LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
274
territorial bill it is constantly to be borne in mind that whole the struggle was but an aspect of the greater question of slavery, its extension, and its relation to the fruits of the Mexican War. That war having dragged through 1847 Mexico City was occupied by American troops on September 14th had been ended by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, signed on the second of February, 1848, and ratified a month The cession of Upper California and later by the Senate. New Mexico to the United States had brought about exactly the situation which had in prospect stimulated the debates in
Oregon
the previous session of Congress, consequently the Thirtieth Congress dealt with existing conditions rather than with an expected situation as its predecessor had. Nevertheless, the
discussion was resumed with exactly the same spirit which had animated the Twenty-ninth Congress although feeling ran higher and a greater tenseness in the country at large was reflected in the increasing vehemence of partisans on both It is not the purpose here to discuss sides of the question. the greater issue in all its ramifications but only the Oregon side of the question. The Third Annual Message of President Polk renewed the
recommendations of the former message, particularly laying emphasis upon the necessity of creating a territorial organiza-
There was, he
tion.
told Congress, a
tection of the laws of the
demand
for the pro-
United States, for a legalization of
Oregon government which, in its existing provisional form, was "wholly inadequate to protect (the inhabitants) in their rights of person and property, or to secure them in the enjoyment of the privileges of other citizens, to which they (were) the
entitled
under the Constitution of the United States."
They
should be granted the right of suffrage and the privilege of sending a Delegate to Congress, and should have all the customary rights of the inhabitants of other portions of the terri-
No direct reference, of course, tory of the United States. was made to the slavery issue as it touched this subject, although
at the
end of the Message, Polk did
call to
the atten-
