LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE

198

The controversy over the tone of the Inaugural. of the defeat was and sore over as it Clay, Intelligencer, Whig took many occasions to point out the defects of the Administraeditorial

on the most pressing matter of Oregon. of these articles reviewed the situation and concluded

tion's policy, especially

One

with the opinion that the "case should go forward to its peaceand reasonable decision; and we hope, as is our public 7 duty, that it will, in spite of all blusterers, cis or trans- Atlantic."

ful

The response of the Union to this leader represents the views of the Administration so far as those could be read by the public in general, for Ritchie, a strong Polk man in the campaign, had left the Richmond Enquirer to come to Washington as editor of Folk's organ. Ritchie's answer, then, to Gales and Seaton may well have been considered an outline of Folk's

desired interpretation of the Inaugural and as such to

enough

be liberally quoted

is

important

"We do not understand that the executive of the United States have any intention of closing the door to any negotiation with Great Britain on the Oregon Question, and, therefore, we might suppose that all the inferences which the National Intelligencer draws from the supposed Violent ground that the United States (for instance) will not negotiate' upon such a course, leaving us the 'alternatives of submission or war' and all denunciations which it so gratuitously pours forth upon the 'shocking absurdity' and the barbarous doctrine that 'we ought not to negotiate,' (which the National Intelligencer attributes to some of the republicans,) and thus we revive the 'old umpirage of private rights the wager of battle' are entirely

misplaced.

"We

do not understand that the negotiation about an end or that our administration is determined or willing to terminate it or that there is no prospect of amicably adjusting the dispute; or that it must necessarily end in certainly

Oregon

is

at

We yet breaking up the peace of the two countries. trust that the 'case may go forward to its peaceful and reason.

.

able decision' and in spite, too, of all unnecessary menaces of the British ministers and all the blusterings of the London journals. "Instead of giving gratuitous and superfluous advice to our

7 13

May.