THE FEDERAL RELATIONS The
Whig and
press,
Calhoun had into the to
its
seen, for
if
OF OREGON
197
Democratic, saw in the Inaugural what the Oregon Question had been pushed
background during the presidential campaign, it came in the publicity attained from the time the Inaugural
own
was pronounced
to the
Treaty of 1846. With growing intensity was waged, for the most part along
the newspaper discussion
party lines. The Whig papers deplored the tone of the President and brought forward arguments and assertions as to why negotiations should be continued and a compromise
On
reached.
hand the Democratic papers, taking the
the other
new Administration paper, the Union, backed the cry for all of Oregon, although some portions of the Southern press would not take the same stand. The Charleston lead from the
Courier,
5
for example,
showed the influence of Calhoun's views
when, discussing the Inaugural, it advocated a compromise "in which each party may relinquish a part of its extreme claim, with no loss of honor, nor surrender of dignity, or sacrifice of material interests." But the New York Evening Post 6 had
gathered a large number of leading articles from western papers and was gratified to see "the cordial unanimity of opinion with which (the Oregon Question) is taken up, and the universal determination that our rights to the territory should be stoutly
and ably advocated. There is but one sentiment and one voice on the subject. What is clearly ours will be so claimed and maintained, let Great Britain take offense as she may." "Undoubtedly," was the reply of the National Intelligencer is clearly ours' ought to be 'so claimed and maintained,' at the proper time and in a proper manner. But the very question at issue, in this case, between the United States and Great Britain, was deemed a fit subject for
(Whig), "'what
tions
now The
negotiaprevious administrations of this government, and admitted by the present to be such, is, what is ours ?
by
all
'universal determination,' the
clearly will grant,
Evening Post
cannot determine a question of right." Between the National Intelligencer and the Union arose an
- '*
5
p^oted
Register, 31
May,
1845.
