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British-American Oregon

For this ploy to be effective, the public had to believe that the entire region was vital to the United States. Consequently, the Democrats beat this drum loudly. Much of the public responded to their alarm. To them, the Democrats had a clear vision regarding Oregon; Henry Clay’s nuanced views were more ponderous. The Democrats won the White House.

But not the Democrat anyone expected. Seven candidates had vied for the party’s nomination on the first ballot. Polk was not among them. Successive balloting failed to give any candidate a majority; none, however, would release his support to any opponent. Ultimately they chose to nominate someone who was no one’s opponent (or hero), and who would publicly promise not to seek reelection if, by some fluke, he won. That candidate was former congressman and former Tennessee governor (twice defeated for reelection) James K. Polk. The fluke was the effectiveness of the Oregon issue.

Polk, for his part, had participated in the ploy and did believe expansion to the Pacific was vital to the nation’s future. The ports provided by the Columbia River and, farther north, Puget Sound, would provide the nation with its only access to the Pacific Ocean (since California was still part of Mexico).

Polk thus took his seat at the table with Mexico threatening to go to war over Texas, and with an American public having provided him the seat through its support for his party’s campaign to acquire the entire region of Oregon, which could mean war with Britain. In addition, he knew that the other players viewed him as a lightweight. The first thing Polk had to do, therefore, was change the way he was perceived. He needed to create the impression that he was somehow in possession of much stronger cards, or that he was wildly unpredictable. Either would do, since either would cause his opponents to take a step back. Polk made that first move in his inaugural address:

The Republic of Texas has made known her desire to come into our Union.… I regard the question of annexation as belonging exclusively to the United States and Texas.… Foreign nations have no right to interfere.… Nor will it become in a less degree my duty to assert and maintain by all constitutional means the right of the United States to that portion of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Mountains. Our title to the country of the Oregon is “clear and unquestionable.”

That got Britain’s attention, clearly fitting the category of wild and unpredictable. The Liverpool Mercury reported in April 1845:

The Earl of Clarendon drew the attention of their Lordships to the inaugural address of the President of the United States respecting Texas and the Oregon territory, the language of which he described as characterized by a studied neglect of that courtesy and deference which governments were wont to observe when treating upon international affairs, and as leading to the inference that … the only basis of negotiation was unconditional surrender by England of all that was claimed by America.

In achieving his initial objective with Britain, Polk limited his next move in terms of public opinion in the United States. “There has been an important debate in the British Parliament on the Oregon, disclosing the view of England on that subject,” the New York Herald observed in April 1845. “We may now expect a serious difficulty between England and America. We do not see what is to prevent it. America has assumed her position, and England has now taken hers. Neither, therefore, can recede an inch.”

Britain indeed did not recede but rather, turning to Mexico, raised the stakes by urging Mexico to go to war with the United States over Texas. “There are many considerations that militate in favour of the Mexicans,” the London Times editorialized that same week. “Can anything exceed the dissatisfaction of the states of New England, or New York, or of Ohio, at having to meet the calls of war … for the encouragement of slavery?… The military