FOOTNOTES:

Yes, my native land, I love thee,• • • • • •Can I bid you all farewell?

Yes, my native land, I love thee,

• • • • • •

Can I bid you all farewell?

The whole congregation joined heartily in the singing, but before the hymn was half through, one by one they ceased singing, and audible sobs were heard in every part of the great audience. The last stanza was sung by the sweet voice of Mrs. Whitman alone, clear, musical, and unwavering."

Whitman's first Western trip was a hurried tour of observation made in company with the Rev. Samuel Parker, a graduate of Williams. Leaving St. Louis in the Spring of 1835, they reached the country of the Nez Percés and Flatheads in August. It is interesting to note that these men crossed the Great Divide by way of the South Pass, concerning which Mr. Parker made an astounding prophecy, as follows:

"Though there are some elevations and depressions in this valley, yet, comparatively speaking, it is level, and the summit, where the waters divide which flow into the Atlantic and into the Pacific, is about six thousand feet above the level of the ocean. There would be no difficulty in the way of constructing a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. There is no greater difficulty in the whole distance than has already beenovercome in passing the Green Mountains between Boston and Albany; and probably the time may not be far distant when trips will be made across the continent, as they have been made to the Niagara Falls, to see Nature's wonders."

The interviews with the Indians were uniform in character, and showed that the missionaries would receive hospitality at the hands of the Nez Percés and Flatheads. Wrote Mr. Parker:

"We laid before them the object of our appointment, and explained to them the benevolent desires of Christians concerning them. We then inquired whether they wished to have teachers come among them, and instruct them in the knowledge of God, His worship, and the way to be saved; and what they would do to aid them in their labors. The oldest chief arose, and said he was old, and did not expect to know much more; he was deaf and could not hear, but his heart was made glad, very glad, to see what he had never seen before, a man near to God,—meaning a minister of the Gospel."

It took only ten days in the country of the Indians to assure the men of the rich promise offered by the field; whereupon Dr. Whitmanturned his face eastward, to make his report and be ready in the following Spring to return with reënforcements with a caravan of the American Fur Company. A great enthusiasm had seized him. He wrote to Miss Prentiss,

"I have a strong desire for that field of labor.... I feel greatly encouraged to go on in every sense, only, I feel my unfitness for the work; but I know in whom I have trusted, and with whom are the fountains of wisdom.... You need not be anxious especially for your health or safety, but for your usefulness to the cause of Missions and the souls of our benighted fellow-men."

Dr. Whitman was married early in 1836, and the couple were driven by sleigh from Elmira, New York, to Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, where they took a canal-boat over the Alleghany Portage Railway on their way westward. Their principal companions were the Rev. Henry H. Spaulding, a graduate of Western Reserve College,—two or three years Whitman's junior,—and wife, and Mr. William H. Gray; there were also two teamsters and twoIndian boys, whom Dr. Whitman had brought East with him. Joining the caravan of the American Fur Company at Council Bluffs, they reached Fort Laramie early in June, and the South Pass on the following Fourth of July, where six years later Fremont raised an American flag and gained the immortal name of "Pathfinder."

It is difficult to emphasize sufficiently the historic importance and significance of the advent of these women into the country beyond the Great Divide in Whitman's light wagon and cart; true, Ashley, Bridger, and Bonneville had taken wagons into the Rockies and left them there, but it was for this sturdy and determined physician to take a woman across the mountains in 1836, showing at once the practicability of a wagon road from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But the wagon seemed hardly less wonderful than the patient women in it. Rough mountaineers who had come to the rendezvous of the American Fur Company just westward of the "divide" were dumbfounded at the sight ofthe first white women on whom they had laid eyes since they had reached the States; tears came to the eyes of some of them as they shook hands with the first white women that ever crossed the Rocky Mountains; Mrs. Spaulding had been very ill, and the rough devotion of these men and their Indian wives gave her new hope and courage for the work. On the other hand, "From that day," one of these men said, "I was a better man." But it was for an old trapper to see the real national significance of the advent of these women into that far-flung country. "There," he said, pointing to the women, "is something which the honorable Hudson Bay Company cannot get rid of. They cannot send these women out of the country. They had come to stay."

Dr. Whitman chose his station at Waiilatpu, near Walla Walla, Washington, while Spaulding went a hundred miles and more eastward among the Nez Percés of the Clearwater Valley. A quart of wheat brought with them, cherished as were the twelve potatoes brought aroundCape Horn by the pioneers of Astoria a quarter of a century before, was planted amid hopes and fears, and yielded, in less than a dozen years, nearly thirty thousand bushels in a season. Their few cows multiplied to a herd; gardens and orchards were laid out; a printing press and sheep were secured from the Hawaiian Islands, and upon the press was printed a code of laws, differing in no great degree from those issued in Zeisberger's sweet "Meadow of Light" on the Muskingum half a century before. Mrs. Spaulding's school numbered five hundred pupils, and a church had grown to a membership of one hundred.

It is not possible here to trace with faithfulness the brave successes now achieved, for we are seeking but one of the many lessons to be found in the Whitman story. There was labor and success for all, and trial for all as well; there were some differences of opinion among the workers, to be settled as the field grew large, for these men were independent thinkers, each one a man among his fellows. And then therewas the rivalry with the missionaries to the northward, the Catholic priests located at Vancouver and extending their influence wherever the Hudson Bay Company, in turn, extended its interests. The priests, it should be observed, had been called in by the Company to take the place of the missionary of the Church of England, whom the Company had sent home. We cannot discuss here the tangled Oregon question and the tactics of America's rivals for that beautiful stretch of country. Two things stand fairly plain in it all: to be held, Oregon must have a strong American quota of settlers, and these missionaries were on the ground when the matter was precipitated.

The conquest of Oregon was to be made, if made at all, at the hands of an army of men with broadaxes on their shoulders; not elsewhere in our national annals does this appear more clearly than in the case of Oregon. In the military sense there was no conquest to be effected; an enterprising fur company, controlled by men of principle but served by perfectly unprincipledagents, sought the land for its wealth of skins, and would not have wished it "opened," in any sense, to the world. The case is quite parallel to the attitude of England at the close of the Old French War, described on a previous page[5]; the proclamation of 1763, permitting no pioneer to erect a cabin beyond the head-springs of the Atlantic rivers, because, if populated, the land would not pour its treasures into the coffers of a spendthrift king, was as idle a selfish dream as was ever conceived with reference to Oregon by a Hudson Bay Company'sengagé. In the case of no other distinct region in our entire domain, perhaps, was it equally plain that the first people to really occupy would be, in all likelihood, the people that would control and at last possess it. It was like so many early military campaigns in America, as, for instance, Forbes's march on Fort Duquesne and Clark's advance to Vincennes,—to reach the destination was of itself the chief hardship; for if in the case of Forbes that greatarmy could be once thrown across the Alleghanies where lay Braddock's mouldering bones, the capitulation of Fort Duquesne would be but a commonplace consequent.

What might have been the result had not this fragile missionary movement into the empire of Oregon (including, of course, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming) taken place cannot now be determined, but the rival interests were hurrying emigrants from Red River and from Canada in the full belief that to hold would mean to have. A counter action was that put forth by the American missionaries of all denominations in Oregon, chief of whom was Marcus Whitman. It seems as though some writers have believed that there can be a line drawn between what these first Americans did to promote missionary success and that done to advance what may be called American political interests in Oregon; to the present writer this seems impossible. What helped the one helped the other, whether the motive comprehended the larger interests at stake or not.That the missionaries desired that the Americans coming into Oregon should be men of sobriety and character should not in the least argue that they did not desire them at the same time to be good patriotic citizens, eager for their country's welfare. It is hardly fair to imply that these men were poor patriots in proportion as they were good missionaries; nor can the proposition be more reasonably entertained that these brave men desired to promote emigration thither in order to secure more assistance or success in the missionary work in which they were engaged. In all these considerations the hope of missionary success was inextricably bound up with national extension and national growth. Were the mission stations to be increased, it was of national moment; were they to be decreased, it was an ominous sign so far as possible American dominion was concerned.

Unfortunate internal trouble among the missionaries, due to differences of opinion on policies and ways and means, caused the American Board to decide to eliminate a portion of themission stations. Just what steps were to be taken is not important to us here; the important thing is the influence of this curtailing of the work of the American missionary. Was it to strengthen or weaken America's claim to the empire of Oregon? Was it to hinder or help the occupation of the land on the part of rival spirits? Those who might hold that the question was one of missionary policy totally apart from national politics take a view of the matter in which the present writer cannot share. These men were Americans; it is difficult to believe that with the Oregon question to the front these missionaries (who were on the spot) confined their attention solely to the missionary problem heedless of the national problem, which must have embraced and included all others in any analysis.

The missionaries met to consider the order of the American Board late in the Fall of 1842. Marcus Whitman was granted leave of absence to visit the East and persuade the officers of the Board to rescind their action. Wrote oneof the missionaries of the Board immediately after Whitman's departure concerning his plan:

"I have no doubt that if his plan succeeds it will be one of great good to the mission and country. It is to be expected that a Romish influence will come in.... To meet this influence a few religious settlers around a station would be invaluable."[6]

This contemporary document, written just as Whitman was leaving, ought to be good evidence, first, that he had a definite errand, and, secondly, that it concerned new emigrants.

The friends of Whitman have gone very far in an attempt to maintain that he left Oregon hurriedly on the brave ride he now undertook in order to reach Washington in time to accomplish a specific political errand; if nothing more, such a sweeping assertion was sure to be called into question, and when this was done the querists were likely to be unable to keep from going to the other extreme of denying that Whitman everwent to Washington or had any political motive in coming East.[7]

A brief but careful view of the documents in the case has inclined us to the view that Whitman came East as he did in order to be in time to have a part in arousing interest in and directing the course of the large emigration that it was felt would turn toward Oregon in the Spring of 1843. We are the more inclined to this opinion for the reason that this was the most important thing by far that could have occupied the man's mind, however one views the question; what could more have benefited the mission cause than a flood-tide of American pioneers into Oregon with axes to sing that old home-loving song sung long ago in the Alleghanies, in Ohio, in Kentucky, and beyond? And what more, pray, could be done than this to advance the interests of the United States hereabouts? In point of fact the nation had depended on the conquest of Oregon by pioneers,if it was to be conquered at all; treaties could be made and broken, but a conquest by the axe-bearing army would be final.

"The policy," writes Justin Winsor, "which the United States soon after developed was one in which Great Britain could hardly compete, and this was to possess the [Oregon] country by settlers as against the nominal occupancy of the fur-trading company directed from Montreal. By 1832 this movement of occupation was fully in progress. By 1838 the interest was renewed in Congress, and a leading and ardent advocate of the American rights, Congressman Linn of Missouri, presented a report to the Senate and a bill for the occupation of Oregon, June 6, 1838. A report by Caleb Cushing coming from the Committee on Foreign Affairs respecting the Territory of Oregon, accompanied by a map, was presented in January and February in 1839:

"'It was not till 1842 that the movements of aggression began to become prominent in politics, and immigration was soon assisted by Fremont's discovery ofthe pass over the Rocky Mountains at the head of the La Platte.[8]Calhoun in 1845 took the position that the tide of immigration was solving the difficulty and it was best to wait that issue and not force a conflict.'"

It seems perfectly certain that Whitman was concerned especially with this "tide of immigration." He left home October 3; in eleven days Fort Hall was reached, four hundred miles away. Finding it best, he struck southward on the old Santa Fé Trail, by way of Fort Wintah, Fort Uncompahgre, and Fort Taos. From Santa Fé the course was in part by the old Santa Fé Trail to Bent's Fort and Independence. Bent's Fort was left January 7, 1843, but the date of reaching Westport (Kansas City), Missouri, is not definitely known; it was probably the last of January, and here he was busy for some little time helping to shape things up for the much talked of emigration of 1843. Indeed, there is evidence that he did not leave Westport until at least the 15th of February. Possibly it was here that he prepared and published apamphlet describing Oregon, the soil, climate, and its desirableness for American colonists, and said that "he had crossed the Rocky Mountains that winter principally to take back that season a train of wagons to Oregon." The Doctor assured his countrymen that wagons could be taken to the Columbia River. "It was this assurance of the missionary," wrote one emigrant, "that induced my father and several of his neighbors to sell out and start at once for this country."[9]

If this line of investigation is followed steadily with reference to Dr. Whitman's Eastern visit, the result is eminently satisfactory from any point of view. It is well and good to believe that he attempted to right the minds of some eminent men on the Oregon question, but he probably accomplished more by some plain talks with a score of frontiersmen at Westport and by his pamphlet on the subject than by visiting ten thousand men in high authority. What was tosave Oregon was the emigration movement,—the rank and file of the army with the broadaxe,—not Whitman or Webster or a President or a congressman or a hundred congressmen. This Oregon missionary was a plain, straightforward, brave, modest man, not seeking notoriety, come eastward to have a part in inducing emigration that must start, if at all,in the Spring months. There you have an explanation for the Winter's ride.

Pressing on eastward, Whitman went to Washington; this has been questioned because none of the public prints of the city noised abroad his coming or his presence. This proves he was not there as much as the absence of his foot-prints on those streets to-day proves it; so far as it indicates anything, it only shows the man was not seeking notoriety and cheap advertisement. A year afterwards, in June, 1844, the Hon. James M. Porter, Secretary of War, received a letter from Marcus Whitman which began, "In compliance with the request you did me the honor to make last winter, while in Washington,I herewith transmit to you the synopsis of a bill." Another sentence runs, "I have, since our interview, been," etc.,[10]making, in all, two definite statements in his own hand to the effect that Whitman visited the Secretary of War in Washington, and that while there he talked with the Secretary of War concerning the national character of the Oregon movement. Any who might incline to the view that Whitman came East solely on a mission errand must pay small attention to this letter, which proves that the Secretary of War and Whitman must have talked of a bill relative to Oregon emigration. Whitman certainly conversed with Porter along the lines of their subsequent correspondence, which resulted in the missionary's sending in a bill authorizing the President of the United States to establish a line of

"agricultural posts or farming stations, extending at intervals from the present and most usual crossing of the Kansas River, west of the western boundary of the State of Missouri, thence ascending the Platte Riveron the southern border, thence through the valley of the Sweetwater to Fort Hall, and thence to settlements of the Willamette in the Territory of Oregon. Which said posts will have for their object to set examples of civilized industry to the several Indian tribes, to keep them in proper subjection to the laws of the United States, to suppress violent and lawless acts along the said line of the frontier, to facilitate the passage of troops and munitions of war into and out of the said Territory of Oregon, and the transportation of the mail as hereinafter provided."

Whitman reached Boston probably March 30. There seems to be no question that his chief errand here with the officers of the American Board was to interest them in a plan to induce emigration for the sake of preserving the missions. On his return to Oregon he wrote Secretary Greene of the Board:

"A [Catholic] bishop is set over this part of the work, whose seat, as the name indicates, will be at Walla Walla. He, I understand, is styled Bishop of Walla Walla. It will be well for you to know that from what we can learn, their object will be to colonize around them. I cannot blame myself that the plan Ilaid down when I was in Boston was not carried out. If we could have had good families, say two and three together, to have placed in select spots among the Indians, the present crisis, which I feared, would not have come. Two things, and it is true those which were the most important, were accomplished by my return to the States. By means of the establishment of the wagon road, which is due to that effort alone, the immigration was secured and saved from disaster in the Fall of forty-three. Upon that event the present acquired rights of the U. States by her citizens hung. And not less certain is it that upon the result of immigration to this country the present existence of this mission and of Protestantism in general hung also. It is a matter of surprise to me that so few pious men are ready to associate together and come to this country, when they could be so useful in setting up and maintaining religious society and establishing the means of education. It is indeed so that some of the good people of the East can come to Oregon for the double purpose of availing themselves of the Government bounty of land and of doing good to the country."

This quotation undoubtedly contains in outline the fundamental purpose of Dr. Whitman's journey eastward through the Winter's snows;the American missions in Oregon were evidently on the point of being actually crowded out by the threatened emigrants from the North; to hold the ground gained, a rival emigration from the States was an imperative necessity, and that was the thing for which Whitman was working. So closely bound were the real interests, then, of the missions and the territorial interests of the United States, that for one to attempt a technical separation is to do an injustice to both. Read as widely as you will the few manuscripts left us in Dr. Whitman's hand, and the impression grows stronger with each word that the man was exceptionally clear-sighted and sane; and while a great deal of nonsense is and has been put into circulation about him, so far as Whitman himself is concerned we find his attention given to roads and trails, forage and provisions, axle grease and water; in all he wrote (and there is sufficient for a very fair guess at his purpose and plans) we find almost no reference whatever to the greater national work which he was actually doing,—a fact thatcannot but be forever enjoyed by those to whom his splendid life work will appeal.

On May 12 Whitman was again in St. Louis writing Secretary Greene, "I hope no time will be lost in seizing every favorable means of inducing good men to favor the interest of the Oregon." We should say here that, while in Boston, Whitman induced the officers of the American Board to rescind their action abolishing certain of the mission stations in Oregon. Now once more on the frontier, Whitman found that his hope of a large American emigration to Oregon was in a fair way of being realized; as George Rogers Clark came back to Virginia from Kentucky at an opportune moment to urge Patrick Henry to authorize the far-famed Illinois campaign, so now Marcus Whitman had come East at an opportune moment to add what weight he could in the interests of an Oregon campaign. But as in the case of Clark's visit to Virginia, so now, far more important causes had been at work to bring the desired result than the mere coming of a messenger. It would indeed be impossibleto estimate the large number of forces that had been at work to bring about the famous emigration of 1843, but among them should be remembered the long debates in Congress on the Ashburton Treaty, the Linn Bill concerning Oregon lands, Greenhow's "Memoir," and Lieutenant Wilkes's report, as well as the missionary efforts of the various denominations, and the Whitman pamphlet, before referred to.

As a result, as singular and interesting an army as ever bore the broadaxe westward now began to rendezvous in May near Independence, Kansas, just beyond the Missouri line. It would probably have gathered there to go forth to its brave conquest though there had been no Marcus Whitman or Daniel Webster, or any other man or set of men that ever lived; the saying that Whitman "saved Oregon" is just as false as the saying that Washington was the "Father of his Country," or that Thomas was the "Rock of Chickamauga," or Webster the "Defender of the Constitution"—and just as true; it is a boast, a toast, an idle fable to those whodisbelieve it, a precious legend of heroism and magnetism to those who glory in it. On the 18th of May a committee of the emigrants was appointed to go to Independence and inquire of Whitman concerning the "practicability of the road," as one of the party (George Wilkes) wrote; another pioneer (Peter H. Burnett) said that on the twentieth he attended a meeting with Colonels Thornton and Bartleson, Mr. Rickman and Dr. Whitman, at which meeting rules and regulations for the "Oregon Emigrating Society" were adopted. There is no doubt that Whitman's advice was of considerable importance. Any man who had taken a wagon over the Rockies would have been of prime importance to these emigrants, irrespective of any other considerations. On the 22d of May the vanguard of the army started, with John Gant as guide, and the Kansas River was reached on the 26th, and wholly crossed on the last day of May. On the 30th of May we find him writing to Secretary Greene in the following strain:

"You will be surprised to see that we are not yet started. Lieutenant Fremont left this morning. The emigrants have some of them just gone, and others have been gone a week, and some are yet coming on. I shall start to-morrow. I regret I could not have spent some of the time spent here in suspense with my friends at the East.

"I have only a lad of thirteen, my nephew, with me. I take him to have some one to stay with Mrs. Whitman. I cannot give you much of an account of the emigrants until we get on the road. It is said that there are over two hundred men besides women and children. They look like a fair representative of a country population. Few, I conclude, are pious. Fremont intends to return by land, so as to be back early in winter. Should he succeed in doing so we may be able to send you an account of the Mission and country at that time. We do not ask you to become the patrons of emigration to Oregon, but we desire you to use your influence that, in connection with all the influx into the country, there may be a fair proportion of good men of our own denomination who shall avail themselves of the advantages of the country in common with others. Also that ministers should come out as citizens or under the Home Missionary Society. We think agents of the Board and of the Home Missionary Society, as also ministers andgood men in general, may do much to send a share of good, pious people to that country. We cannot feel it to be at all just that we do nothing, while worldly men and Papists are doing so much.... I wish to say a few words about manufactures in Oregon, that I may remove an impression that they cannot compete with the English. First, let us take the operatives and the raw material from the Pacific Islands. It matters not at how much labor the Islander cleans the cotton, for it gives him employment, and for that he gets goods, and then for his coffee and sugar and salt and cotton, etc., etc., he gets goods also. This is all an exchange trade that only a population and manufacturers in Oregon can take advantage of, because they alone will want the articles of exchange which the Islander can give. The same will hold good in relation to Indians whenever they shall have sheep, and I intend to try and have the Government give them sheep instead of money, a result not likely to be delayed long. A good man or company can now select the best mill sites and spots, and likely would find a sawmill profitable at once. I think our greatest hope for having Oregon at least part Protestant now lies in encouraging a proper intention of good men to go there while the country is open. I want to call your attention to the operation of Farnham of Salem and the Bensons of New York in Oregon. Iam told credibly that secretly Government aids them with the secret service fund. Captain Howard of Maine is also in expectation of being employed by Government to take out emigrants by ship should the Oregon Bill pass."

Those who love the memory of this brave missionary must hold this letter exceedingly precious; it has, in addition to its enthusiasm and patriotism, that sane and practical outlook on the future that pervades so much of Washington's writings, especially the letters to William Crawford. Here is another man looking, on the Pacific slope, for such important commonplace things as mill sites in 1843, just as Washington was looking for mill sites in the Ohio Valley in 1770, and between the two it would be difficult to say which was the more seriously optimistic, though the influence of both must have been strong, in their respective days, on the advancing pioneer.

For all the daring of the hardy Winter's journey that Whitman made[11]we look upon thisother journey, with this splendid army of nearly a thousand Oregon pioneers and home-builders, as the one of supremest importance. Ay, here was Whitman's Ride,—not sung, perhaps, so widely as the one in the Winter's snows, and yet the one ride which Oregon could not have missed, and the one she can never forget! Let the fruitless debate go on as to the exact measure of this unpretentious missionary's influence in shaping Government policies and moulding public opinion; it is enough for me to know that he viewed the whole question as keenly as his few letters prove he unquestionably did, and then to know that when the great emigration started he was there to direct and inspire; that he could do the humblest duty and say the least about it, and at the same time show Fremont where to go if he would gain the immortal title of "Pathfinder."

Whitman has suffered at the hands of his friends, who have been over-jealous touchingmatters concerning which his own lovable modesty and reticence would not allow him to speak; they have made claims and inferences unwarranted by the known facts of the case. His Winter's ride has been compared with Sheridan's from Winchester, and tasted no better in some mouths than does the ballad of Sheridan's Ride in the mouths of Crook's men, who knew their leader had, an hour back, given and carried out the order Sheridan is said (in the poem) to have given when he dashed upon the scene, when, in fact, he merely came to Crook and asked him what he had done.[12]And yet Reid's poem is as true to the spirit of the indomitable Sheridan as Butterfield's is true of Whitman.

We have compared Whitman on the Walla Walla to Zeisberger on the Muskingum; and the terrible massacre of November 29, 1847, in which the brave hero of Oregon, with his wife and twelve others, gave their lives, belongs in history with the awful Gnadenhütten tragedy. The murder of these brave pioneersby Indians, to whom they had given the best of their lives and all their strength and prayers, is quite as fiendishly incongruous as the destruction of the Moravian band of corn-huskers by frenzied Monongahela frontiersmen; in each case the murderers knew not what they did.

But Whitman's work was done, for we have it in his own hand that he would be contented if posterity would remember, not that he had influenced a President or a Congress or saved an Empire, but merely, as he wrote, that he was

"one of the first to take white women across the mountains and prevent the disaster and reaction which would have occurred by the breaking up of the present emigration, and establishing the first wagon road across to the border of the Columbia."[13]

And yet when you study this boast you will find that it contains in its essence all that any boast for Whitman could hold; for it was anarmy of axe-bearers that was to save Oregon; and if Meade won Gettysburg or Wolfe captured Quebec, then Whitman and the Americans who went in his track won for America the northern Pacific slope.

FOOTNOTES:[5]See p. 46.[6]Dr. Cushing Eells's letter in archives of A. B. C. F. M., Boston.[7]"The Legend of Whitman's Ride," by Prof. E. G. Bourne,American Historical Review, January, 1901.[8]Dr. Whitman's route, as we have seen, in 1836.[9]"Letter of John Zachrey,"Senate Ex. Doc. No. 37, Forty-first Congress, Third Session.[10]Letter file, office of Secretary of War, received June 22, 1844.[11]Friends of Whitman have unfortunately exaggerated this Winter's ride; though a daring feat, it has many parallels in the annals of the old Salt Lake Trail, on which Jim Bridger built the fort that bore his name as early as 1837.[12]The report of a worthy eyewitness of the Thirty-sixth Ohio.[13]Whitman to Secretary Greene, Nov. 1, 1843; Mowry,Marcus Whitman, 267.

[5]See p. 46.

[6]Dr. Cushing Eells's letter in archives of A. B. C. F. M., Boston.

[7]"The Legend of Whitman's Ride," by Prof. E. G. Bourne,American Historical Review, January, 1901.

[8]Dr. Whitman's route, as we have seen, in 1836.

[9]"Letter of John Zachrey,"Senate Ex. Doc. No. 37, Forty-first Congress, Third Session.

[10]Letter file, office of Secretary of War, received June 22, 1844.

[11]Friends of Whitman have unfortunately exaggerated this Winter's ride; though a daring feat, it has many parallels in the annals of the old Salt Lake Trail, on which Jim Bridger built the fort that bore his name as early as 1837.

[12]The report of a worthy eyewitness of the Thirty-sixth Ohio.

[13]Whitman to Secretary Greene, Nov. 1, 1843; Mowry,Marcus Whitman, 267.

Captains of American Expansion always to be found in the National Legislature.—Great National Advance in the Second and Third Decades of the Nineteenth Century.—Definition of "The American System."—The Doctrine that Public Surplus should be used for Internal Improvements held for only a Short Time.—Party Struggles regarding Cumberland Road Legislation.—Inconsistent Resolutions of Congress on this Matter.—The Drift of Public Sentiment toward putting Works of Improvement under the Care of the Government.—Numerous Competitors for National Aid toward Local Improvements.—Mutual Jealousy of Various Localities with Regard to the Distribution of Government Aid.—Disputes as to the Comparative Usefulness of Canals and Railroads.—Polk's Sarcasm on the Abuse of the Word "National" as applied to the Route of a Proposed Road from the Lakes to the Gulf.—Several Beneficial Measures passed by Congress in Spite of Strong Opposition.—Sums granted for Education, Road-building, and Canal-building.—Beneficial Influence of the Government's Liberal Gifts as Encouragement to States and to Private Investors.

PILOTS OF "THE AMERICAN SYSTEM"

Letter A

Aswe have reviewed from a more or less personal standpoint some of the exploits which definitely made for the growth and expansion of the young American Republic, it may have occurred to the reader that here was another great power at work helping, encouraging, and guiding the movement,—Pilots of the Republic in the halls of national legislation at Washington.

Not that we refer specifically to any one man; some men, like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, can be pointed to at certain periods as men who occupied this position, who in a sense fathered, against all opposition, great measures that we see now were of tremendous advantage; if the position was abdicated by one man it was filled by another; and so down through the century and a quarter of our national existence there has been a power at work in our councils that has been optimistic, and at the same time true to the genius of America's geographical position and her high calling among the nations of the earth. It is not because this has been marvellously illustrated since the outbreak of the Spanish-American War that reference is made to it here, though the illustration is apposite and fair; but if we look back down the decades from the day that Congress signed that contract with Rufus Putnam and his Revolutionary patriots, or the day when Jefferson dared to effect the Louisiana Purchase, we shall continually find men sitting in the Congressional seats at the capitalwho had the courage to try new paths, to assume common-sense views of the Constitution, and who believed in their country and wished to see it shirk no great responsibility. Such men as these were as truly captains of our expansion as was Putnam or Henderson or Astor.

The age in our history to which our attention is turned on this subject is more particularly that lying between the beginning of the second and the ending of the third decade of last century. Much that was proposed before the opening of the nineteenth century, in the way of material national advance, was forgotten in the taxing days of 1811-1815. Chief among these was the Erie Canal proposition, and it is perhaps not too much to say that had the war with England not come as it did, possibly the Government would, by means of the money accruing from the sale of Michigan lands, have invested in the Erie Canal project; the Cumberland Road was one of the great works that went on despite the war. The moral effect of the victories of Perry and Jackson, one to the northand the other to the south, was very great; with the triumphant ending of the war the little victorious nation sprang into a strength and a passion for power that well-nigh frightened those acquainted with the policy and conservatism of the ante-bellum days.

We have touched slightly on one of the great questions of this most wonderful period of American history, that of the constitutionality of the appropriations for the Cumberland Road, and Henry Clay's championship of the measure. But this was only one of a score of propositions in a campaign of internal improvements, and Clay was but one of a hundred champions who assisted a weak nation to take on the elements of strength by encouraging agriculture and manufactures, and binding a far-flung land by means of communication and intercourse.

President James K. Polk

At the beginning of the second generation in the century the problem of internal improvements came to the fore as on no previous occasion, backed by the strongest men then in the public eye,—Clay, Calhoun, Adams, and Webster.The Cumberland Road had been making its way westward, but had not yet thrown its tawny length over the Ohio River and into the States beyond. But the argument for this great national work was not to be gainsaid, for the original compact with Ohio had been reiterated on the admission of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, respectively, and a part of the sales of the public lands in those States was already pledged to this object. As one of the fruits of the much discussed "American System," championed by Henry Clay, the Cumberland Road was a popular success, though there was never a time when any measure concerning it could not secure a strong following in the House and the Senate.

The American System stood for a use of the public surplus for works of internal improvement; it was not a popular policy for a long time, but while in vogue it was of immeasurable benefit to the expanding country, its champions being veritable captains of the country's advance. The most interesting features of the history ofthis doctrine are the vehemence with which it was advocated for a few critical years when nothing else would have equally aided the national advance, the questionable basis on which the doctrine rested, and the readiness with which it was abandoned when its providential mission was effected. Even before the real internal improvement era came it was foreshadowed by the historic position of the two parties toward the object, as shown in Cumberland Road legislation. The bitterness of the struggle could not be shown better than by the repudiations of Congress in 1817 in its votes on this subject. In that year Congress passed the following inconsistent resolutions: (1) Congress has the power to build public roads and military roads, and to improve waterways; (2) Congress hasnotpower to construct post roads or military roads; (3) Congress hasnotpower to construct roads or canals to carry commerce between the States; (4) Congress hasnotpower to construct military roads. "Thus we see," said a triumphant enemy of the so-called American System,"by the solemn decision of this House in 1817, all power over this subject was repudiated in every form and shape." Despite these inconsistencies the movement was ever a forward movement, until at last, in 1824, it assumed gigantic proportions, alarming to some degree the very men who had urged it forward.

The revenue of the Government at this time was about twenty-five millions, and the running expenses—including interest on the slight remaining debt—about half that sum. To what better use could the ten or twelve surplus million dollars be devoted than to the internal improvement of the land, as Gallatin and Jefferson had advocated twenty years before? Here the contest shifted to the tariff, a reduction of which would do away with the necessity of finding a way to employ a surplus. The drift of public sentiment, however, was largely in favor of turning the fostering care of the Government to works of improvement, either by direct appropriation, or by taking stock in local companies, or by devoting to their use the proceedsof the sale of public lands; in any way the result would be the same, and the nation as a whole would feel the benefit.

The policy swept a large part of the country like wildfire, and ten thousand dreams, many of them chimerical to the last degree, were conceived. As a rule the result was, without question, bitter disappointment; but amid all the dangers that were in the way, and all the possibilities of untold harm, an influence was put to work that did more for the awakening of the young land than anything that had ever preceded it. Over a hundred and twenty-five claimants for national aid were considered by squads of engineers sent out by the Government. In the sarcastic words of one of the opposers of the system (and on this subject there was a chance for sarcasm that seldom came to Congressmen) every creek and mill-race in the United States was being surveyed by engineers sent out by the chief executive. It was asserted, and not without some plausibility, that such surveying expeditions were used very craftily toinfluence votes, being sent to view rivers and roads in disputed regions where the information was circulated that, unless the champions of internal improvement were put in power, great local blessings would be lost to these districts.

But this was not by any means the chief danger in the campaign. As was most forcefully argued by the opposition, the influence of this paternal policy on the part of the Government would be to awaken hostility and set one part of the nation against the other, for in no way could the division of the surplus be made equal. It could not be made on the basis of population even if this were admitted to be constitutional, for some parts of the country needed help far more than others; a naturally impregnable harbor did not need a fourth of the money expended on it that a comparatively defenceless harbor did. Again, the division could not, for the same reason, be made on the basis of receipts; the States of the seaboard, in which the great part of the Government's revenue was raised, would then be almost the onlybeneficiaries; the West would receive nothing. The accusation of favoritism came with piercing force. Suppose, for instance, New York and Mississippi should come at the same time to Congress, the one asking for the improvement of the Erie Canal, and the other for the improvement of the Mississippi River. Which party would Congress listen to if the public treasury was not in a position to satisfy both applicants? It was urged that this procedure destroyed the whole principle of representative responsibility. Take the case of New York and her great canal,—the most important material improvement in the fifty years of the nation's life; New York came to the Government when the project was first broached, asking for aid. The cause was a good one; in peace it would be a benefit to at least six States, and in war it would be a national advantage of untold moment; in fact, as we have seen, the possibility of another war with England along the Lakes was the very argument that turned the scale and caused the canal to be built. Theproject was discouraged at Washington, and not a cent of Government treasure went into the undertaking. Why now, a score of years later, should New York representatives vote money from the national treasury for objects no less national or needful than the Erie Canal? Several neighboring States (Ohio, for instance) had declined to invest funds in the Erie Canal venture when it was first promoted; why now should New York representatives vote national funds (such a large part of which came from New York ports) for improvements in these States, whose delegates in Congress refused aid to the Erie Canal in its dark hours? On the other hand it was urged that even the Erie Canal, the most famous work of internal improvement promoted by any of the States, had done "nothing toward the extinguishment of its debt," up to 1830; if this great work did not reimburse the treasury which built it, though operated by a purely local authority well acquainted with all conditions and able to take advantage of all circumstances, how would it be with works promoted by the nationalGovernment, in distant parts of the country, with little or no knowledge of local circumstances or conditions? Another argument, more powerful than was realized at the time, was that which prophesied the swift advance of the locomotive and the railroad, and the consequent decay and disuse of the common road and the canal. Said a member of Congress in debate on the floor of the House, "The honorable gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Mercer, the father of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal], Sir, must hear the appalling, the heartrending fact, that this mighty monument [the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal] which, for years, he has been laboring with zeal and exertion to erect to his memory, and which, no doubt, he had fondly hoped would transmit his name down to the latest posterity, must fall, and must give place to the superior improvement of railroads."

On the proposed national road from Buffalo to New Orleans by way of Washington the opposition poured out its vials of sarcasm and ridicule. To the arguments of the friends ofthe measure, that the road was needed as a commercial and military avenue and for the use of the Post-office department, the reply was a denial so sweeping, from such reliable and informed parties, that there was no hope for the measure. Perhaps the strongest argument for the negative was advanced by James K. Polk, who was little less than withering in his fire, piling up ridicule on top of sarcasm to a degree seldom seen in Congress. Polk found that twenty-one routes between Washington and Buffalo had been outlined by engineers for this road "in the rage for engineering, surveying, reconnoitring, and electioneering." He alleged that the entire population in a space of territory one hundred miles in width between the two cities had been made to expect the road, and the surveys had been conducted in the heat of a political campaign. "The certain effect of this system, as exemplified by this road, is, first, to excite hopes; second, to produce conflicts of section arrayed against section; and lastly, dissatisfaction and heart-burnings amongst all whoare not accommodated." The speaker exhausted his keen-edged sarcasm on the word "national" and the uses to which the word was put by the defenders of the improvement bills. He affirmed that he was sure a number of men who proposed to support the Buffalo-New Orleans Road Bill would not consider it sufficiently "national" if it were known that it was not to pass through their districts; he affirmed that every catfish in the Ohio River was a "national" catfish as truly as the Cumberland Road was a national road; he challenged the friends of the bill to decide definitely upon a route for the proposed road from the Lakes to the Gulf, and then hold true to the measure representatives from districts through which the road was not to pass. Polk affirmed that the many various surveys were made merely to ally with the friends of the measure the representatives of all districts touched by these alternative courses. "This same national road was mounted as a political hobby in my district," said the Tennessean; "for a time the people seemed to be carried away with the prospectof having millions of public money expended among them. We were to have a main route and cross routes intersecting the district in every direction. It was to run down every creek, and pass through almost every neighborhood in the district. As soon as there was time for reason to assume her seat the delusion passed off."

These points of opposition to the improvement campaign have been outlined at some length to show the strength of the opposition and the ground it took. No measure went through Congress for any kind of Government aid without the strongest kind of opposition; in fact, the Virginia delegates worked and voted against the Dismal Swamp Canal in their own State in order to be consistent with their oft-expressed views on such questions. Yet, one by one, a considerable number of important measures of internal improvement went through Congress and received the signatures of the different Presidents; the effect of these measures was inestimably beneficial, giving a marked impetus to national development, and awakening in men's minds adim conception of the growth that was to be the one great wonder of the century.

From the adoption of the Constitution to the year 1828 the following sums were granted by the general Government for purposes either of education or road-building or canal-building: Maine, $9,500; New York, $4,156; Tennessee, $254,000; Arkansas, $45,000; Michigan, $45,000; Florida, $83,417; Ohio, $2,527,404; Illinois, $1,725,959; Indiana, $1,513,161; Missouri, $1,462,471; Mississippi, $600,667; Alabama, $1,534,727; Louisiana, $1,166,361. In addition to this the Government built, or assisted in building, five great works of improvement from among the scores that were proposed. For the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal $300,000 was advanced; for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, $10,000; for the Dismal Swamp Canal, $150,000; for the Louisville and Portland Canal, $90,000; for the Cumberland Road, $2,230,903; for western and southwestern State roads, $76,595, making a total appropriation of $13,838,886.

The danger of the system was in making the national purse an object of plunder for Congressmen, and the consequent danger of unholy alliances and combinations for looting the public treasury. It is interesting that for so long a period as it was in vogue there were so slight symptoms of this sort of thing; and men little knew that, by acting on liberal lines at the time, despite the dangers and risks, they were exerting a power to shape the new nation, to incite private investment, to encourage State and private works of promotion, and to aid the commercial awakening of a people to an activity and an enterprise whose possibilities cannot at the present day be estimated. Take the Portland Canal around the historic "falls of the Ohio" at Louisville; this was a work for no one State in particular to perform, not even Kentucky; it was a detriment to Louisville itself, for it destroyed the old portage business, as the Erie Canal ruined the overland carrying trade between Schenectady and Albany. All the States bordering on the Ohio were benefited by this improvement, as was equally truerespecting the Government's improvement of the Ohio River itself, which began in 1825. The Portland Canal was one of the important investments which tended to prove the financial benefit of such investments. The Government's total subscription of stock was $233,500; when the affairs of the Company were closed in 1874 by the purchase of the canal by the Government, it was found that the national profit (in mere interest) had been $257,778. This was due to exorbitant tolls charged by the Company, which resulted, finally, in the purchase of the canal and throwing it open toll-free.

The men who labored for this era of improvement are practically unknown, with the exception of two or three who became prominent because of special ability or renown gained in other lines of activity, like Clay and Calhoun. It is not important here to attempt to catalogue them; the work they did by voting for the so-called American System was of critical importance; but, still greater, in so doing they were showing a braver, more optimistic, more American spiritand a high faith in the fundamental good judgment of the people. It was, without doubt, a dangerous extreme to approach, possible of wanton violation in unprincipled hands, and a precedent of very questionable tendencies. But it was of immeasurable importance that such moral support as just such acts as these afforded should have come at just this time; and, could we read the result aright, it would be seen, possibly, that much of our commercial success found its origin at this very moment, and came into being because a number of men at this crucial time gave an impetus to private adventure and private investment that was almost providential in its ultimate effect on our national life. Losing their individual identity in the common promotion of temporary measures of infinite national advantage, they will be remembered only in a vague, impersonal way as men who honored their country by trusting in its destiny and believing in the genius of its growth.

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