LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
218
question as to what the President would do offered 49, that (to use Folk's words) 41
if
the British
"That was all understood, that if such an offer was made that the President should submit it to the Senate, and that two-thirds of that body would never advise its acceptance. Mr. Lumpkin said that when the contingency happened & I took the very course indicated he was surprised to find that
Mr. Allen disapproved it, and, in consequence of it resigned his post as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate. My notes in this Diary in relation to Senator Allen's course were very full at the time, they will be found to be in accord with Mr. Lumpkin's statement. Before my annual message of December, 1845, was sent to Congress I submitted it to Mr. Allen, and he advised me in the event (Great Britain) returned my offer of 49 to me to take the very course I did, and with which, when I did it, he found fault. By referring to this Diary a few days before the meeting in Congress in December, 1845, and in the early part of June, 1846, what occurred between Mr. Allen and myself will be found recorded. I note Mr. Lumpkin's statement to-night for reference if the subject should ever be brought before the public by Mr. Allen."
Whether Polk actually believed his course was absolutely consistent in spirit there is nothing to show; that he believed Whatever may be one's it consistent in the letter is clear. personal opinion of his policy it must be admitted that he showed himself a man of much greater political ability than
most of
his contemporaries
pictured by most
thought him, or than he has been
later accounts.
41 Ibid., IV, 335-7Professor R. L. Schuyler (Polk and the Oregon Compromise, in Political Science Quarterly, XXIV, 443-61), finds nothing to warrant an imputation of concludes that Polk, finding the Senate double dealing in Folk's course. would not go with him in his stand on Oregon, decided to throw the whole issue upon the Senate so that the Treaty of 1846 was in reality a Senate Treaty.
H
