130 THE ROARING FORTIES 



the Oregon question with Pakenham, the Brit 

 ish minister at Washington, in the summer of 

 1845. Negotiations as to the northwestern 

 boundary of the United States had been carried 

 on at intervals ever since the purchase of the 

 Louisiana territory in 1803 gave the United 

 States a definite interest in the region. Diplo 

 macy had exhausted all the arguments based on 

 discovery, exploration, treaty, and occupation, 

 without leaving any possibility that either the 

 British or the American Government could ex 

 clude the other entirely from the tract in dis 

 pute. Division of the territory had been pro 

 posed by both sides, the Americans offering the 

 extension of the parallel of forty-nine degrees 

 from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, the 

 British insisting on the Columbia River from 

 the point at which its northern branch was 

 intersected by the same parallel. Near the 

 close of Tyler s administration an offer of arbi 

 tration by the British was declined. When 

 Buchanan resumed negotiations in July, 1845, 

 he again offered forty-nine degrees to the Pacific, 

 explaining that while President Polk believed 

 the American claim to the whole region was 

 valid, he felt precluded by the acts of his prede 

 cessors from insisting on it without first trying 



