FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON

that

it

75

alone was nearly decisive of the question of peace or in delivering it Calhoun had rendered the country an

war, and

inestimable service.

considered

saw

it

that he

Calhoun himself said 26 that his friends had ever delivered, although he soon

the best he

had aroused the jealousy of the leaders of his

party for both the Intelligencer and the Union (the Administration paper) disregarded his request to suspend its publica-

have seen it in print and had revised it. He thought that he had opened the door for Polk to compromise, and, in confidence, he stated that he feared the Presition until he should

Message had been diplomatic, that the notice had been recommended only to play a game of intimidation with the dent's

British government.

Now

the Administration could leave

its

27 Mc"timid, vacillating course" and take some decisive step. Lane in London did not feel this way about Calhoun's effort

he thought this speech, along with those of Webster and others, advocating peace and urging the British title to a large portion of Oregon had made the tone of the British more arro28

gant and their demands greater. Calhoun's assault upon the stronghold of the war party was followed by similar attacks by others of his way of thinking

Berrien and Archer, both Whigs, and Niles, a Connecticut

Democrat, added their voices for compromise and for checking Executive policy which single-handed would settle the

an

question of

war or peace

for the country.

The

Fifty-four

were encouraged on March twenty-fourth by the President's answer to a Senate resolution of the seventeenth inquiring whether in his judgment "any circumstances Forties, however,

connected with or growing out of any foreign relations of country require at this time an increase of our naval or

this

29 military forces." Such a request fell in with previous suggestions from Polk: in February certain portions of McLane's communications,

26 Letter to Mrs. T. W. Clemson, 23 March, Ibid., 684-5. 27 Calhoun to T. W. Clemson, 23 March, Ibid., 686. 28 Polk, Diary, I, 344-529 So Webster wrote his son, 26 Mar., Writings and Speeches Webster. XVI, 447-8.

of Daniel