war;

the exigencies of the Government in the prosecution of the 18 the bills increasing the army and establishing military posts on the route to Oregon,19 and the bill making appropriations for the support of volunteers and other troops in the prosecution of the war with Mexico.20 He was not in the House during the passage of the Army Appropriation Bill, the bill authorizing the President to call for volunteers and to use the militia in the conduct of the war, nor the so-called "Mexican War Bill," as all came up in May or the first few days of June, during the period of his absence on account of illness mentioned on a preceding page; but his earlier and later ballots indicate his complete accord with the Administration in all requests for support in its military measures.

He seems to have striven consistently to prevent mere parliamentary delays, to have opposed evasions of any issue by the dilatory tactics of reference to committees or by other subterfuges, and to have sought to keep each question on the floor until it was settled and disposed of; but, on the other hand, to have as steadily resisted efforts to shut off debate, at least until the discussion had been exhausted. A typical instance might be cited in the case of the Oregon Bill. He is found voting to bring this measure up for consideration as the special order of business for the first Monday in February, 1846; then resisting repeated motions to fix a day for closing the discussion and proceeding to a vote, and finally voting for a suspension of the rules to permit John Quincy Adams to exceed the prescribed time limit and finish his speech on the subject." This same passion for free speech and fair play is displayed in his vote to suspend the rules and free the interested members from Fuller and Wilmot, carried the legend "For Martin Van Buren and a constitutional treasury." Wilmot favored McKay's proposed amendment to the Independent Treasury Bill, postponing the date when gold and silver only should be accepted in payment of public dues; but this amendment was lost.

18 Cong. Globe, p. 1100.

19 Cong. Globe, pp. 552, 658.

20 Cong. Globe, p. 1107.

21 Cong. Globe, pp. 150, 249, 294, 343.

the one-hour limit in the argument of contested election cases.22 In matters that did not directly involve the support of the Administration or of party principle, he displayed a definite and individual independence, and a strong disposition to cultivate economy and discourage extravagance in the use of public funds, and to oppose measures which he felt were for the advantage of special interests. The most salient example is his opposition to the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Bill, treated at length later; but the same purpose was manifested in his effort to bring the House to action on a bill reducing the mileage allowance to members,23 his vote for a reduction of the cost of public printing," and his vote against reduction and graduation of the prices at which public lands should be sold by the government."

25

His position in this instance was characteristic and interesting. The proposition before the House was to reduce, below the figures formerly fixed, the sale price of all public lands which had been in the market for a certain number of years, the oldest being made the cheapest. The effect would have been to throw upon the market a vast acreage which, unless some restriction was imposed, Wilmot believed would be seized by speculators and exploited for resale at an advance. He supported and advocated an amendment designed to forestall this probability by restricting the benefits of the reductions to actual settlers; and when this amendment was lost, he voted against the bill, as he was convinced its advantages would accrue to the wrong class of beneficiaries.

But that this resistance was not due to an illiberal spirit or to indifference toward great constructive works was proven, on the other hand, by his support of the act providing for the extension of the "Cumberland Road," a great national highway across the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and thence pro

22 Cong. Globe, p. 231.

23 Cong. Globe, pp. 395, 522

24 Cong. Globe, p. 1128.

25 Cong. Globe, p. 1094.

spectively westward (which he approved on a land-appropriation, but not on a money-appropriation basis),26 and by his vote for the payment of $76,300 for relief of the heirs of Robert Fulton, in payment of claims left by the engineer inventor against the United States, and for his steam battery and other inventions. The anomaly of Wilmot's record at this first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress is his vote in favor of payment of the "French spoliation claims," to reimburse American citizens for ravages committed by the French prior to July 31, 1801.27 This was an act which, whatever may have been the underlying justice of its purpose, was widely condemned as being worse even than the Rivers and Harbors Bill as a cloak for baseless or hugely swollen claims and greedy raids on the public funds. It was vetoed by the President. No explanation of Wilmot's faith in the justice of the bill has been found. It may be said, however, that he had some unimpeachable company in his vote of "yea," and it is possible that he followed the lead of these men rather than his own investigation and conclusions on the absolute merits of the legislation.

The more important measures on which Wilmot took the floor in debate during his first session were four in number: the "Joint Resolution Concerning the Oregon Territory"; the Rivers and Harbors Bill; the bill "To Reduce Duties on Imports and for other purposes," more generally known as the Tariff Bill of 1846; and the "Two Million Bill," officially designated on its introduction as “An Act making further appropriation for the expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and foreign powers." It was this last Act, or rather the purposes detected underlying it, that inspired the Proviso. These various matters came up in the order in which they are listed above, and Wilmot's part in them can best be followed in the same sequence.

26 Cong. Globe, pp. 608, 622, 623. 27 Cong. Globe, p. 1192.

CHAPTER V

THE MAIDEN SPEECH: THE OREGON QUESTION

OREGON was an extremely active and agitated subject in the Twenty-ninth Congress. At least five separate measures were under consideration more or less in parallel. First came a bill to organize a territorial government, introduced January 9, which dragged a long course through the session and was not passed by the House until August 6.1 Second was a bill to protect American settlers in Oregon until the termination of the joint occupancy of the same, passed April 8; it extended the laws and the jurisdiction of the supreme court of Iowa over the region, defined judicial districts and courts and provided for the appointment of justices and Indian agents, made land grants of 320 acres to each adult settler and 160 acres to each minor, empowered the President to cause blockhouses and stockades to be erected along the route, and to raise two regiments of mounted troops for the protection of the trail, and established a mail route from St. Joseph's, Missouri, to the mouth of the Columbia River. Wilmot is recorded as voting for the motions fixing a date for the vote on the passage of the act, but not as voting on the bill itself; it had his lively approval, however, as expressed in detail in his speech on the Oregon question quoted in extenso on following pages. The third bill was to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes in the territory of Oregon; the fourth, to establish a line of stockades and blockhouse forts from the frontier set

1 It is noteworthy that an amendment to this bill by James Thompson, of Pennsylvania, providing that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in the said territory, except for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," was passed by a vote of 108 to 43, without debate or excitement, Wilmot voting yea. See Cong. Globe, for the session, p. 1204.

tlements on the northwest to the territory of Oregon. These two seem to have been merged in the more comprehensive measure for the protection of the settlers. Finally (5), came the joint resolution providing for the twelve months' notice of the termination of the convention of 1827—that is, of the convention by which the United States and Great Britain had agreed to occupy jointly the territory west of the Rocky Mountains and to the Pacific shores, from the Spanish possessions in California to the Russian settlements in Alaska, with the provision that either party might abrogate the agreement at any time, upon twelve months' notification to the other.

Besides these, there were a number of resolutions and motions offered, designed to express the mind of Congress on the spirit and tactics which should characterize the dealings with Great Britain in effecting a settlement of the difficult and dangerous questions at issue-motions and resolutions which disappeared in committee, or were more or less embodied in the final form of the notice. But the impossibility of formulating any one mind for the whole of Congress on the main point is suggested by the history of the first of these proposals that was presented on the floor. When Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, wished to say that "it would be a dishonor to the age in which we live, and in the highest degree discreditable to both nations concerned, if they shall suffer themselves to be drawn into a war upon a question of no immediate practical interest to either of them," and proposed that "in deference to the principles of civilization and Christianity, a resort to arbitration. should be had," Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, sprang to offer an amendment "that the title to any part of the Oregon territory south of 54° 40′ of north latitude is not open to compromise, so as to surrender any part of said territory, and the question of title to that territory should not be left to arbitration."

The joint resolution was reported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs early in January and was under discussion intermittently for nearly a month. It provided merely that