[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 11, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6106-S6107]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                     OREGON TREATY SESQUICENTENNIAL

   Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, Saturday, June 15, marks the 
sesquicentennial of the Oregon Treaty, which extended the domain of the 
United States across lands that make up my home State of Oregon and the 
States of Washington and Idaho. With the ratification of this treaty, 
the United States for the first time spanned the American continent, 
from sea to shining sea. Nevertheless, this treaty is more than just a 
significant chapter in our young Nation's westward expansion. It also 
represents--perhaps more importantly--the victory of peace and 
compromise over ill will and nationalistic fervor.
  On June 15, 1846, when the representatives of the British Crown and 
the United States signed the Oregon Treaty, the two nations concluded a 
long-standing but uneasy truce over the disposition of the Oregon 
country, the area bounded by the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean 
on the east and west, and Russian North America and Mexico on the north 
and south. Previously, a joint-occupation convention signed by Great 
Britain and the United States in 1818 and renewed in 1827 guaranteed 
both nations' citizens free and equal access to the Oregon country. 
Trappers and traders of the British Hudson's Bay Company and settlers 
from the United States navigated the same rivers and used the same 
resources, without common allegiance or uniform system of law. Charles 
H. Carey's ``General History of Oregon'' offers the definitive 
description of this era, during which conflicts between British 
subjects and the Hudson's Bay Company on the one hand and American 
citizens on the other sometimes flared--and did so ever more frequently 
as thousands of American settlers followed the Oregon Trail into the 
region beginning in 1843.
  Throughout the United States, public sentiment flared as well. 
Indignation at the continuing British presence on Western American soil 
and concern for the rights of the United States citizens there 
compelled private individuals and politicians alike to demand the 
withdrawal of Britain from the Oregon country. On February 22, 1839, 
Senator Lewis Linn of Missouri exhorted this body to rush to the 
defense of Oregon settlers by annexing the Oregon country, saying, 
``Great Britain through the medium of the Hudson's Bay Company, has 
opened a trade with all the tribes of Indians on the western slope of 
the Rocky Mountains, as far south as the Gulf of California. Their 
hunters and trappers have penetrated all the valleys and glens of the 
Rocky Mountains, scattering arms, munitions of war, and fomenting 
discontent against the United States in the bosoms of those distant 
Indian tribes. They have driven our people from the Indian trade, which 
yielded seven or eight hundred thousand dollars per annum, and even 
pushed their operations east.

  In this increasingly volatile atmosphere, the Democratic presidential 
convention of 1844 nominated former Tennessee Governor James K. Polk, 
despite his relative obscurity on the national stage. Polk won the 
general election against the much more prominent Whig, Henry Clay of 
Kentucky, by capitalizing on the expansionist mood of the country. Polk 
proudly invoked the United States' manifest destiny to span North 
America and ran on the famous campaign slogans ``All of Oregon'' and 
``54-40 or fight!'', arguing that the United States should go to war 
with Britain if she did not withdraw entirely and absolutely from the 
Oregon country.
  Once Polk entered the White House, there was substantial political 
pressure to honor his fiery campaign rhetoric. By 1845, as Charles 
Carey described in his seminal study, the Oregon country was welcoming 
new American settlers at a dizzying rate--and with each one, the need 
for a common government increased. In addition, several influential 
Members of Congress, including Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan--who was 
favored over James Polk as the expansionists' candidate going into the 
1844 Democratic presidential convention--were loudly advocating 
Britain's immediate withdrawal from the region.
  Another factor also invited President Polk to assume a relatively 
belligerent posture with Britain. Numerous attempts by previous 
administrations to compromise with Britain over a permanent boundary 
had failed due to British demands for all the lands north of the 45th 
parallel, including the Columbia River. Despite contentions that the 
United States' contiguity with the Oregon country gave it natural title 
to the region up to the 54th parallel, Presidents James Monroe and John 
Quincy Adams had offered both to settle the boundary at the 49th 
parallel and to permit British vessels free and equal navigation of the 
great Columbia River. As Polk's Secretary of State, James Buchanan, 
advised his chief negotiator with the Crown, Louis McLane, in 
correspondence dated July 12, 1845, British negotiators flatly rejected 
this offer on three different occasions (in 1818, 1824, and 1827).
  Thus it was that, when his administration began anew to seek a 
boundary settlement with the British, President Polk confronted a 
dilemma. British negotiators had shown repeatedly that they were 
uninterested in a compromise--but if the president succumbed to 
political pressure to annex all of Oregon he risked a western war with 
Britain just as America's recent annexation of Texas was threatening to 
ignite a southern war with Mexico.
  In response to this dilemma, the Polk administration exercised the 
self-restraint, caution, and peaceful spirit of compromise in 
international relations of which the Oregon Treaty endures as a lasting 
reminder. President Polk instructed his Secretary of State, James 
Buchanan, to offer once more the compromise border of the 49th 
parallel. This time, however, President Polk refused to offer British 
ships free navigation of the Columbia; instead, he invited Britain to 
take whatever lands and ports she desired on Vancouver Island that were 
south of the 49th parallel. Once again, the British negotiators refused 
the compromise. President Polk then withdrew the offer, indicating that 
the onus was therefore on the British to draft their own compromise. To 
ensure that one was indeed forthcoming, the president called, in his 
first State of the Union Address--on December 2, 1845--for Congress to 
support him in giving Britain 12 months' notice that the Joint-
Occupation Convention of 1827 was to be abrogated and nullified. 
Congress obliged, passing a joint resolution to that effect on April 
27, 1846.
  The United States' move to vacate the Joint-Occupation Convention 
successfully inspired in the British a conciliatory and cooperative 
spirit--without imperiling the peace that existed in the Oregon 
country. On June 6, 1946, Richard Pakenham, the British minister 
plenipotentiary, offered a proposal almost identical to President 
Polk's and transmitted it to him through Secretary of State James 
Buchanan. In accordance with the constitutional requirement that all 
treaties are negotiated with the advice and consent of this body, 
President Polk conveyed the proposal to the Senate on June 10. On June 
12, the Senate voted 38-12 to advise the President to accept the 
British offer.
  One hundred and fifty years ago this Saturday, Secretary of State 
James Buchanan affixed his signature to the Oregon Treaty. With this 
stroke of a pen, the administration of James Knox Polk peacefully 
secured for our young Nation the fruits of its manifest destiny--and 
made Oregon a great and lasting tribute to the power of cooperation and 
compromise.

[[Page S6107]]



                    ALABAMA ``TEACHER OF THE YEAR''

 Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to one 
of Alabama's most outstanding teachers. Harriet Tyler, a sixth-grade 
teacher at Springwood School in Lanett, AL, was recently selected as 
Teacher of the Year for the State of Alabama by the Alabama Independent 
School Association.
  Harriet Tyler--a native of Decatur, AL, and a graduate of Butler High 
School--has influenced the lives of countless elementary students since 
she graduated from Auburn University in 1965. As a sixth-grade teacher, 
she has had the unenviable task of preparing the senior members of the 
playground for the traumatic transition to junior high school. 
Sometimes we think our work here in the Senate is difficult, but I 
don't think that it compares to the difficult job that Harriet Tyler 
has done year after year for over 30 years. Her commitment to her job, 
her school, and most importantly, to her students is truly inspiring.
  Mr. President, teachers like Harriet Tyler represent the key to 
America's future. As our children face the challenges of the 21st 
century, it is dedicated educators like Harriet Tyler who accept the 
challenge of turning the young people of today into the leaders of 
tomorrow.

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