Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/123

CHAPTER II. CONGRESS AND OREGON, 1819-1829. With the first session of the Sixteenth Congress begins the period of ten years during which the Oregon Question af- forded a fruitful source of debate as well as a medium at times for some of the pointed, if not bitter, personal attacks which abounded in that troubled area of our national politics. Con- temporaneous as it was with the important diplomatic negotia- tions with Russia and with Great Britain, the whole topic brought into the open all of the essential factors which were to figure again at a later day. At each session of Congress during this time there was some agitation in one or both houses in the form of bill or resolution to keep alive the matter of the claims of the United States to the Northwest Coast of Amer- ica, and at one time the action went so far as the passage by the House of Representatives of a bill authorizing the Execu- tive to take formal possession of the region in dispute. It is difficult to agree wholly with William I. Marshall 1 that the real object of this agitation was keeping "the subject before the public" and for disseminating information "as to the merits of the case in anticipation of the time when either the expiration of the convention of 1818, or the negotiation of a new treaty in advance of that date should give us the right to occupy the Columbia River country." Certainly those who were most active in Congress give no indication that such was the motive behind their endeavors, and the conviction that the real purpose of this group was legislative action of a defi- nite character grows with a study of the times. John Quincy Adams, who, as Secretary of State in the earlier part of the i Acquisition of Oregon, I, 157, 8. This work was written to disprove the "Whitman saved Oregon" legend, and Principal Marshall delved into nearly every available source.