FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 329 ernment and people for some time past that we have almost forgotten that a minister reached this country some months since, specially charged with the duty of negotiating in rela- tion to the differences between that country and the United States in relation to the boundaries of the northwestern line separating the territories of the two countries." Folk's victory was won by a narrow margin and did not depend upon the Oregon plank, although that undoubtedly drew votes especially in the West. Polk lost his own State, as well as Kentucky and Ohio, all closely contested ; in several States the vote for Birney, on the abolitionists' ticket, was large enough to have turned the victory to Clay had there been no third candidate. 32 Nevertheless the importance of this cam- paign and Folk's election to the Oregon Question must not be overlooked. It was all a part of the educative process which had begun in earnest with the later efforts of Linn; now, when Folk's Inaugural and later his first Annual brought up the question in a positive manner, the country was in a fashion prepared to form some opinion. Even if the merits of the question had been discussed in a biased way in the heat of the campaign people knew something of what was meant; some of them had seen and heard the slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight" although it had not played an important or even con- spicuous part in the contest. 33 Furthermore it had prepared the public for the renewal of the Oregon discussion when the national legislators assembled for the second and last session of the Twenty-eighth Congress. Throughout the Union people had come to believe that some sort of settlement ought to come soon even though they might not agree with the recom- mendations of President Polk a little later. 34 On the other side of the Atlantic, too, the educative influence was working. Without in any way believing that the political activities either in Congress or during the presidential cam- paign had the effect of making Great Britain modify her stand 32 Stanwood, History of the Presidency, ch. XVII. 33 Except as a banner on some of the prairie schooners in the migrations of 1844 and 1845. Very few references to this phrase are found in the newspapers of the East. 34 See, e. g. Niles' Register, 20 July, 1844. "Manifest destiny.
