Exam 13: The Continued Move West

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During Polk's presidential campaign, he pledged to fight for exclusive title to the Oregon Territory and to settle for nothing less than the entirety of American claims, which extended all the way up to a northern line of 54°40'-close to what is now the southernmost point of Alaska's border with British Columbia. Britain, however, would certainly not concede that the United States owned a territory that Britain had long explored and claimed. After his inauguration in early 1845, Polk softened his position and returned to the demand made by every president since James Monroe: the United States would be willing to settle for a border along the 49th parallel-Oregon's northern border today. Britain rejected the offer; it wanted to control the Columbia River, 200 miles south of the 49th parallel. Angered at Britain's refusal and inspired by the partisan cry of "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" Polk returned to his more aggressive position. In early December 1845, he asked Congress to extend U.S. military protection to the Oregon Trail. He hoped that feigning military intervention would persuade the British to concede the vast Oregon territory.Polk's tenacious talk was merely a bluff: he believed that the land north of the 49th parallel, where few American settlers had reached, was not that important. What he really wanted was Puget Sound and access to the ports of California for trading. Britain's government, meanwhile, decided that its interest in the region, originally based on the once-robust fur trade, which was now rapidly declining, was not worth a war. In late December 1845, the two parties reopened negotiations over the issue, intending to prevent what would have been the third war in seventy-five years between the two nations. The British proposed a treaty accepting the 49th parallel as a border, although it sought to retain the right to navigate the Columbia River. The Senate approved the resulting Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty in July 1846, and America now had uncontested access to the Pacific.