FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON that
it
75
alone was nearly decisive of the question of peace or in delivering it Calhoun had rendered the country an
war, and
inestimable service.
considered
saw
it
that he
Calhoun himself said 26 that his friends had ever delivered, although he soon
the best he
had aroused the jealousy of the leaders of his
party for both the Intelligencer and the Union (the Administration paper) disregarded his request to suspend its publica-
have seen it in print and had revised it. He thought that he had opened the door for Polk to compromise, and, in confidence, he stated that he feared the Presition until he should
Message had been diplomatic, that the notice had been recommended only to play a game of intimidation with the dent's
British government.
Now
the Administration could leave
its
27 Mc"timid, vacillating course" and take some decisive step. Lane in London did not feel this way about Calhoun's effort
he thought this speech, along with those of Webster and others, advocating peace and urging the British title to a large portion of Oregon had made the tone of the British more arro28
gant and their demands greater. Calhoun's assault upon the stronghold of the war party was followed by similar attacks by others of his way of thinking
Berrien and Archer, both Whigs, and Niles, a Connecticut
Democrat, added their voices for compromise and for checking Executive policy which single-handed would settle the
an
question of
war or peace
for the country.
The
Fifty-four
were encouraged on March twenty-fourth by the President's answer to a Senate resolution of the seventeenth inquiring whether in his judgment "any circumstances Forties, however,
connected with or growing out of any foreign relations of country require at this time an increase of our naval or
this
29 military forces." Such a request fell in with previous suggestions from Polk: in February certain portions of McLane's communications,
26 Letter to Mrs. T. W. Clemson, 23 March, Ibid., 684-5. 27 Calhoun to T. W. Clemson, 23 March, Ibid., 686. 28 Polk, Diary, I, 344-529 So Webster wrote his son, 26 Mar., Writings and Speeches Webster. XVI, 447-8.
of Daniel
