American people, and on this issue Polk was elected to the presidency the following year. Meanwhile congress was more than ever engaged in the discussion of the Oregon Question and Oregon measures, a bill for occupation being before both houses.
Early in the first session of the 28th congress, Atchison of Missouri introduced in the senate a bill "to facilitate and encourage the settlement of the territory of Oregon," by a line of stockade or block-house forts, not over five in number, extending to the Rocky Mountains; the erection of fortifications at the mouth of the Columbia; a grant of six hundred and forty acres of land to every white male inhabitant of eighteen years of age or upwards who should cultivate the same for five years; to every such cultivator who should be married, one hundred and sixty acres additional for having a wife; besides an equal amount for every child he might have under the age of eighteen years, or who might be born to him during the five years of occupancy and use of the land, which gave him title. The land should revert to heirs at law, though no sale of it would be valid before the patent issued. The territory of Oregon was declared to comprise all the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains, and within the parallels of 42° and 54° 40', and the sum of $100,000 was by the bill appropriated to carry these measures into effect. After a long discussion, during which all the old arguments, with sundry new ones arising out of the altered condition of the Oregon Territory through colonization, and the alleged oppressions of the Hudson's Bay Company, together with the attitude of England occasioned by the proceedings of the previous congress, were fully entered into, the final consideration of the bill was postponed on account of the arrival of a British minister to carry on negotiations on the Oregon Question, and in the hope that the settlement of the controversy would remove all obstacles to the extension of jurisdiction and protection.
