what stream was the St. Croix, nor where to locate the northwest angle, nor where the Highlands were, nor even what was meant by "Atlantic Ocean.” In 1821 the line was run from the Atlantic to a point called Mars Hill; the British insisted that the "Highlands" lay there, and the Americans insisted that they were beyond the St. John River. After a vain attempt at arbitration (1827-1831), the state of Maine in the "Aroostook War" (1838) attempted to seize part of the disputed territory. Webster remained in Tyler's Cabinet long enough to settle this question: in 1842 he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton treaty, by which the disputed territory was divided, and each party got about half. The settlement was creditable and satisfactory to both sides, and ended a controversy which threatened to bring on war. Until about 1820, the interior of North America was still little known; but in that year Major Long explored part of the Rocky Mountain chain, and from that time trade developed on what was called the Santa Fé trail, a road leading southwestward from the Missouri River to the Rio Grande (p. 324). In 1832 Bonneville's party went as far west as Great Salt Lake, crossing the Rockies with a wagon train, and some of them reached the Pacific. 302. Explorations of the interior Farther north the American Fur Trading Company in the twenties opened up a route to Oregon; and in 1834 Nathaniel J. Wyeth of Massachusetts guided a party of settlers to Fort Hall, north of Great Salt Lake, and thence to Oregon. In 1836 Dr. Marcus Whitman and other mis(1820-1845) sionaries to the northern Indians went out along this route. In the winter of 1842-1843 Dr. Whitman came east from Oregon by a dangerous, roundabout route, partly on business of the mission, partly because he supposed that Webster was willing to give up all claims to Oregon. There was no such danger; the country was awake to the importance of a Pacific outlet; and there is no contemporary evidence to show that Whitman saw Webster or influenced the President. In 1843 he joined an expedition formed by other people and with it returned to Oregon. A young army officer named John C. Frémont, aided by good guides, in the forties made three long explorations westward. In the first (1842) he went up the Platte River to its head waters, and crossed over the Rocky Mountain divide by the South Pass to the head waters of the Colorado. In 1843 he went through the mountains via Great Salt Lake to Oregon, and then across the Sierra Nevada to California. In 1845 he was sent off with an armed party and again reached California. He was a poor explorer, and made no proper surveys; but he was a son-in-law of Senator Benton of Missouri, young, dashing, and good-looking, and got the name of "Pathfinder" for his exploits. 303. Question of One of Tyler's lines of policy was to annex Texas; and he made John C. Calhoun Secretary of State for that express purpose. Calhoun negotiated a treaty of annexation. (April 12, 1844), which was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 35 to 16; and the scheme went over. The arguments in favor of annexation were: (1) that the Texans were simply Americans across the border; (2) that Texas was a rich and fertile country which would add wealth to the Union; (3) that annexation was a natural form of expansion; (4) that it was simply a "reannexation" of territory rightly a part of the Union from 1803 to 1819; (5) that it would retain for the slaveholders a needed control of the Senate. Both the antislavery people and the abolitionists violently opposed annexation: (1) because it would bring into the Union more territory to be a field of slavery; (2) because it would give to the slaveholding influence perpetual control of the national government; (3) because it would probably bring on war with Mexico. Texas (1844) Texas The question of Texas came up again in the campaign of 1844. The natural candidates were Clay and Van Buren, both 304. An- of whom publicly declaimed against annexation. Clay nexation of was unanimously nominated by the Whigs. In the (1844-1845) Democratic convention Van Buren had at first a majority of the delegates, but was deprived of his nomination by the unexpected readoption of the two-thirds rule; and James K. Polk of Tennessee was nominated because he was known to favor annexation. The Democratic platform declared for "the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas at the Niles, earliest practicable period." Clay then felt compelled to change his ground by saying that he would be glad to see Texas annexed, "without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and fair terms." The Liberty or Abolition party nominated James G. Birney, but in the election of 1844 got only 62,000 popular votes against 1,299,000 for Clay and 1,337,000 for Polk; yet it decided the national election by deliberately drawing off enough Clay votes in New York to throw that close state for Polk, whose electoral vote was 170 to 105 for Clay. The Liberty men hoped thus to compel the Whigs to take antislavery ground. Congress and President Tyler did not wait for the new administration: since annexation seemed to have the approval of the majority of the people, a joint resolution passed the House by a vote of 120 to 98, and the Senate by 27 to 25 (March 1, 1845), permitting the admission of Texas as a state on very favorable terms. No territory had ever before been annexed by this method; but Texas accepted and came into the Union as a full-fledged state in December, 1845. Under the terms of the joint resolution, she retained all her public lands, and might later, with her own consent, be subdivided into five states, all presumably slave states, except that slavery was to be prohibited in the new state or states north of the line of 36° 30'. As to the Mexican boundary, the joint resolution took no ground; but President Polk's theory was that Texas included everything that Texas claimed; that is, all the territory as far as the Rio Grande. He was 305. James K. Polk and his policy Few Presidents have been so successful in carrying out what they undertook as James K. Polk, Tyler's successor. born in 1795, was a graduate of the University of North Carolina, was fourteen years a member of the House of Representatives (four years Speaker), and then for one (1845-1849) term governor of Tennessee. He had large public experience, and an imperious and far-reaching mind. The defect of Polk's character was his lack of moral principle as to the property of our neighbor, Mexico. His diary shows clearly that his real intentions and purposes were very different from those which he put forward in public. From the first he meant not only to annex Texas, but to add to the Union the enormous belt of territory stretching from the Gulf to the Pacific, to gain the port of San Francisco for Pacific trade, and to turn over the greater part of the new territories to slavery. and finance (1846) A strong Democratic majority appeared in both houses of Congress in 1845-1846, and speedily repealed the recent Whig financial legislation. The Independent Treasury sys- 306. Tariff tem, which had been repealed by the Whigs in 1841, was restored; and the treasury has ever since remained the principal custodian of public funds. Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury, drafted and presented to Congress a measure which became law as the tariff of July 30, 1846. The duties on luxuries were very high, reaching 100 per cent on brandy and spirits; on ordinary manufactures they were only about 30 per cent; the average on dutiable goods was about 25 per cent; and the annual proceeds in a few years were twice as great as those of the tariff of 1842. For Polk's designs on California it was highly desirable to settle the long-standing controversy with Great Britain over Oregon, a name then applied to the whole Pacific slope from California to the Russian possessions. By extinguishOregon ing the Spanish claims (1819) and the Russian (1824), 307. The boundary (1818-1846) the United States and Great Britain were left the sole competitors for this fine country. The claims of the United States rested on: (1) discovery by Captain Gray (1792); (2) first exploration by Lewis and Clark (1805); (3) first settlement by Astor (1811); (4) first permanent settlement, in the Willamette valley (1832). The British claim was based chiefly on the establishment of posts by the Hudson's Bay Company, but that company persistently kept out permanent settlers. In 1826 Great Britain offered to divide the Oregon country on the line of the Columbia and Kootenai rivers; and between |