1832.

BORDER TROUBLES IN MAINE.

475

land to the south of the St. John and the disputed country beyond that river to the northward. The other authorized the inhabitants to elect a representative to the Legislature. They were intended to be a new assertion of the right of the State to jurisdiction over the region in dispute,* and not to be carried into effect immediately. But the inhabitants of the Madawaska settlements took matters into their own hands, met south of the river, organized their town government, and, a 'little later, gathered in town meeting and elected a representative.†

For these acts of sovereignty four citizens of Maine were seized by the New Brunswick authorities, carried by force out of the State, tried on a charge of attempting to subvert his Majesty's authority, found guilty, fined, and imprisoned. The Governor of Maine at once complained to the Department of State at Washington, urged that steps be taken to secure the immediate release of the Americans, and asked that the State be protected from invasion.

Livingston replied that an arrangement had been made. with the British Minister to preserve the state of things then existing till a final decision was reached; that it was distinctly understood that no exercise of State authority should take place meanwhile in the country in dispute; that the President was most desirous to keep the agreement with the utmost good faith; and that the proceedings of the Madawaska people could not but be considered as a breach of the agreement. Nevertheless, the President did as requested, secured the release of the imprisoned citizens of Maine, and was assured by the British Minister that no violation of the agreement by the provincial authorities would be permitted. Maine thereupon resolved that the Constitution "does not invest the General Government with absolute powers, but confers only a special and modified sovereignty without authority to cede to a foreign power any portion of a territory belonging to a State without its consent; . . . that if there is an attribute of that sovereignty

*Message of Governor S. E. Smith, January 9, 1832.

Resolves of the State of Maine, 1829-1835, pp. 473-496.

which is unqualified and undeniable it is the right of jurisdiction to the utmost limit of State territory; that while the people of the State are disposed to yield a ready obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States, they will never consent to surrender any portion of their territory on the recommendation of a foreign power.” *

Despite the protests and threats of Maine and Massachusetts, Jackson was much disposed to approve the award, and early in December, 1831, submitted the question of its acceptance or rejection to the Senate, which, by a vote of thirty-five nays to eight yeas, declared that the award was not obligatory, and advised the President to open new negotiations with Great Britain. Undeterred by defeat, the Administration turned to Maine, and soon concluded an agreement which left the President free to cede the land in question. Maine was to surrender, for the time being, to the United States all her territory north of the St. John and east of the St. Francis, receiving in return such adjoining territory as might be ceded by Great Britain, and, should this be inadequate, a million acres in Michigan. The treaty, however, was never ratified, nor was the existence of such a document made public for seven years.

Great Britain, meanwhile, informed the United States that she was ready to accept the compromise proposed by the King of the Netherlands, and, if necessary, modify the line in such manner as the two Governments might think proper. When the Senate advised the President to renew negotiations a proposition was accordingly made to the British Minister for new surveys, for a commission of Europeans to determine from these surveys where "the highlands were, and for a line direct from the source of the St. Croix to the highlands, wherever they might be. Great Britain, however, declined, and offered a north line from the St. Croix to the St. John, and that river to its southwesternmost The United States declined, but offered to make

source.

* Approved January 19, 1832. Resolves of the State of Maine from 1827 to 1835 inclusive, vol. ii, p. 343.

The correspondence on this proposition is given in Resolves of the State of Maine, 1829-1835, pp. 449-467.

1827.

THE OREGON COUNTRY.

477

the St. John from source to mouth the boundary if Maine would consent. Again Great Britain declined, and so the matter stood when Jackson closed his second term of office.

When Adams proclaimed the Convention of 1827, with Great Britain, under which questions arising out of the northeast boundary were submitted to arbitration, he also declared in force another which had to do with the northwest boundary. By Article III of the Convention of 1818 the Oregon country, with all its harbors, rivers, creeks, and bays, was to remain open to the citizens of the United States and the subjects of Great Britain for a period of ten years from the day* on which the negotiators affixed their names. As this period drew to a close, the rulers of both countries became most desirous to settle the long-pending question of ownership once and for all, or continue the agreement about to expire, and toward the end of 1826, therefore, the old claims were again taken up by Great Britain and the United States.

At the first conference the representatives of the King began by offering as a boundary the forty-ninth parallel from the crest of the Rocky Mountains to the northeasternmost branch of the Columbia river, and down that river to the sea-all to the north to belong to Great Britain, and all to the south to the United States. Mr. Gallatin, in reply, offered the forty-ninth parallel from the mountains to the sea, with three provisions: That if the line crossed any branches of the Columbia at points from which boats might descend to the main stream they and the Columbia should forever be open to the people of both countries; that the people of neither nation should thenceforth make settlements in the territory of the other; and that settlements already made in the domain of one nation by the citizens or subjects of the other should be held by them for ten years, under the old agreement of joint occupation, and no longer. To this the British representatives replied that they must have the north bank of the Columbia and the right of navigating that river to and from the sea, but that they were

* October 20, 1818.

willing to concede to the United States a detached piece of country on the Pacific and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, stretching from Bullfinch Harbor to Hood's Canal.

Mr. Gallatin based the claims of the United States on the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, and the acquisition by this means of titles of France to the country; on the Spanish treaty of 1819 and the acquisition by this means of the titles of Spain above forty-two degrees; on the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia by Captain Gray in 1792; on the exploration of the region by Lewis and Clarke; on the settlement at Astoria in 1811; on the virtual recognition of American title by Great Britain in the restoration of the Astoria fur in 1818; and on contiguity, a doctrine always maintained by Great Britain. If, said he, some trading factories on the shores of Hudson Bay offered her ground for asserting an exclusive right to occupancy as far as the Rocky Mountains, if the infant settlements on our Atlantic coast once justified her in claiming all the continent to the South Sea, and of enforcing it to the Mississippi, the presence of millions of American citizens already within reach of the Pacific cannot certainly be rejected.

To this the British negotiators replied, and the reply was sound and conclusive, that the province of Louisiana was the country drained by the Mississippi; that the region drained by the Columbia had never been a part of it; that it had never belonged to France; that, admitting it had been part of Louisiana, the cession of French territory west of the Mississippi to Spain in 1763 had merged all title in Spain, and, this being the case, Captain Gray had discovered a river and Lewis and Clarke had explored and Astor planted a settlement in a country already belonging to Spain. It was only by acknowledging the region to be the property of no nation that the United States could derive titles from discovery and exploration and settlement. Having thus disposed of the French claims, the British plenipotentiaries declared that the claims of Spain because of discovery prior to 1790 were futile and visionary, and cut off by the Nootka Convention of that year between her and Great Britain; that the rights derived by the United States above forty

1827.

JOINT OCCUPATION CONTINUES.

479

two degrees, under the Spanish treaty of 1819, were such as Spain possessed after the Nootka Convention, and none other; and that these were to trade and settle in that region and to navigate its waters in common with Great Britain.

The valid claim of our country to the Oregon region rested on discovery, exploration, and settlement. To this Great Britain replied, in the first place, that Lieutenant Meares, of the Royal Navy, entered the Columbia four years before Captain Gray, but admitted that Gray was the first to discover that the bay formed by the discharge of the waters of the Columbia into the Pacific was the outlet of a great river; in the second place, that the exploration of Lewis and Clarke was of no consequence, because the country traversed by them fell within the provisions of the Nootka Convention of 1790; in the third place, that agents of the Northwest Fur Company had planted posts on the northwest branch of the Columbia, and were extending them down that river before Astoria existed. Finally, it was stated that Great Britain did not claim exclusive possession of any part of the country, but merely the rights of trade, navigation, and settlement-rights which she conceded to the United States, as the successor of Spain, and no others.

To come to an agreement as to boundary was impossible. The attempt was therefore abandoned, and in 1827 a new convention was drawn, and joint occupation continued indefinitely, with the provision that either party might end it after one year's notice to the other.

The attention which in one way and another was thus drawn to the Oregon country in the course of four years now began to produce visible results. Men in various parts of the United States became eager to throw off the restraints of life in the East, brave the hardships of a march across the plains, and begin a life of adventure on the Pacific coast. Three associations or companies of adventurers—one in Massachusetts, one in Ohio, and one in New Orleans-were readily formed, and when the Twentieth Congress began its second session, in December, 1828, a bill in their interests was reported by a committee. As presented, it provided for the establishment of a territorial government over the whole