Various
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
Mr Baker, (Whig,) another insolvent from Illinois, is very rich and rapacious —
"He (Mr B.) went for the whole of Oregon; for every grain of sand that sparkled in her moonlight, and every pebble on its wave-worn strand. It was ours – all ours; ours by treaty, ours by discovery… There was such a thing as destiny for this American race – a destiny that would yet appear upon the great chart of human history. It was already fulfilling, and that was a reason why we could now refuse to Great Britain that which we had offered her in 1818 and 1824. Reasons existed now in our condition, which did not exist then. Who at that time could have divined that our boundary was to be extended to the Rio del Norte, if not to Zacatecas, to Potosi, to California? No, we had a destiny, and Mr B. felt it." … "Cuba was the tongue which God had placed in the Gulf of Mexico to dictate commercial law to all who sought the Carribbean Sea. And England was not to be allowed to take Cuba or hold Oregon, because we, the people of the United States, had spread, were spreading, and intend to spread, and should spread, and go on to spread!" … "Mr Speaker, if from this claim an echo shall come back, it may not come from Oregon, but it will come from the Canadas. Sir, it will be 'the last echo of a host o'erthrown.' The British power will be swept from this continent for ever, and though she may, 'like the sultan sun, struggle upon the fiery verge of heaven,' she must yield at last to the impulses of freedom, and to the touch of that destiny which shall crush her power in the western hemisphere!"
This may be considered bad to beat; yet, in our opinion, a choice spirit from Missouri, Sims by name, does it —
"It is so common on this floor, for inexperienced members to make apologies for their embarrassment, that I will not offer any for mine. I find some difficulty in getting along with all the questions that may be raised by the north or by the south, and by lawyers, and by metaphysicians, and learned doctors who abound here, that I shall be slow in getting along. I hope, therefore, that gentlemen will keep cool, and suffer me to get through." …
Certainly, Sims – there is no false modesty, you will observe, in this good Sims. He thus defines his position.
"I wish it to be distinctly understood what banner I fight under. It is for Oregon, all or none, now or never! Not only I myself, but all my own people whom I represent, will stand up to this motto. Around that will we rally, and for it will we fight, till the British lion shall trail in the dust. The lion has cowered before us before. Talk of whipping this nation? Though not, sir, brought up in the tented field, nor accustomed to make war an exercise, and do not so much thirst for martial renown as to desire to witness such a war, yet I cannot fear it, nor doubt its success."
A touching episode in the life of Sims! —
"When I was a boy, sir – a small boy – in 1815, I was with my father in church where he was offering his prayers to the Almighty, and it was then that the news of the victory of New Orleans was brought to the spot. I never felt so happy, sir, as at that moment. At that moment my love of country commenced, and from that hour it has increased more and more every year; and I shall be ever ready to peril every thing in my power for the good of my country. Still, I am for the whole of Oregon, and for nothing else but the whole, and in defence of it I will willingly see every river, from its mountain source to the ocean, reddened with the blood of the contest. Talk about this country being whipped! The thing is impossible! Why did not Great Britain whip us long ago, if she could?" * * * * * * "I shall lose as much as any one in a war —I do not mean in property– but I have a wife and children, and I love them with all the heart and soul that I possess. No one can love his family more than I do mine unless a stronger intellect may give him more strength of affection; and my family will be exposed to the merciless savages, who will as ever become the allies of Great Britain in any war. But still, sir, my people on the frontier will press on to the mouth of the Columbia, and fight for Oregon. I am not sure but I will go myself."
The feelings of the female Sims, and all the little Simses, on reading that last sentence! We shudder to think of it. Sims, however, has made up his mind that the exploit is no great matter after all.
"It was said that the route to Oregon was impracticable, and that it was beset with dangerous enemies, and that we could not send troops over to Oregon, nor provisions to feed them. Now, sir, we of Missouri can fit out ten thousand waggon-loads of provisions for Oregon, and ten thousand waggon-boys to drive them, who, with their waggon-whips, will beat and drive off all the British and Indians that they find in their way."
The peroration of this harangue is, perhaps, the funniest part of it all, but want of space compels us to omit it. We let Sims drop with great reluctance, and pass over several minor luminaries who are quite unworthy to follow in his wake. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to introduce to you Mr Kennedy, a Democratic representative from Indiana – a very insolvent Western state, and a celebrated "British or any other lion" tamer.
"Sir, (says Mr K.,) when the British lion, or any other lion, lies down in our path, we will not travel round the world in blood and fire, but will make him leave that lair." * * * *
After this mysterious announcement, he enquires —
"Shall we pause in our career, or retrace our steps, because the British lion has chosen to place himself in our path? Has our blood already become so pale, that we should tremble at the roar of the king of beasts? We will not go out of our way to seek a conflict with him; but if he cross our path, and refuses to move at a peaceful command, he will run his nose on the talons of the American eagle, and his blood will spout as from a harpooned whale. The spectators who look on the struggle may prepare to hear a crash, as if the very ribs of nature had broke!" …
Once more into the lion – or lioness – for it does not appear exactly which this time!
"We are one people and one country, and have one interest and one destiny, which, if we live up to, though it may not free us to follow the British lion round the world in blood and slaver, will end in her expulsion from this continent, which he rests not upon but to pollute!"
Mr Kennedy's solicitude for the rising generation is very touching —
"Where shall we find room for all our people, unless we have Oregon? What shall we do with all those little white-headed boys and girls – God bless them! – that cover the Mississippi valley, as the flowers cover the western prairies?"
In order to show the truly awful and more than Chinese populousness of this ancient State of Indiana, which was admitted into the Union so long ago as 1816, we may observe that its superficial extent is thirty-six thousand square miles, or twenty-three millions and forty thousand acres. The population in 1840, black and white all told, amounted to the astounding number of six hundred and eighty-five thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, or about one-third of that of London! The adjoining states of Illinois and Missouri are still less densely peopled.
Mr Kennedy's opinions touching the British government —
"Cannibal-like, it fed one part of its subjects upon the other. She drinks the blood and sweat, and tears the sinews of its labouring millions to feed a miserable aristocracy. England is now seen standing in the twilight of her glory; but a sharp vision may see written upon her walls, the warning that Daniel interpreted for the Babylonish king – 'Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!'"
We cannot help the confusion of genders. It's so writ down in the Globe, as are all our quotations —verbatim. Here comes a fine "death or glory" blast —
"Why is it that, after all, we should so dread the shock of war? We all have to die, whether in our beds or in the battle-field. Who of you all, when roused by the clangour of Gabriel's trump, would not rather appear in all the bloom of youth, bearing upon your front the scar of the death-wound received in defence of your country's right, than with the wrinkled front of dishonoured age?"
Hoorra! – Only one more quotation from Kennedy, and that because it permits us to take a last fond look at Sims, who re-appears, for a moment, like a meteor on the scene of his past glories!
"Was it not a burning, blistering, withering shame that the cross of St George should be found floating on American soil?" [Here Mr L. H. Sims exclaimed, "Yes, and it will blister on our foreheads like the mark of Cain!"]
Mr Hamlin, a Democratic representative from Maine, one of the pattern New England states, is not far behind his Western brethren —
"Their progress was as certain as destiny. He could not be mistaken in the idea, that our flag was destined to shed its lustre over every hill and plain on the Pacific slope, and on every stream that mingles with the Pacific. What would monarchical institutions do – what would tyrants do – in this age of improvement —this age of steam and lightning? The still small voice in our legislative halls and seminaries of learning, would soon be re-echoed in distant lands. Should we fold our arms and refuse, under all these circumstances, to discharge our duty? No; let us march steadily up to this duty, and discharge it like men;
'And the gun of our nation's natal day
At the rise and set of sun,
Shall boom from the far north-east away
To the vales of Oregon.
And ships on the seashore luff and tack,
And send the peal of triumph back.'"
Mr Stanton, a Democratic representative from the slave state of Tennessee – Polk's own – observes, that war about Oregon
"Would be another crime of fearful magnitude added to that already mountainous mass of fraud and havoc by which England has heretofore extended her power, and by which she now maintains it. Did some gentlemen say that her crimes were represented by a vast pyramid of human skulls? I say, sir, rather by a huge pyramid of human hearts, living, yet bleeding in agony, as they are torn from the reeking bosoms of the toiling, fighting millions."
Peace, this person observes, is rather nearer his heart than any thing else, but
"If she must depart, if she is destined to take her sad flight from earth to heaven again, then welcome the black tempest of war. Welcome its terrors, its privations, its wounds, its deaths! We will sternly bare our bosoms to its deadliest shock, and trust in God for the result."
After all this, our readers will be little surprised to find that a Mr Gordon, from the rich and partially civilized state of New York, whose commercial relations with us are of such magnitude and importance, makes an ass of himself with the best of them.
"The next war with Great Britain will expel her from this continent. Though a peace-loving people, we are, when aroused in defensive warfare, the most warlike race ever clad in armour. Let war come, if it will come, boldly and firmly will we meet its shock, and roll back its wave on the fast anchored isle of Britain, and dash its furious flood over those who raised the storm, but could not direct its course. In a just war, as this would be on our part, the sound of the clarion would be the sweetest music that could greet our ears!.. I abhor and detest the British Government. Would to God that the British people, the Irish, the Scotch, the Welsh, and the English, would rise up in rebellion, sponge out the national debt, confiscate the land, and sell it in small parcels among the people. Never in the world will they reach the promised land of equal rights, except through a red sea of blood. Let Great Britain declare war, and I fervently hope that the British people, at least the Irish, will seize the occasion to rise and assert their independence… I again repeat, that I abhor that government; I abhor that purse-proud and pampered aristocracy, with its bloated pension-list, which for centuries past has wrung its being from the toil, the sweat, and the blood of that people."
Mr Bunkerhoff, from Ohio, and his people —
"Would a great deal rather fight Great Britain than some other powers, for we do not love her. We hear much said about the ties of our common language, our common origin, and our common recollections, binding us together. But I say, we do not love Great Britain at all; at least my people do not, and I do not. A common language! It has been made the vehicle of an incessant torrent of abuse and misrepresentation of our men, our manners, and our institutions, and even our women – it might be vulgar to designate our plebeian girls as ladies– have not escaped it; and all this is popular, and encouraged in high places."
Mr Chipman, from Michigan, thus whistles Yankee-doodle, with the usual thorough-base accompaniment of self-conceit: —
"Reflecting that from three millions we had increased to twenty millions, we could not resist the conclusion, that Yankee enterprise and vigour – he used the term Yankee in reference to the whole country – were destined to spread our possessions and institutions over the whole country. Could any act of the government prevent this? He must be allowed to say, that wherever the Yankee slept for a night, there he would rule. What part of the globe had not been a witness of their moral power, and to the light reflected from their free institutions?" * * * *
Your Yankee proper can no more "get along" without his spice of cant, than without his chew of tobacco and his nasal twang. What follows, however, took even us by surprise: —
"Should we crouch to the British lion, because we had been thus prosperous? He remembered the time when education, the pride of the northern Whigs, was made the means of opposition to the democracy. He recollected the long agony that it cost him to relieve his mind from federal thraldom. Education was an instrument to ridicule and put down democracy."
What Mr Chipman would do —if—
"I appeal to high Heaven, that if a British fleet were anchored off here, in the Potomac, and demanded of us one inch of territory, or one pebble that was smoothed by the Pacific wave into a child's toy, upon penalty of an instant bombardment, I would say fire." * * * * "Now he (Mr C.) lived on the frontier. He remembered when Detroit was sacked. Then we had a Hull in Michigan; but now, thank God, we had a Lewis Cass, who would protect the border if war should come, which, in his opinion, would not come. There were millions on the lake frontier who would, in case of war, rush over into Canada – the vulnerable point that was exposed to us. He would pledge himself, that, upon a contract with the government, Michigan alone would take Canada in ninety days; and, if that would not do, they would give it up, and take it in ninety days again. The Government of the United States had only to give the frontier people leave to take Canada."
Though Michigan has the benefit of this hero's councils, he is at the pains to inform us that Vermont, a New England state, claims his birth, parentage, and education – a fact which we gladly record on the enduring page of Maga for the benefit of the future compiler of the Chipman annals. He closes an oration, scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of Sims, with a melodious tribute to the land of his nativity.
"If Great Britain went to war for Oregon, how long would it be before her starving millions would rise in infuriated masses, and overwhelm their bloated aristocracy! He would say, then, if war should come —
'Hurrah for Vermont! for the land which we till
Will have some to defend her from valley and hill;
Leave the harvest to rot on the field where it grows,
And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes.
'Come Mexico, England! come tyrant, come knave,
If you rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'er our grave!
Our vow is recorded – our banner unfurl'd,
In the name of Vermont, we defy all the world!'"
Magnifique – superbe – pretty well! Would not the world like to know something of the resources of this unknown anthropophagous state which throws down the gauntlet so boldly? Well, in this very year of grace, the population of Vermont amounts to no less than 300,000 souls of all ages, sexes, and colours! She pays her governor the incredible sum of £150 a-year. Her exports in 1840 amounted to £60,000. Every thing about her is on the same homoeopathic scale, except her heroes!
We have by no means exhausted our file, but our patience is expended, and so we fear is that of our readers. We write this in the city of New York, in the first week of February, and the debate is still proceeding in a tone, if possible, still more outrageous and absurd. The most astounding feature of the whole is, that the "collective wisdom" of any country professing to be civilized, can come together day after day and listen to such trash, without censure – without even the poor penalty of a sneer.
The Americans complain that they have been grievously misrepresented by the British press. Mrs Trollope, Mr Dickens, and other authors, are no doubt very graphic and clever in their way; but in order to do this people full justice, they must be allowed to represent themselves. A man must go amongst them fully to realize how hopeless and deplorable a state of things is that phase of society which halts betwixt barbarism and civilization, and is curiously deficient in the virtues of both. If he wishes to form a low idea of his species, let him spend a week or two at Washington; let him go amongst the little leaders of party in that preposterous capital, watch their little tricks, the rapacity with which they clutch the meanest spoils and wonder how political profligacy grows fat upon diet so meagre and uninviting. He will come away with a conviction, already indorsed by the more respectable portion of the American community, that their government is the most corrupt under the sun; but he will not, with them, lay the flattering notion to his soul, that the people of whom such men are the chosen representatives and guides, are likely to contribute much to the aggregate of human happiness, freedom, and civilization.
As to the denunciations of Great Britain, so thickly strewn through these carmina non prius audita of the Congressional muse, we are sure they will excite no feeling in our readers but that of pity and contempt, and that comment upon them is unnecessary. The jealousy of foreign nations towards the arts and arms of his country, is no new experience to the travelled Englishman. Still, as the Americans have no reason to be particularly sore on the subject of our arms, and as they appropriate our arts, at a very small expense, to themselves, they might afford, we should think, to let the British lion alone, and glorify themselves without for ever shaking their fists in the face of that magnanimous beast. In a political point of view, however, the deep-seated hostility of this people towards the British government, is a fact neither to be concealed nor made light of. From a somewhat extended personal observation, the writer of this is convinced that war at any time, and in any cause, would be popular with a large majority of the inhabitants of the United States. It is in vain to oppose to their opinion the interests of their commerce, and the genius of their institutions, so unsuited to schemes of warlike aggrandizement. The government of the United States is in the hands of the mob, which has as little to lose there as elsewhere, by convulsion of any kind.
We are willing to believe that the person who at present fills the Presidential chair at Washington, is fully alive to the responsibilities of his situation, and would gladly allay the storm which himself and his party have heretofore formed for their own most unworthy purposes. He knows full well that the dispute is in itself of the most trumpery nature; that the course of Great Britain has been throughout moderate and conciliatory to the last degree; that the military and financial position of the United States is such as to forbid a warlike crisis; and that, if hostilities were to ensue betwixt Great Britain and his country, no time could be more favourable to the former than the present. Yet, with all these inducements to peace, we fear he will find it impossible to bring matters to a satisfactory termination. But should an opportunity occur of taking us at disadvantage – should we find ourselves, for instance, involved in war with any powerful European nation – we may lay our account to have this envious and vindictive people on our backs. We are not, therefore, called upon to anticipate the trial, and to take the course of events into our own hands; but still less ought we to make any concessions, however trifling, which may retard, but will eventually exasperate, our difficulties. Much is in our power on the continent of North America, if we are but true to our own interests and to those of mankind. We should cherish to the utmost that affectionate and loyal spirit, which at present so eminently distinguishes our flourishing colony of Canada; we should look to it, that such a form of government be established in Mexico as shall at once heal her own dissensions, and guarantee her against the further encroachments of her neighbours; and we should invite other European nations to join with us in informing the populace of the United States, that they cannot be indulged in the gratification of those predatory interests, which the public opinion of the age happily denies to the most compact despotisms and the most powerful empires.