ed. American settlers had
forced her back. With the sweep of our emigration and civilization
to the Pacific coast two years after the treaty of 1846, when gold
was discovered in California, the tendency would have been still
more strongly in our favor. Time, as Mr. Calhoun said, "would have
effected every thing for us" if we could only have been patient
and peaceful.

Taking the question, however, as it stood in 1846, the settlement
must, upon full consideration and review, be adjudged honorable to
both countries. Wise statesmen of that day felt, as wise statesmen
of subsequent years have more and more realized, that a war between
Great Britain and the United States would not only be a terrible
calamity to both nations, but that it would stay the progress of
civilization throughout the world. Future generations would hold
the governing power in both countries guilty of a crime if war
should ever be permitted except upon the failure of every other
arbitrament. The harmless laugh of one political party at the
expense of the other forty years ago, the somewhat awkward receding
from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of
the nation, have passed into oblivion. But a striking and useful
lesson would be lost if it should be forgotten that the country
was brought to the verge of war by the proclamation of a policy
which could not be, and was not intended to be, enforced. It was
originated as a cry to catch votes; and except with the ignorant,
and the few whose judgment was carried away by enthusiasm, it was
from the first thoroughly insincere. If the punishment could have
fallen only upon those who raised the cry, perfect justice would
have been done. But the entire country suffered, and probably
endured a serious and permanent loss, from the false step taken by
men who claimed what they could not defend and did not mean to
defend.

The Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, gained much credit for his
conduct of the Oregon question, both diplomatically and politically.
His correspondence with Mr. Pakenham, the British minister at
Washington, was conspicuously able. It strengthened Mr. Buchanan
at home, and gave him an enviable reputation in Europe. His
political management of the question was especially adroit. His
party was in sore trouble over the issue, and naturally looked to
him for relief and escape. To extricate the Administration from
the embarrassment caused by its ill-timed and bo