the subject, though
languidly pursued in our diplomatic correspondence, was not alluded
to in a President's message, or discussed in Congress. The
contracting parties rested content with the power to join issue
and try titles at any time by simply giving the required notice.
The subject was also overshadowed by more urgent disputes between
Great Britain and the United States, especially that relating to
the North-eastern boundary, and that touching the suppression of
the African slave-trade. The latter involved the old question of
the right of search. The two governments came to an agreement on
these differences in 1842 by the negotiation of the convention
known as the Ashburton Treaty. In transmitting the treaty to
Congress, President Tyler made, for the first time since the
agreement for a joint occupancy was renewed in 1827, a specific
reference to the Oregon question. He informed Congress, that the
territory of the United States commonly called the Oregon country
was beginning to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and
that "the tide of our population, having reclaimed from the wilderness
the more contiguous regions, was preparing to flow over those vast
districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean;" that Great Britain "laid claim to a portion of the country
and that the question could not be well included in the recent
treaty without postponing other more pressing matters." He
significantly added, that though the difficulty might not for
several years involve the peace of the two countries, yet he should
urge upon Great Britain the importance of its early settlement.

As this paragraph was undoubtedly suggested and probably written
by Mr. Webster, it attracted wide attention on both sides of the
Atlantic; and from that moment, in varying degrees of interest and
urgency, the Oregon question became an active political issue.
Before the next annual meeting of Congress, Mr. Upshur had succeeded
Mr. Webster in the State department; and the message of the President
took still more advanced ground respecting Oregon. For political
reasons, there was an obvious desire to keep the action of the
government on this issue well abreast of its aggressive movements
in the matter of acquiring Texas. Emboldened by Mr. Webster's
position of the preceding year, Mr. Upshur, with younger blood,
and with more reason for a demonstrative course, was evidently
disposed to force the discussion of