interesting feature being a discussion of the history and merits of the question by John Quincy Adams, who had taken an active part in the negotiations with Great Britain as Secretary of State in Monroe's Cabinet, and later, during his own administration as President, had agreed to the convention which he now was ready to abrogate at the expense of parting company on the issue with most of his fellow whigs. Adams's exposition was unfinished at the expiration of this hour; the time set for ending all discussion and proceeding to a vote was near at hand. Wilmot was among a minority of the members who sought, unsuccessfully, to grant a suspension of the rules so that the aged statesman might finish his address; the floor was given, instead, to Charles J. Ingersoll, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to close the debate.

3

The final proceedings were characterized by an intricate play of parliamentary fencing and of contending amendments, out of which the Joint Resolution emerged in Committee of the Whole in the form already given, and it was so reported to the House. On the question of concurring with the Committee, and of engrossment of the bill for its third reading, Wilmot voted yea; and the measure was adopted without a division. It was passed by the Senate and returned to the House, April 17, with an amendment in which the House was asked to concur-the amendment being in fact a substitute notice in much longer and more argumentative form. It was further amended in the House on the motion of Robert Dale Owen, Wilmot voting in the affirmative both on Owen's amendment and on the Senate amendment as thus amended, and it was then returned to the Senate, which refused to accept the changes made in the House. The most important of these was that the President was not merely "authorized," as the Senate phrased it, but "authorized and requested" to send the notice of abrogation. Wilmot voted again with the majority in refusing to recede, in insisting upon the Owen amendment,

8 Cong. Globe, p. 349.

and in asking for a committee of conference. The substitute unanimously reported by the conferees was passed by the House, April 23, by a majority of 142 to 46, and was signed by the Vice President, April 27 and by the President, April 30. In its reshapings in Senate and conference committee, the original resolution, as several perplexed members complained, had completely changed complexion. The text first accepted by the House simply resolved that the President "should cause notice to be given." The final version authorized the President "at his discretion, to give to Great Britain the notice required." It had lost all mandatory quality and become merely permissive. The change in the vote following the alteration in substance and effect of the resolution is interesting. Some members were for a notice in any form, and voted yea, however it might be worded. But most of the whigs and the southern democrats, who for very different reasons had opposed forcing the President's hand, and had, therefore, opposed the original version, switched to the support of the measure as soon as the initiative or the responsibility was left at the White House door; while the northern democrats, who had affirmed a resolution directing the President to do something, backed around and voted against a proposition that left everything to his will and discretion.

In the conclusion of the matter, the conciliatory temper of the Senate prevailed. Polk followed the unusual but astute course of advising with that body before the drafting of the treaty. The combination of southern senators, who feared the loss of their cotton market in any war, or even serious difference, with Great Britain; of northeastern senators with a lively vision of the possibility of the ravage of their coasts; and of whigs who were politically opposed to the democratic platform of "the whole of Oregon" and glad to see it nullified, was overwhelming. The aggrieved northwestern senators, even with the adhesion of two or three from New England, could muster only 12 votes out of 50 against a resolution 4 Cong. Globe, pp. 691, 702, 704.

advising the President to accept the British proposition fixing the boundary at the 49th parallel as far west as the straits of Juan de Fuca, and thence through that strait to the sea; relinquishing all north of that up to the Russian territory, but reserving to the United States the Puget Sound and its harbors for which Wilmot had made so fervent a plea. The resultant treaty was submitted to the Senate, August 6, 1846, but was not approved until the next session.

CHAPTER VI

THE RIVER ANd harbor bill and the tariff of 1846

WHILE the boundary question was still testing the new congressman's grasp of external affairs, a domestic measure of very different caliber was concurrently crystallizing into form to demonstrate his capacity and his disposition to think in the spirit of statesmanship rather than the terms of the politician.

The River and Harbor Bill had presented itself to the attention of the House with remarkable-one is almost tempted to say, suspiciously eager-promptness, when John W. Tibbatts, of Kentucky, for the Committee on Commerce, gave notice, December 4, 1845, only three days after the opening of the session, of his purpose to introduce a bill "making appropriations for the improvement of certain rivers and harbors," and two or three kindred measures. The bill was actually reported December 31, and, February 24, it was taken up in Committee of the Whole as a special order of business to be followed until disposed of.

The discussion very soon took on the aspect of a struggle for and against each of a farrago of special projects, a breeder of jealousies between local and sectional interests, and a convenient excuse for charges and countercharges of unfair apportionment of appropriations north or south of the Mason and Dixon line. It was closed and the bill put upon its passage, March 18; and the sundry amendments then offered, massed with the provisions of the bill itself, combine to make a motley of a few worthy and a mob of unworthy figures that compose a curious picture from the perspective of our day. Ghosts of great pending questions loom through it, sometimes mockingly; as when Andrew Stewart, of Pennsylvania, asked that the proceeds of the sale of public lands be appropriated

to make a railroad from Pittsburgh to Oregon, and Albert Constable, of Maryland, amended by adding "that the said road be located north of the forty-ninth parallel"; or, when Richard Brodhead, of Pennsylvania, moved the appropriation of $100,000 for the improvement of the Columbia, and Constable suggested the addition "after the expiration of twelve months from to-day." There was even a foreshadowing of the far distant future in Andrew Johnson's proposal to add to Brodhead's amendment a provision for a canal across the Isthmus of Darien, connecting the waters of the Pacific with the Atlantic.

Some forty members took part in the debate, but Wilmot was not among them. He voted "nay" steadily on every amendment making an appropriation, and on every section of the bill on which a separate question was asked-sometimes with one group, sometimes with another; occasionally in the majority, very much oftener in the minority, but always "nay." He voted to lay the bill on the table, and against its passage; and finally, he voted for changing the title of the bill to "An Act making appropriations for work of internal improvement within the States"-a change proposed by William W. Payne, of Alabama, and fraught with a consequence of constitutional interpretation brought out in sharp relief by the President's message accompanying his veto of the bill, transmitted to the House August 3.

On all these divisions, Wilmot was content to let his ballot reveal his position; but when the question arose on the passage of the bill over the President's veto, August 3, 1846, he chose this occasion to make his views and his motives unmistakably clear.

I rise, sir [he said], for the purpose of giving my cordial approval to the course the President has seen fit to pursue upon this subject. I opposed this bill in every stage of its passage through this House. The President would not have met the expectations

1 Cong. Globe, Twenty-ninth Congress, Ist session, pp. 524-531.