e United States. Mexico's offer
was therefore rejected. Polk managed the diplomatic situation with
admirable promptness and firmness. Notwithstanding the fact that the
democratic platform had demanded "Fifty-Four-Forty or Fight," as soon
as Polk became President he offered to compromise with England on the
49th parallel. When this offer was declined he asked permission of
Congress to give England the necessary notice for the termination of
the joint occupation agreement, to provide for the military defense of
the territory in dispute, and to extend over it the laws of the United
States. A few months later notice was given to England, but at the
same time the hope was expressed that the matter might be adjusted
diplomatically. As soon as it was evident that the United States was
in earnest, England gracefully yielded and accepted the terms which had
been first proposed.

As war with Mexico was imminent the public generally approved of the
Oregon compromise, though the criticism was made by some in the North
that the South, having secured in Texas a large addition to slave
territory, was indifferent about the expansion of free territory. In
fact, Henry Cabot Lodge, in his recent little book, "One Hundred Years
of Peace," says: "The loss of the region between the forty-ninth
parallel and the line of 54-40 was one of the most severe which ever
befell the United States. Whether it could have been obtained without
a war is probably doubtful, but it never ought to have been said,
officially or otherwise, that we would fight for 54-40 unless we were
fully prepared to do so. If we had stood firm for the line of 54-40
without threats, it is quite possible that we might have succeeded in
the end; but the hypotheses of history are of little practical value,
and the fact remains that by the treaty of 1846 we lost a complete
control of the Pacific coast."

That the United States lived through what Professor Dunning calls "the
roaring forties" without a war with England seems now little less than
a miracle. During the next fifteen years relations were much more
amicable, though by no means free from disputes. The most important
diplomatic act was the signature in 1850 of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty
which conceded to England a joint interest in any canal that might be
built through the isthmus connecting North and South America. One of
the interesting episodes of this period was the dismissal of Crampton,
the British minist