attention to the importance of the mouth of the Columbia. “Upon the people of Eastern Asia,” said that ardent advocate of western measures, Thomas Hart Benton, in 1820, “the establishment of a civilized power on the opposite coast of America could not fail to produce great and wonderful benefits. Science, liberal principles in government, and the true religion, might cast their lights across the intervening sea.[1]
The debate in the House in 1822-3 on Floyd’s bill to occupy the mouth of the Columbia brought out from rather unexpected sources the full idea of Manifest Destiny, even if the actual words were not used. Although George Tucker of Virginia opposed the bill, he was bound to admit that “we cannot arrest the progress of our population to the West. In vain may the Government attempt to set limits to its course. It marches on, with the increasing rapidity of a fire, and nothing will stop it until it reaches the shores of the Pacific.” [2] But it was Francis Baylies of Massachusetts who preached the doctrine most fully and eloquently. Even, said he, if the settlers who went to Oregon should later decide to form their own separate government, “with a nation of kindred blood, governed by laws similar to yours, cherishing your principles, speaking your language, and worshipping your God, you may rear a monument more magnificent than the Arch of Trajan, more durable than the pyramids; a living, animated, and everlasting monument of your glory and your greatness.”’ Addressing the timid and reluctant, he predicted that if they passed the bill they might in later life “cherish delightful recollections of this day, when America, almost shrinking from the ‘shadows of coming events,’ first placed her feet upon untrodden ground, scarcely daring to anticipate the grandeur which awaited her.” Returning to the discussion at a later point in the debate, he said: “Gentlemen are talking of natural boundaries. Sir, our natural boundary is the Pacific ocean. The swelling tide of our population must and will roll on until that mighty ocean interposes its waters, and limits our territorial empire.” Finally, to conclude these
- ↑ Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years’ View (New York, 1854-56), 1, 13.
- ↑ Annals of Congress, 17 cong., 2 sess., 422.
