the Louisiana purchase of 1819, the people of the United States were much interested in or well informed as to the geography or history of that region, or that they understood the gounds of the controversy with Great Britain upon the sovereignty of the Columbia. But they were not long to remain in ignorance.
On the 19th of December, 1820, Floyd of Virginia, a member of the house of representatives, a man of ardent temperament, ability, courage, and persistent purpose, took up the Oregon Question with the determination to champion it in congress against whatever indifference, opposition, or ridicule it might meet.[1] From many years' residence in Kentucky, he understood the character of the men of the western states, each a pioneer of the Alexandrian type, sighing for more worlds to conquer, more wilderness to redeem to civilization by the sheer strength of brawny arm and independent will. Of the support of this portion of the people he was sure, as soon as they should be informed of the value of the territory in dispute, and the foundation of the American claim.
Encouraged by the well-understood sentiments of President Monroe and certain younger men of the Jeffersonian school, Mr Floyd began the contest by a motion in the house that a committee be appointed to inquire into the situation of the settlements on the Pacific, and the expediency of occupying the River Columbia, and procured the appointment of that committee with himself as chairman, the other members being Metcalf of Kentucky and Swearingen of Virginia.
On the 25th of January, 1821, Floyd presented his report, giving an abstract of the history of the United States from the discovery of the continent down through the mutations of more than two centuries embracing in his review an account of the several
- ↑ Benton's Thirty Years, i. 13. See Hist. Northwest Coast, this series.
