Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/135

FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 123 monopolize the Fur trade West of the Mississippi, to the almost entire exclusion in the next few years of our trade." In administrative circles, then, the whole question of the Columbia country was the occasional topic of consideration before the assembling of Congress in December of 1824. 25 Richard Rush, at the time conducting new negotiations with the British government on this Oregon topic among others, had advised sending a frigate to the mouth of the Columbia, but the suggestion did not meet with cabinet approval. Craw- ford thought the establishment of a military post was suffi- cient as well as proper although he disapproved of Floyd's plan of erecting a territorial government. In fact he had so told Floyd, and the latter, on his advice, said he would change his plan from a territory to a military post. Monroe apparently clung to his idea that the Pacific North- west was bound to separate in time from the United States, but he did not let it appear in his Annual Message of 1824. He advocated the establishment of a military post at the mouth of the Columbia "or at some other point in that quarter within our known limits," and took some pains to explain how such an establishment would protect every American interest, especially if it were backed by the stationing of a frigate in the northern waters of the Pacific. He made no direct reference to a territorial organization but it could not have been hard for members of Congress to perceive his lack of sympathy with the notion. He did, however, advise an appropriation for exploring the region, more potency being added to the recommendation by the fact that in the same message he could point to the treaty just concluded with Russia which he was about to lay before the Senate. Neither the President's message nor Crawford's advice made any modification in Floyd's views, and his bill, in the hands of the Committee of the Whole House, came up for early consideration. It contained essentially the same provisions as those of the 1821 measure, omitting the portion which would remodel the whole policy of governmental action with the