate must act in time, and interfere while negotiations are pending. The impending calamity must be arrested in tune. The discussions of the British treaty, which took place in this body with closed doors, were now before the public, and could be alluded to without impropriety. He would ask senators what was the strongest argument in favor of the ratincation of this treaty by "us? The argument was, that the executive had acted and that the country was compromitted, and that the calamity of a rejection of the treaty would be as great as of its ratification.
That treaty was negotiated almost under the eye of the senatecertainly within reach of its arm--and yet it happened. that it was not averted. A treaty that was repugnant to the sense of a majority of the senate was ratified here by a vote of two thirds. Why did this happen? It was because every seriator felt himself bound to vote in compliance with the case that was made for them. Could it be supposed that representatives of sovereign states would agree to a a treaty by which a portion of one of their number was thrown out of the Union, and given to a foreign power? We have had experience and warning enough in the history of that treaty, by which the senate were forced to sacrifice the interests, and, as I believe, (said Mr.
the honor of the country, to induce us to be more watchful and prompt in the discharge of our duties hereafter. How is it, sir, with the Oregon negotiation? I have lately seen a reply made by: Sir Robert: Peel to a question proposed to him as to the state of this negotiation? Sir Robert Peer's replie, which was made in his place, though as ambiguous as such reply's usually are, yet conveyed the idea that the negotiation was going on in such a manner as would effectually guard the rights and promote the interests of the British empires It was now proposed to make this subject one of legislation, but vet a negotiation was going oil that would thwart any legislanve, action. He held that it was the right of the senate to demand of the president to place before this body all the steps of the negotiation as it advanced, in order that the senate might be well acquainted with it" before a treaty was presented for ratification. The president had made tris initiatory movement. He kuew the state of the negotiation.
and could judge of the propriety of making the correspondence public. How could we act on the Oregon bill without the at here act on one state of things while the president had bound the country to another state of things. The question would thus become entangled -one branch of the govermment acting without the knowledge of the other. What had already been the consequences of such a course? He had seen a speech of Sir Robert Peel, in which that minister had declared that, if the bill for the occupation of the Oregon territory, JANUARY 4. Mr.
Merrick said that he held in his hand a circular issued by a meeting at Baltimore of "'the Friends of the Lord's Day," which they had requested him to read to the senate. Its matter not appearing to have any relation with the proper business of the senate, objection was made by Mr. Benton. and the paper was not read. Mir.
Tullmadge, from the committee on the public Jands, reported a bill for the improvement of Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and to connect the same by a canal. Oregon. The resolution of Mr. Allen was then taken up and read as follows: A which was before the senate last winter, had passed into a law. it would have been cause of war.
The special object of that speech was--for at was not to be presumed that a minister, speaking with the weight of the British empire on his shoulders, would speak without an object -to admonish us to stand still -to warn this body that they pass that bill. Thus it was that a territory might be wrested from US by a negotiation--a territory larger than. Great Britain three times multiplied, which was ours, might be taken from us. If the minister designed his admonition to act on the states and on the people of this Union, he would find himself mistaken in the result. He could not, in any way, more effectually arouse the pride and the spirit of the American people than by such a menace.
He (Mr. wanted the people to see the state of this question--the people who have covered our tables with petitions for the occupation of the Oregon territory, and who, if they thought it necessary, would petition us by millions. But he would not go home to his constituents and tell them that he could not act on the Oregon bill, because he could not inquire and ascertain what was the state of the pending negotiation of the subject, especially after the intimation on the British minister that the action of the senate might he a cause of war. If the resolution should fail in the senate while acting in their legislative capacity, he would present it again to the senate when acting in their executive capacity. He would ask the yeas and nays on the question.
Mr. Mcrehead repeated that he did not intend to offer any opposition to the resolution, but he thought members should be allowed an opportunity for deli berate reflection on the subject. He wished to allow time for its examination also by the chairman of the committee of foreign affairs, (Mr. Archer,) now absent. Mr.
Allen, therefore, moved that its consideration be postponed till Monday next, which motion was agreed to, and After an executive session, the senate adjourned till the 8th inst. JANUARY 8. Mr. Semple submitted the following, which lies over: Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to give notice to the British government that it is the desire of the government of the United States to annul and abrogate the provisions of the third article of the convention concluded between the government of the United States of America and his Britannic Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on the 20th October, 1818, and indefinitelv continned between the same parties, signed at London the 6th Angust, 1827. Mr.
Allen submitted the following, which lies over: Resolved, That the President be requested to inform the senate, if it be in his power to do so, whether any of the Indian tribes, or any of the Indians resident within the territorial limits of the United States, are in the recript, periodically or occasionally, of any pension. pay, or present, in money or in other things, from the British government; and if so, that he be requested to state the particulars: also, whether the government of the United States has had any correspondence with the British government in relation to that mailer; and, in tha! event, that he be requested to lay before the senate a copy of such correspondence. Oregon. The senate then procceded to the consi- deration of the resolution heretofore submitted by Mr. Allen, calling on the president for copies of instructions given to our minister in London relating to the title: and occupation of Oregon.
Mr. Allen arose and desired to correct his reference to debates in the British parliament, wherein he had attributed to Sir R. Peel, remarks which had been made not by R. Peel, but by Lord Palmerston. Mr.
A. then read from Hansard's debates, official, wherein i it was reported that on the 21st of March, 1843, Lord Palmerston said: "There was another boundary question still pending, relative to what was called the Oregon territory. What had happened lately on that question? The senate of the United States had proposed a bill for taking possession of that entire territory, and the senator who introduced the bill observed that Great Britain would acquiese in the right of the United States to the territory when the subject should be brought before her in what the senator was pleased to call a proper manner. It was possible that the bill might not pass; but if it did pass, and became a law, and was acted on, it would be a declaration of war." Mr. A.
then read the remarks as reported officially in the same debate of Sir R. Peel. "The ques she Oregon boundary Peel. is not adjusted, and it is not necessary that I should address the house upon it. Our government was not so open to popular influences as that of the U.
States. But we have no intelligence that the bill alluded to had a law. We had proposed to that gOvernment some means by which the adjustment off the Oregon question could be. effected, and we had met with no repulse. We had, on the contrary, re- I ceived assurances that the government was anxious to bring it 'to an adjustment.
But we were dealing with the executive branch of the American government, and not with the legislative. If the bill alluded to should pass, it was impossible that the executive could give it his sanction, after the assurances given to this government on the subject. He would not discuss the proposition that it would be a cause of war, for, when the executive "government professed the most peaceful disposition, he would trust in its assurances. Ile would not believe the information of noble lord to be correct, in opposition to such as rances." Mr. Allen made allusion to these remarks of the premier to show the importance of the question, and maintained that before Sir R.
Peel could have uttered consistently those opinions he must have received such assurances respecting American claims to Oregon from the American executive as would have authorized his expression of such sentiments. Mr. A. alluded to the history of the late Ashburton treaty as shewing the necessity of the senate's exercising its powers and being made acquainted with the progress of negotiation before any unadvised steps shall be hereafter again taken by the executive, and a treaty consummated at variance with the judgment of the senate. The state of the negotiation ought to be made known before it is consummated.
There are questions undoubtedly in which it might be improper to promulgate the state of the negotiation while it is pending. But the question of territory is not of this description. It is of too high a nature to allow that any part of the proceedings should be kept back from the people. The senate could not permit a treaty for a surrender of territory to be negotiated by the president without their knowledge because they, as well as the president, were charged with the interests of the country. To submit this matter of our possession of Oregon to a negotiation would imply that there must be some color of right to the British claim, or some ambiguity in our own claim.
Why else should it be opened to controversy? We lost a part of the territory of Maine the moment re yielded to negotiation, though we had unanimously declared that it belonged of right to us. We agreed to negotiate, and then i it became necessary that somebody should pay the cost of a negotiation, and so they split the country in dispute between the two. parties. It was the unanimous sentiment of the west -the Great West, whose voice was beginning to be heard since the census of 1840-that this territory of Oregon belonged exclusively to the United States, and ought to be occupied by us. There was no party there in regard to this question.
It was the opinion of all -and there was no difference on the subjectti at not a foot of land on this continent ought ever to be surrendered by us. It was not their policy to plant European systems here, and least of all those of England; but, on the contrary, they wanted room for our own institutions to grow here. Mr. said, he would state to the senate, upon information which he had obtained as chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, that there was no negotiation depending on this subject at the court of St. James.
It was our proposition to treat there; instructions were accordingly sent; but the British goyernment preferred to treat here, and made a proposition accordingly, to which our government had no objection. A minister was expected to be here in a few weeks, even if he was not already on his way, who was specially charged with this subject and other subjects at issue between the two governments. He would not, under these circ*mstances, treat the body with such disrespect as to suppose that they would adopt a resolution of this character. It would obstruct all negotiation. The whole tenor of the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio was.
that we should entertain no negotiation on this subject. Was Great Britain', who for thirty years had asserted, like ourselves, a claim to this" territory, to be told, when she offers to send a minister here to settle this question by negotiation, in our own capital -what? That we will not listen to her at: all; that we will enter into no negotiation with her; that we will take exclusive possession of the territory at all hazards. That was the language that' the senator from Ohio wished to hold, and had, in substance put in this resolution, and in his accompanying remarks. state, (said Mr. Archer.) from information derived from the executive, that we are on the eve of commencing a negotiation.
here at home; and are we to ground here that we have an undisputed right to the whole territory, and Win nor upon it? We have made two conventions with Great Britain on the subject, both of them admitting of doubt as to the title to the territory, and, is Great Britain, on the eve of another negotiation, to be told that the western people, whose chivalry the senator from Ohio represents, will have no: negotiation, even I though war should be the result-a war, too, that 1 1 4 13 .1.
