388 CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CONVENTION OF 1827. [1843. 



and generosity of the nation, for its protection to the American 

 citizens already established in Oregon, who had gone thither in 

 confidence that such aid would be extended to them, and were 

 groaning under the oppressions of the Hudson's Bay Company.* 



Previous to the final vote, Mr. Archer endeavored to have the 

 clause respecting the grants of lands struck out ; but his motion 

 did not prevail, and on the 3d of February, 1843, the bill was 

 passed by the Senate, twenty-four being for and twenty-two 

 against it. It was immediately sent to the House of Representa- 

 tives, in which a report against its passage was made by Mr. 

 Adams, the chairman of the committee on foreign affairs ; the 

 session, however, expired without any debate on the subject in 

 that House. 



In order to determine whether the bill for the occupation of 

 Oregon, passed by the Senate of the United States, in 1843, could, 

 if it had become a law, have been carried into fulfilment without a 

 breach of public faith, until after the abrogation of the existing 

 convention with Great Britain, in the manner therein stipulated, it 

 will be necessary first to analyze that convention, and to reduce 

 the various permissions, requirements and prohibitions, involved in 

 it, to their simplest expressions. The two nations, on agreeing, 

 as by that convention, to leave the territory west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, with its waters, free and open to the citizens and 

 subjects of both, of course agreed that neither should exercise 

 any exclusive dominion, or do any thing calculated to hinder the 

 people of the other from enjoying the promised advantages in any 

 part of that territory. Each nation, of course, reserved to itself 

 the right to provide for the maintenance of peace and the admin- 

 istration of justice among its own citizens, and to appoint agents 

 for that purpose : it was, indeed, the duty of each, as a civilized 

 power, to do so without delay ; and it was morally imperative upon 

 them to enter into a supplementary compact for the exercise of 

 concurrent jurisdiction, in cases affecting the persons or interests 

 of subjects or citizens of both, unless provision to that effect 

 should have already been made in some other way. Finally, as 

 the country was inhabited by tribes of savages, the citizens and 

 subjects of each of the civilized nations residing therein might 



* This was destined to be the last effort of Mr. Linn for the advancement of the 

 cause to which he had so long devoted his powerful energies. He expired on the 

 3d of October, 1843, at his residence in St. Genevieve, Missouri, without warning, 

 and probably without a struggle. 



