CHAP. XIV.] ARBITRATION. 197 



question. The recent acquisition of Texas, which we had heard 

 condemned in the other house as a foul blot on their national 

 policy, was boasted of by him as a glorious triumph of freedom. 

 He drew an animated picture of the aggrandizing spirit of Great 

 Britain with her 150 millions of subjects, spoke of her arrogance 

 and pride, the certainty of a war, if they wished to maintain 

 their just rights, and the necessity of an immediate armament. 



&quot;Great Britain,&quot; he said, &quot;might be willing to submit the 

 Oregon question to arbitration, but the crowned heads, whom she 

 would propose as arbiters, would not be impartial, for they would 

 cherish anti-republican feelings.&quot; I thought the style of this 

 oration better than its spirit, and it was listened to with atten 

 tion ; but in spite of the stirring nature of the theme, none of the 

 senators betrayed any emotion. 



When he sat down, others followed, some of whom read ex 

 tracts from the recently delivered speeches of Sir Robert Peel 

 and Lord John Russell on the Oregon affair, commenting freely 

 and fairly upon them, and pointing out that there was nothing 

 in the tone of the British Government, nor in the nature of their 

 demands, which closed the door against an amicable adjustment. 

 I came away from this debate much struck with the singular 

 posture of affairs ; for the executive and its functionaries seem to 

 be doing their worst to inflame popular- passions, while the legis 

 lature, chosen by universal suffrage, is comparatively calm, and 

 exhibits that sense of a dangerous responsibility, which a presi 

 dent and his cabinet might rather have been expected to display. 



In reference to one of the arguments in General Cass s speech, 

 Mr. Winthrop soon afterward moved in the House of Represent 

 atives (Dec. 19, 1845), &quot;That arbitration does not necessarily 

 involve a reference to crowned heads ; and if a jealousy of such 

 a reference is entertained in any quarter, a commission of able 

 and dispassionate citizens, either from the two countries con 

 cerned, or from the world at large, offers itself as an obvious and 

 unobj ectionable alternative. 



A similar proposition emanated simultaneously, and without 

 concert, from the English Cabinet, showing that they were 

 regardless of precedents, and relied on the justice of their cause. 



