How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
A BACKWARD LOOK AT RESULTS.
The reader of history is often moved to admiration at the dash and courage of some bold hero, even when he has failed in the work he set out to accomplish. The genius to invent, with the courage to prosecute, has often failed in reaching the hoped-for results. The pages of history of all time are burdened with the plaintive cry, "Oh, for night or Blucher." It is the timeliness of great events that marks real genius, and the largest wisdom.
Of Whitman it was a leading characteristic. He did the right thing just at the right time. His faith was equal to his courage and when his duty was made clear to his mind, there was no impediment that he would not attempt to overcome. Now we are to study the results of his heroic ride, and will see how dangerous would have been any delay.
We have noted Webster's letter to the English Minister, dated in 1840, in which he said, "The ownership of the whole country (referring to Oregon) will likely follow the greater settlement and 166 larger amount of population," and this we may say was the common sentiment of our early statesmen, and not peculiar to Mr. Webster. But Whitman had started a new train of thought and given a new direction to the policy of the administration.
The President believed in the truthful report of the hero with his frozen limbs, who had ridden four thousand miles in midwinter without pay or hope of reward, to plead for Oregon. Immediately upon the close of the conference the record shows that Secretary Webster wrote to Minister Everett and said: "The Government of the United States has never offered any line south of forty-nine and never will, and England must not expect anything south of the forty-ninth degree."
That is a wonderful change. Upon receipt of the news that Dr. Whitman, in June, "Had started to Oregon with a great caravan numbering nearly one thousand souls," another letter was sent to the English Minister, still more pointed and impressive.
The President and his Secretary at once began to arrange terms for a treaty with England regarding the boundary line, and negotiations were speedily begun. It did not look to be a hopeful task when the Ashburton-Webster Treaty, just signed in 1842, had been a bone of contention for forty-eight years. Still more did it look discouraging from the fact that diplomats the year before 167 had resolved to leave the Oregon boundary out of the case, as it was said, "Otherwise it would likely defeat the whole treaty."
But suddenly new blood had been injected into American veins in and about Washington. They saw a great fertile country, thirty times as large as Massachusetts, which was rightfully theirs and yet claimed by a power many thousand miles separated from it. The national blood was aroused. A great political party, not satisfied with Secretary Webster's modest "latitude of forty-nine degrees" emblazoned on its banners, "Oregon and fifty-four forty or fight."
The spirit of '76 and 1812 seemed to have suddenly been aroused throughout the Nation. People did not stop to ask, who has done it, or how it all happened; but no intelligent or thoughtful student of history can doubt how it all happened, or who was its author. It was also easy to see that it was to be no forty-eight year campaign before the question must be adjudicated.
The Hon. Elwood Evans, in a speech in 1871, well said: "The arrival of Dr. Whitman in 1843 was opportune. The President was satisfied the territory was worth preserving." He continues: "If the offer had been made in the Ashburton Treaty of the forty-ninth parallel to the Columbia River and thence down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, it would have been accepted, but the visit 168 of Whitman committed the President against any such settlement."
The offer was not made by English diplomats, because they intended to have a much larger slice. Captain Johnny Grant and the English Hudson Bay officials made their greatest blunder in allowing Whitman to make his perilous Winter ride. They were not prepared for the sudden change in American sentiment. In any enthusiasm for our hero, we would not willingly make any exaggerated claim for his services. Prior to the arrival of Whitman, President Tyler had shown thoughtful interest in the Oregon question, and in his message in 1842 he said: "In advance of the acquirement of individual rights to those lands, sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two Governments to settle their respective claims."
Fifteen days before the arrival of Whitman, Senator Linn, always a firm friend of Oregon, in a resolution called for information, "Why Oregon was not included in the Ashburton-Webster Treaty." This resolution passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House. Neither the President, Senators, or Congressmen had the data upon which to base clear, intelligent action, and Whitman's arrival just when Congress was closing up its business gave no opportunity for the wider discussion which would have followed then and there. 169 It was, however, another evidence of timeliness, which we wish to keep well to the front in all of Whitman's work.
All can see how fortunate it was that the Oregon boundary question was not included in the Ashburton Treaty in 1842, and that it had waited for later adjudication. During the summer of 1843 the people of the entire country had heard of the great overland emigration to Oregon, and on the 8th day of January, 1844, Congress was notified that the Whitman immigration to Oregon was a grand success, and upon the very day of the arrival of this news, a resolution was offered in the Senate which called for the instructions to our Minister in England, and all correspondence upon the subject. But the conservative Senate was not quite ready for such a move, and the resolution was defeated by a close vote. But two days after a similar resolution was passed by the House.
Urged to do so by Whitman, the Lees, Lovejoy, Spalding, Eells and others, scores of intelligent emigrants flooded their Congressmen with letters giving glowing descriptions of the beauty of the country, the fertility of the land, and the mildness and healthfulness of the climate. Even Senator Winthrop, who at one time declared that "Neither the West nor the country at large had any real interest in retaining Oregon; that we would not be straitened for elbow room in the West for a 170 thousand years," was aroused to something of enthusiasm, and said in his place in the Senate: "For myself, certainly, I believe that we have a good title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude up to fifty-four, forty."
Senator Benton had long since materially changed his views from those he held when he had said that "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as the convenient, natural and everlasting boundary." Fremont, not Whitman, had converted him. Benton was aggressive and intelligent. In the discussion of 1844, he said: "Let the emigrants go on and carry their rifles. We want thirty thousand rifles in the valley of the Oregon. The war, if it come, will not be topical; it will not be confined to Oregon, but will embrace the possessions of the two powers throughout the Globe."
In the discussion, which took a wide turn, many of the eminent statesmen at that time took a part. Prominent among them was Calhoun, Linn, Benton, Choate, Berrien and Rives. Many of them tried the most persuasive words of peace, yet no one who reads the speeches and the proceedings, but will perceive the wonderful changes in public sentiment during a single year. The year 1844 ended with the struggle growing every day more intense. The English people had awakened to the fact that they had to meet the issue and there would not be any repetition of the old dallying with the Maine 171 boundary. They sent to this country Minister Packenham as Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate the treaty. Mr. Buchanan acted for the United States.
It was talk and counter-talk. Buchanan was one of the leading spirits in the demand for fifty-four forty, and his position was well understood both by the people of the United States and by England. President Tyler, in his final message, earnestly recommended the extension of the United States laws over the Territory of Oregon.
In this connection it will be remembered that Dr. Whitman, only a few months before the great massacre, in which he and his noble wife lost their lives, rode all the way to Oregon City to urge Judge Thornton to go to Washington and beg, on the part of the people of Oregon, for a "Provisional Government." Judge Thornton believed in Dr. Whitman's wisdom, and when the doctor declared that which seemed to be a prophecy, "Unless this is done, nothing will save even my mission from murder," the Judge said, "If Governor Abernethy will furnish me a letter to the President, I will go." The Governor promptly furnished the required letter and Judge Thornton resigned his position as Supreme Judge. All know of the fatal events at the Whitman Mission in less than two months after Judge Thornton's departure.
But the boundary question lapped over into Mr. 172 Polk's administration in 1845 with a promise of lively times. President Polk, in December, 1845, made it the leading question in his message. He covers the whole question in dispute and says: "The proposition of compromise which has been made and rejected, was by my order withdrawn, and our title to the whole of Oregon asserted, and, as it is believed, maintained by irrefragable facts and arguments." The President recommended that the joint occupation treaty of 1818-1828 be terminated by the stipulated notice, and that the civil and criminal laws of the United States be extended over the whole of Oregon, and that a line of military posts be established along the route from the States to the Pacific.
If the reader will take the pains to read the paper which Dr. Whitman by request sent to the Secretary of War in 1843, republished in the appendix of this volume, he will find in it just the recommendations now two years later made by the President. The great misfortune was that it was not complied with promptly. War upon a grand scale seemed imminent. A leading Senator announced that "War may now be looked for almost inevitably."
The whole tone of public sentiment, in Congress and out, was that the United States owned Oregon, not only up to forty-nine degrees, but up to 54 degrees, 40 minutes. It was thought that 173 the resolution of notice for the termination of the treaty would cause a declaration of war. For forty days the question was pending before the House and finally passed by the strong vote of 163 for to 54 against. In the Senate the resolution covered a still wider range and a longer time. But little else was thought or talked about. Business throughout the land was at a standstill in the suspense, or was hurrying to prepare for a great emergency. The wisest, coolest-headed Senators still regarded the question at issue open for peaceful settlement. They dwelt upon the horrors of a war, that would cost the Nation five hundred millions in treasure, besides the loss of life.
Webster, who had been so soundly abused for his Ashburton Treaty, had held aloof from this discussion. But there came a time when he could no longer remain silent, and he put himself on the record in a single sentence: "It is my opinion that it is not the judgment of this country, or that of the Senate, that the Government of the United States should run the hazard of a war for Oregon, by renouncing as no longer fit for consideration, the proposition of adjustment made by the Government thirty years ago, and repeated in the face of the world."
Calhoun, than whom no Senator was more influential, urged continued peaceful methods. He said: "A question of greater moment never has been presented to Congress." Others counseled a 174 continuance of things as they were and letting immigration after the bold Whitman plan settle it.
Suffice it here to say that both Nations, after the wide discussion and threats, saw war as a costly experiment. In the last of April the terms of treaty were agreed upon, and on July 17th, 1846, both Governments had signed a treaty fixing the boundary line at forty-nine degrees.
Now here again comes in the timeliness of Whitman's memorable ride. It had taken every day of exciting contest in Congress since that event, up to April, 1846, to agree upon the boundary and for America to get her Oregon. On the 13th day of May, 1846, Congress declared war against Mexico, and California was at stake. Suppose England could have foreseen that event, would she not have declared in favor of a longer wait? Who that knows England does not know that she would? With England still holding to her rights in Oregon how easy it would have been to take sides with Mexico and to have helped her hold California.
But we won not only California and New Mexico, but won riches. In the year 1848 gold was discovered in California. And now suppose England could have foreseen that, as she would have known it had she prolonged the negotiations, would she ever have signed away any possessions like that rolled in gold? When did the great and powerful 175 Kingdom of Great Britain ever do anything of the kind?
It would not have done for Whitman to have waited for next year and warm weather as his friends demanded. "I must go," and "now," and at this day it is easy to see from the light of history how God rules in the minds and hearts of men, as he rules nations. They, as men and nations, turn aside from His commands, but a man like Marcus Whitman obeys.
Go still farther. From the time gold was discovered in California up to the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, nine hundred millions of gold were dug from the mines of California and Oregon. Where did it go? The great bulk of it went into storehouses and manufactories and vaults of the North. The South was sparsely represented in California and Oregon in the early days. We repeat that when the war broke out, the great bulk of the yellow metal was behind the Union army. Who don't recognize that it was a great power? Even more than that, it was a controlling power. The Nation was to be tried as never before. Human slavery was the prize for which the South contended, while human freedom soon asserted itself, despite all opposition, as a contending force in the North. But the wisest were in doubt as to results. They could not see how it was possible that "the sum of all villainies" could 176 be obliterated. In the East and the North and the West, the boys in blue flocked to the standard, and bayonets gleamed everywhere. The plow was left in the furrow, and the hum of the machine shop was not heard. The fires in the furnaces and forges went out, and multitudes were in despair over the mighty struggle at hand. The Union might have been saved without the wealth of gold of California and Oregon; it might have proved victorious, even if the two great loyal States of the Pacific had been in the hands of strangers or enemies, but they were behind the loyal Union army. And the men marched and fought and sung—
"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom, that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on,"
as they marched, leaving graves upon every mountain side and in every valley. Appomattox was reached, and lo, the chains dropped from the limbs of six million slaves, and "The flag of beauty and glory" floated from Lake to Gulf and from Ocean to Ocean, in truth as in song—
"O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave." 
Again, older readers will remember with what fear and trembling they opened their morning papers for many months, fearing to read that England had accorded "belligerent rights" to the Confederacy. They will have a vivid recollection of the eloquent orator, Henry Ward Beecher, as he plead, as no other man could, the cause of the Union in English cities. He was backed up by old John Bright, the descendants of Penn, Gurney and Wilberforce, and the old-time enemies of human slavery. But it took them all to stem the tide. At one time it even seemed that they had won over Gladstone to their interests.
While the great masses of the English people were in sympathy with the Union cause, the moneyed men and commerce sided with the Confederacy: "Cotton was King." They had been struck in a tender place—their pockets and bank accounts. But suppose England had owned Oregon and its great interests, who don't see that all the danger would have been multiplied, and our interests endangered? There is in this no extravagant claim made that all this was done by Marcus Whitman. The Ruler of the Universe uses men, not a man, for its direction and government.
Going back upon the pages of history, the student sees Whittier in his study, and listens to his singing; he sees Mrs. Stowe educating with Uncle Tom in his cabin; he notes Garrison forging thunderbolts in his Liberator; he sees old Gamaliel Bailey with his National Era; he sees Sumner fall by a bludgeon in the Senate; he hears the 178 eloquent thunderings of Hale and bluff old Ben Wade and Giddings and Julian and Chase; he sees Lovejoy fall by the hands of his assassin; he hears the guns of the old "fanatic" John Brown, as he began "marching on;" he sees a great army marshaled for the contest which led up to the election of the "Martyr President," and the crowning victories which redeemed the grandest nation upon which the sun shines from the curse of human slavery. Giving due credit to all, detracting no single honor from any one in all the distinguished galaxy of honored names, and yet the thoughtful student can reach but one conclusion, and that is, that in the timeliness of his acts, in the heroism with which they were carried out, in the unselfishness which marked every step of the way, and in the wide-reaching effects of his work, Dr. Marcus Whitman, as a man and patriot and national benefactor, was excelled by none.
Such unselfish devotion, such obedience to the call of duty, such love of "the flag that makes you free," such heroism, which never even once had an outcropping of personal benefit, will forever stand, when fully understood, as among the brightest and most inspiring pages of American history.
The young American loves to read of Paul Revere. He dwells with thrilling interest upon the ride of the boy Archie Gillespie, who saw the great dam breaking, and at the risk of his life rode down 179 the valley of the Conemaugh to Johnstown, shouting, "Flee for your lives, the flood, the flood!" The people fled and two minutes behind the boy rolled the mighty flood of annihilation. How painter, and poet, and patriot, lingers over the ride of the gallant Sheridan "from Winchester, twenty miles away." All the honor is deserved; he saved an army and turned a defeat into victory.
But how do all these compare with the ride of Whitman? It, too, was a ride for life or death. Over snow-capped mountains, along ravines, traveled only by savage beasts and savage men. It was a plunge through icy rivers, tired, hungry, cold, and yet he rode on and on, until he stood before the President, four thousand miles away! Let us hope and believe that the time will come when Whitman, standing before President Tyler and Secretary Webster, in his buckskin breeches and a dress as we have shown, which was never woven in loom, will be the subject of some great painting. It would be grandly historical and tell a story that a patriotic people should never forget.
Alice Wellington Rollins wrote the following poem, which was published in the New York Independent, and widely copied. The Cassell Publishing Company made it one of their gems in their elegant volume, "Representative Poems of Living Poets," and kindly consent to its use in this volume: 180
WHITMAN'S RIDE.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of a hero's ride that saved a State.
A midnight ride? Nay, child, for a year
He rode with a message that could not wait.
Eighteen hundred and forty-two;
No railroad then had gone crashing through
To the Western coast; not a telegraph wire
Had guided there the electric fire;
But a fire burned in one strong man's breast
For a beacon light. You shall hear the rest.
He said to his wife; "At the Fort to-day,
At Walla Walla, I heard them say
That a hundred British men had crossed
The mountains; and one young, ardent priest
Shouted, 'Hurrah for Oregon!
The Yankees are late by a year at least!'
They must know this at once at Washington.
Another year, and all would be lost.
Someone must ride, to give the alarm
Across the Continent; untold harm
In an hour's delay, and only I
Can make them understand how or why
The United States must keep Oregon!"
Twenty-four hours he stopped to think,
To think! Nay then, if he thought at all,
He thought as he tightened his saddle-girth.
One tried companion, who would not shrink
From the worst to come, with a mule or two
To carry arms and supplies, would do.
With a guide as far as Fort Bent. And she,
The woman of proud, heroic worth,
Who must part from him, if she wept at all,
Wept as she gathered whatever he
Might need for the outfit on his way. 181
Fame for the man who rode that day
Into the wilds at his Country's call;
And for her who waited for him a year
On that wild Pacific coast, a tear!
Then he said "Good-bye!" and with firm-set lips
Silently rode from his cabin door
Just as the sun rose over the tips
Of the phantom mountain that loomed before
The woman there in the cabin door,
With a dread at her heart she had not known
When she, with him, had dared to cross
The Great Divide. None better than she
Knew what the terrible ride would cost
As he rode, and she waited, each alone.
Whether all were gained or all were lost,
No message of either gain or loss
Could reach her; never a greeting stir
Her heart with sorrow or gladness; he
In another year would come back to her
If all went well; and if all went ill—
Ah, God! could even her courage still
The pain at her heart? If the blinding snow
Were his winding-sheet, she would never know;
If the Indian arrow pierced his side,
She would never know where he lay and died;
If the icy mountain torrents drowned
His cry for help, she would hear no sound!
Nay, none would hear, save God, who knew
What she had to bear, and he had to do.
The clattering hoof-beats died away
On the Walla Walla. Ah! had she known
They would echo in history still to-day
As they echoed then from her heart of stone!
He had left the valley. The mountains mock
His coming. Behind him, broad and deep,
The Columbia meets the Pacific tides;
Before him—four thousand miles before— 182
Four thousand miles from his cabin door,
The Potomac meets the Atlantic. On
Over the trail grown rough and steep,
Now soft on the snow, now loud on the rock,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
The United States must keep Oregon.
It was October when he left
The Walla Walla, though little heed
Paid he to the season. Nay, indeed,
In the lonely canyons just ahead,
Little mattered it what the almanac said.
He heard the coyotes bark; but they
Are harmless creatures. No need to fear
A deadly rattlesnake coiled too near.
No rattlesnake ever was so bereft
Of sense as to creep out such a day
In the frost. Nay, scarce would a grizzly care
For a sniff at him. Only a man would dare
The bitter cold, in whose heart and brain
Burned the quenchless flame of a great desire;
A man with nothing himself to gain
From success, but whose heart-blood kept its fire
While with freezing face he rode on and on.
The United States must keep Oregon.
It was November when they came
To the icy stream. Would he hesitate?
Not he, the man who carried a State
At his saddle bow. They have made the leap;
Horse and rider have plunged below
The icy current that could not tame
Their proud life-current's fiercer flow.
They swim for it, reach it, clutch the shore,
Climb the river bank, cold and steep,
Mount, and ride the rest of that day,
Cased in an armor close and fine
As ever an ancient warrior wore;
Armor of ice that dared to shine 183
Back at a sunbeam's dazzling ray,
Fearless as plated steel of old
Before that slender lance of gold.
It is December as they ride
Slowly across the Great Divide;
The blinding storm turns day to night,
And clogs their feet; the snowflakes roll
The winding sheet about them; sight
Is darkened; faint the despairing soul.
No trail before or behind them. Spur
His horse? Nay, child, it were death to stir!
Motionless horse and rider stand,
Turning to stone; till one poor mule,
Pricking his ears as if to say
If they gave him rein he would find the way,
Found it and led them back, poor fool,
To last night's camp in that lonely land.
It was February when he rode
Into St. Louis. The gaping crowd
Gathered about him with questions loud
And eager. He raised one frozen hand
With a gesture of silent, proud command;
"I am here to ask, not answer! Tell
Me quick, is the Treaty signed?" "Why yes!
In August, six months ago or less!"
Six months ago! Two months before
The gay young priest at the fortress showed
The English hand! Two months before,
Four months ago at his cabin door,
He had saddled his horse! Too late then. "Well,
But Oregon? Have they signed the State
Away?" "Of course not. Nobody cares
About Oregon." He in silence bares
His head. "Thank God! I am not too late."
It was March when he rode at last
Into the streets of Washington. 184
The warning questions came thick and fast;
"Do you know that the British will colonize,
If you wait another year, Oregon
And the Northwest, thirty-six times the size
Of Massachusetts?" A courteous stare,
And the Government murmurs: "Ah, indeed!
Pray, why do you think that we should care?
With Indian arrows and mountain snow
Between us, we never can colonize
The wild Northwest from the East you know,
If you doubt it, why, we will let you read
The London Examiner; proofs enough
The Northwest is worth just a pinch of snuff."
And the Board of Missions that sent him out,
Gazed at the worn and weary man
With stern displeasure. "Pray, sir, who
Gave you orders to undertake
This journey hither, or to incur
Without due cause, such great expense
To the Board? Do you suppose we can
Overlook so grave an offense?
And the Indian converts? What about
The little flock, for whose precious sake
We sent you West? Can it be that you
Left them without a shepherd? Most
Extraordinary conduct, sir,
Thus to desert your chosen post."
Ah, well! What mattered it! He had dared
A hundred deaths, in his eager pride,
To bring to his Country at Washington
A message, for which, then, no one cared!
But Whitman could act as well as ride.
The United States must keep the Northwest.
He—whatever might say the rest—
Cared, and would colonize Oregon!
It was October, forty-two,
When the clattering hoof-beats died away 185
On the Walla Walla, that fateful day.
It was September, forty-three—
Little less than a year, you see—
When the woman who waited thought she heard
The clatter of foot-beats that she knew
On the Walla Walla again. "What word
From Whitman?" Whitman himself! And see!
What do her glad eyes look upon?
The first of two hundred wagons rolls
Into the valley before her. He
Who, a year ago, had left her side,
Had brought them over the Great Divide—
Men, women and children, a thousand souls—
The army to occupy Oregon.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
That the British were not a year ahead.
The United States have kept Oregon,
Because of one Marcus Whitman. He
Rode eight thousand miles, and was not too late!
In a single hand, not a Nation's fate,
Perhaps; but a gift for the Nation, she
Would hardly part with it to-day, if we
May believe what the papers say upon
This great Northwest, that was Oregon.
And Whitman? Ah! my children, he
And his wife sleep now in a martyr's grave!
Murdered! Murdered, both he and she,
By the Indian souls they went West to save!