The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 318
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318
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
March, 1844.
28fH Cong 1st Sess.
Oregon Territory—Mr. Winthrop.
H. of Reps.
cine that shall heal the broken honor of the coun-
try? Who shall wipe from her brow the damning-
leprosy of violated pledges and blighted and blasted
faith? Where is the arm long enough, or strong
enough, to "pluck up drowned honor by the locks,"
from this deep abyss of infamy? When the obli-
gations of a government become "false as dicers'
oaths," then, amid the scorn and jeers of the world,
it voluntary sinks to that depth of degradation from
which there is not even the hope of a resurrection.
It is moral and political death: the great, the unfor-
gotten, and unforgiven public sin! And, unlike
the beautiful sentiment of Lawrence Sterne, there
exists in Heaven's chancery no recording angel to
drop a tear of pity on it, and blot it out forecer.
Mr. Thompson, of Mississippi, wished, before
the gentleman left that part of the. subject, to be per-
mitted to make an explanation in reply.
Mr. Rogers declined to give way, as his hour
had nearly expired; and observed, that he had made
no allusion to the gentleman, and that his observa-
tions on repudiation were general, and not particu-
lar, in their application.
I had intended, sir, to notice the extraordinary
speech of the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr.
Burt,] but my time will not permit me to do so
now, and I'passon.
Mr. Speaker, in the course of this debate, refer-
ence has been made, often and long, to foreign prac-
tice and foreign precedents; as if the despotism of
the old world, crushing with its iron heel the rights
of man, and trampling them in the dust, could have
any controlling weight here in a Congress of Amer-
ican freemen. Why, sir, neither time nor prece-
dent can sanctify error. You may throw the snow-
flakes on its brow, but it is only hoary-headed er-
ror still.
I claim that the right of petition is a great, origi-
nal, inherent, and indefeasible right; that it exists
independent of crown grants, or parliamentary indul-
gences, or constitutional provisions; that it at-
taches to human nature as such, and is eter-
nal and indestructible. It is- written on the
heart of man by the finger of his Maker; it is
incorporated with all the bounding pulses of his ex-
istence—it is coeval and coextensive with the race.
Prom the dawn of creation, when the morning stars
sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy,
it has been the heritage of man—a legacy from his
God—and it will endure as his rightful possession
and inheritance until "the crack of doom." You
have no more authority to abridge, or mutilate, or
destroy this right, than you have to abridge, or limit,
or shackle, the orisons which the contrite heart of-
fers up to Heaven.
The constitution, therefore, instead of looking at
the riot acts of England, and the despotism of the
house of Stuart, looked to original, immutable, and
eternal principles; and but declared, reaffirmed, and
reasserted a well known and prc-existent truth—a
truth familiar to all men, and to none more so than
to the framers of the constitution. I come to the
conclusion, therefore, that this 81st rule not only
violates the constitution, but is in hostility to those
great and fundamental principles upon which all
constitutions and all rightful governments repose.
I think I have heard, Mr. Speaker, in the progress
of this debate, something said about a dissolution of
the Union—something about a calculation of the
value of the Union. Now, sir, no man venerates
this Union more than I do—no man cherishes for it
a deeper affection. I regard it as freighted with the
hopes of humanity—as the last mighty stake in this
wide world m the great experiment of sclf-govern-
ment. Other experiments have failed—other re-
publics have perished from the face of the earth.
They he like, awful wrecks along the solitude of
time, and have "clattered down the steeps of night
forever."
The eyes of the nations are upon us, with un-
winking and intense solicitude; and the oppressed
and down-trodden of every land are stretching to us
their eager arms with hope and confidence. If we
fail, "chaos lias come again;" and from the ransom-
ed thrones of despotism shouts of malignant joy
will startle the world, like the "earthquake voice of
uctory." Yet, notwithstanding this, and more
than this, I agree with the gentleman from South
Carolina, [Mr. Rhett,] that there may be evils of
greater magnitude, and more intolerable than even a
dissolution of this Union. I regard freedom of thought
and freedom of discussion—the liberty of the press
and the liberty of speech—and a free, untrammeled
exercise of the right of petition, as guarantied ac-
credited, and secured by letters-patent from high
heaven. And sooner than surrender these
invaluable rights, and submit to have an atmosphere
of repulsion thrown around this Capitol, and be
obliged to approach it with "bated breath," and
"bend the supple hinges of the knee, that thrift might
follow fawning"*—sooner than submit to such degra-
dation—sooner than have the people submit to it—
"I'd whistle" this Union "down the tide of time,"
and give its fragments to the winds.
- SPEECH OF MR. WINTHROP,
OF MASSACHUSETTS,
In the House of Representatives, March 18, 1844—
On the Oregon question.
The House having resolved itself into a Commit-
tee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and
having proceeded to the consideration of the report
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, declaring it to
be inexpedient to act at this time on a resolution in-
troduced by Mr. Owen of Indiana, to request the
President of the United States to give due notice of
twelve months to the British government for termi-
nating the convention for the joint occupation of the
Oregon Territory; and the chairman of the Commit-
tee on Foreign Affairs [.Mr. C. J. Ingersoll of
Pennsylvania] having spoken in opposition to the
report—
Mr. WINTHROP addressed the committee near-
ly as follows:
I have no purpose, Mr. Chairman, of attempting
a detailed reply to the honorable gentleman who has
just taken his seat. I was greatly in hopes that an-
other member of this House, and I will add, an-
other member of the Massachusetts delegation, who
has so often instructed and delighted us on these
questions of foreign controversy, [Mr. Adams,]
would have taken the floor for this purpose. 1
would gladly yield it to him, or, indeed, to any
one else who is disposed for it, feeling, as I
deeply do, the want of greater preparation and
longer reflection for doing justice to the occasion. I
am unwilling, however, that the speech which has
just been delivered should pass off without some no-
tice. I fear, too, that, if I yield to the kind sugges-
tion of a friend near me, and ask a postponement of
the debate, I may lose an opportunity altogether.
Recent proceedings in this house afford me very
little encouragement to try such an experiment. On
more than one occasion, questions of the highest in-
terest. and importance seem to have been brought up
unexpectedly, as this has been, for the purpose of
allowing some member of the majority of the House
to deliver an elaborate exposition of his views, and
then to have been shuffled off again by the previous
question, or by a motion to lay on the table, before
any member of the minority could open his lips in
reply. I proceed, therefore, to make the best of the
opportunity which is now secured to me.
And, in the first place, let me say a word in re-
gard to the sectional character which has been given
to'this subject. It has been often said that the ques-
tion about Oregon is a western question; and a dis-
position has been manifested to charge hostility to
western interests and western rights upon all who
are not ready to draw the sword, without further
delay, in defence of this territory. I deny this po-
sition altogether. It is a national question. It is a
question for the whole country. The North have
as much interest in it as the West, and as
much right to be heard upon it: indeed, there
are some views in which it is more a north-
ern than a western question. I cannot forget
that the American claim to Oregon, so far as
it rests upon discovery, dates back to Massachusetts
adventure and Boston enterprise. It was a Boston
ship which gave its name to the Columbia river.
It was Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, who first
discovered that river. It was the Hancock and the
Adams of Massachusetts—the proscribed patriots
of the revolution—whose names were inscribed on
those remote capes. And if we turn from the early
history of Oregon to its present importance, and to
the immediate interests which are involved in its
possession, the North will be found no less promi-
nently concerned m the question. The groat pres-
ent value of this Teiritory has relation to the com-
merce and navigation of the Pacific ocean. The
whale fishery of this country requires safe stations
and harbors on the Northwest coast. And by what
part of the nation is this fishery carried on? Why,
sir, the State of Massachusetts owns nine-tenths of
all the whale ships of the United States. The sin-
gle town of New Bedford (the residence of my hon-
orable friend Mr. Grinneli.) sends out 92,000, out
of a little more than 130,000, tons of the American
shipping employed in this business; and three other
towns in the same, district'employ 31,170 tons of the
remainder. So far, then, as the whaling interest is
to be regarded, the Oregon question is emphatically
a Massachusetts question. I feel bound to add,
however, that the whole coast of Oregon can hardly
furnish one really good harbor. South of the forty-
ninth degree of latitude, (a boundary which we
have once offered to compromise upon,) there is net
one which a ship can get safely into, or out of, dur-
ing three-quarters of the year. The harbor of San
Francisco, in northern California, would be worth
the whole Territory of Oregon to the whaling fleet
of the nation.
A mere western interest! Sir, I doubt whether
the West has a particle of real interest in the pos-
session of Oregon. It may have an interest—-a mo-
mentary, seeming, delusive interest—in a war for
Oregon. Doubtless, the western States might reap
a rich harvest of spoils in the prosecution of such a
war. Doubtless, there would be fat contracts of all
sorts growing out of such a contest, which would
enure to their peculiar advantage. Doubtless, the
characteristic spirit of the western people—that
spirit of restless adventure, and roving enterprise,
and daring conflict, which the honorable gentleman
has just eulogized—would find ample room and
verge enough for its indulgence, even to satiety, in
such a campaign. Whether that spirit, indomitable
as it is in any ordinary encounter, would not be
not be found stumbling upon the dark mountains, or
fainting in the dreary valleys, or quenched beneath
the perpetual snows which nature has' opposed to the
passage to this disputed territory, remains to be seen.
A march to Oregon, I am inclined to believe, would
take the courage out of not a few who now believe
themselves incapable of fatigue or fear. But sup-
pose the war were over, successfully over, and Ore-
gon ours: what interest, let mc ask—what real, sub-
stantial, permanent interest—would the West have
in its possession' Are our western brethren straight-
ened for elbow-room, or likely to be for a thousand
years? Have they not too much land for their own
advantage already? I verily believe that, if land
were only half as abundant and half as cheap as it
is, the prosperity of the West would be doubled.
As an eastern representative, I would never sub-
mit a proposition to raise the price of the public
lands; such a proposition would would be miscon-
strued and perverted. But if I were a western man,
I would ask nothing sooner, I would desire nothing
more earnestly of this government than to double
the price of these lands. It would put money in the
pocket of every western farmer, and in the coffers
of every western State. Sale for the purpose of set-
tlement would -not be checked; speculation only
would be restrained. The average income of the
nation would be as great as now; the ultimate re-
ceipts far greater; and all parties would be benefited
in the end. The West has no interest, the country
has no interest, Hi extending our territorial posses-
sions. This Union of ours must have limits; and it
was well said by Mr. Senator Benton in 1825, that
westward "the ridge of the Rocky mountains may
be named, without offence, as presenting a conve-
nient, natural, and everlasting houndary. Along the
back of this ridge the western limit of this republic
should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled god.
Terminus, should be raised upon its highest peak,
never to be thrown down."
The Oregon question, however, Mr. Chairman,
as now presented to us, is not a question of interest,'
but of right; not a question as to the ultimate reach
of our federal union, but as to the existing exte'it
of our territorial title. Upon this point I shall
little. An argument to this House in f,,voi nf mu
title to Oregon, would be words thrown a v.-a v.
If any man can cm convince the British gov-
ernment that the territory is ours, his labor "will
be well employed, and the sooner he sets about
it the better. But we are convinced already
For myself, certainly, I believe that sre L-.ve 'a
good title to the whole twelve degrees of lati-
tude. I believe it, not merely because it is the nc./t of
patriotism to believe one's own country in the
but because I am unable to resist the Jo,)e]iiSio., to
that effect, to which an examination of the evidence
and the authorities have brought me. In savin0"
this, however, I would by no means be rndersrood
to concur in the idea which has recently been ad-
vanced in some qnariers, that our title is of Much a
character that we are authorized to decline ail nego-
tiation oil the subject. Why, sir, with what face
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session, book, 1844; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2368/m1/328/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.