the question with the British
Government. Under his influence and advice, President Tyler
declared, in his message of December, 1843, that "after the most
rigid, and, as far as practicable, unbiased, examination of the
subject, the United States have always contended that their rights
appertain to the entire region of country lying on the Pacific,
and embraced between latitude 42 deg. and 54 deg. 40'." Mr. Edward Everett,
at that time our minister in London, was instructed to present
these views to the British Government.

Before the President could send another annual message to Congress,
Mr. Calhoun had been for several months at the head of the State
Department, engaged in promoting, with singular skill and ability,
his scheme for the annexation of Texas. With his quick perception,
he discerned that if the policy apparently indicated by Mr. Webster
and aggressively pursued by Mr. Upshur, on the Oregon question,
should be followed, and that issue sharply pressed upon Great
Britain, complications of a most embarrassing nature might arise,
involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for
acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr.
Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington,
conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question;
and at the very moment when the Democratic National Convention
which nominated Mr. Polk was declaring our title to the whole of
Oregon as far as 54 deg. 40' to be "clear and unquestionable," the
Democratic secretary of State was proposing to Her Majesty's
representative to settle the entire controversy by the adoption of
the 49th parallel as the boundary!

The negotiation was very nearly completed, and was suspended only
by some dispute in regard to the right of navigating the Columbia
River. It is not improbable that Mr. Calhoun, after disclosing to
the British Government his willingness to accept the 49th parallel
as our northern boundary, was anxious to have the negotiation
temporarily postponed. If the treaty had been concluded at that
time, it would have seriously interfered with the success of Mr.
Polk's candidacy by destroying the prestige of the "Fifty-four
forties," as Colonel Benton termed them. In Mr. Polk's election,
Mr. Calhoun was deeply and indeed doubly interested; first, because
of his earnest desire to defeat Mr. Clay, with whom he was at swords'
points on all public issues; and again, because, havin