on of Oregon. In 1842, Elijah White, a former missionary, came
to Washington and so impressed the authorities with the importance of
settling Oregon that he was appointed Indian Agent for that country, and
told to take back with him as many settlers as he could. Returning to
Missouri, he soon gathered a band of 112 persons and with these, the
largest number of settlers that had yet started for Oregon, he set off
across the plains in the spring of 1842. At the next session of Congress
(1842-1843) another effort was made to provide for the occupation of
Oregon at least as far north as 49 deg., and a bill for that purpose passed
the Senate.

Meanwhile a rage for emigration to Oregon broke out in the West, and in
the early summer of 1843, nearly a thousand persons, with a long train
of wagons, moved out of Westport, Missouri, and started northwestward
over the plains. Like the emigrants of 1842, they succeeded in reaching
Oregon, though they encountered many hardships.

%360. "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight."%--So much attention was thus
attracted to Oregon, in 1843, that the people by 1844 began to demand a
settlement of the boundary and an end of joint occupation. The Democrats
therefore gladly took up the Oregon matter. Their plan to reannex Texas,
which was slave soil, could, they thought, be offset by a declaration in
favor of acquiring all Oregon, which was free soil. The Democratic
platform for 1844, therefore, declared that "our title to the whole of
Oregon is clear; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to
England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the
reannexation of Texas" were great American measures, which the people
were urged to support. The people thought they were great American
measures, and with the popular cries of "The reannexation of Texas,"
"Texas or disunion," "The whole of Oregon or none," "Fifty-four forty or
fight," the Democrats entered the campaign and won it, electing James K.
Polk and George M. Dallas.

The Whigs were afraid to declare for or against the annexation, so they
said nothing about it in their platform, and nominated Henry Clay of
Kentucky and Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. The real question of
the campaign was of course the annexation of Texas, and though the
platform was silent on that subject their leader spoke out. In a public
letter which appeared in a newspaper and was copied all over the Union,
Clay said that he believed slavery was doomed