The Kalida venture. [volume] (Kalida, Ohio) 1841-1865, 1845-07-29
From the Daily National Pilot.
OUR "UNQUESTIONABLE RIGHT" PROV
ED-TRUTH IN A NUTSHELL.

OUh " UNQUEo lON ADLE NV
ED-TRUTH IN A NUTSHELL.
Some of the more bashful enemies of our
possessing Oregon, modestly tell us we don't
want this: we have too much territory, al
ready-as if quantity were the question.
Tell such men that Oregon is there, and
will be occupied by somebody: that our claim
to it being clear, we should possess it, first
for the maintenance of our rights, then to
keep out bad neghbors, and for the advanta-
ges that this Judgement upon the Pacific
would give us, in future commerce with the
east, and they evince to you, at once, an
inability to appreciate such views.
Speaking of this forty-ninth degree, and
of the impudent assertion of New York
paper that we claim nothing north Of that,
the Philadelphia Ledger says:
"Whoever has bestowed even superficial
attention upon the subject, or has read even
one of the numerous books, pamphlets, lec-
lures and editorial dissertations in defence
of the American title to Oregon, which have
found readers in every settlement of the
United States, knows that our government
has claimed the whole territory between lat.
40 and SO, ever since the purchase of Lou
isana in 1903, and the whole to lat Sd 40,
ever since the conclusion of the Florida
treaty, in 1919. The assertion that we do
not claim beyond lat. 40 is entirely untrue"
The same New York print AYERS that,
" from lat. AZ to 81, 40, there exists joint
title, on the part of England and the United
States, which has resolved itself into joint
occupancy under existing treaties between
the two countries"
To this covert manner of begging the
question, as if for the especial benefit of the
British government, the Ledger well responds:
"We say that no such joint title exists, or
has ever been recognized by our govern
ment; that no British title to it, joint or Sc
veral, has ever existed, and that if joint title
has " resolved itself,'' or has been resolved
by others, into joint occupancy, it has
ceased to be title, joint or several, and con-
sequenlly that no joint title exists now, even
if one ever did exist. The legal absurdities
of this are quite as amusing as the audacity
of assertion. "A joint title exists between
England and the United States" England
first, of course. How got the English their
joint title? Not from discovery, having been
anticipated by the Spaniards, who never
ceded to them a foot of territory, or shadow
of jurisdiction on the Northwest coast, but
always, up to their cession of the country to
US, in 1919, protested against any such ces-
sion to the English. Not from the French,
who never granted TO them an inch Of terri
tory west of the Mississippi, but carefully
reserved all west of that riverby the Treaty
of Versailles, in 1868. Not from us, who
never surrendered our claim to an inch OF
Oregon, between lat. 42 and 81, 40, How,
then, got the English this jeint title? Echo
answers, how? They have none, and never
had any. And if the English have no joint
title, they certainly have no several title; for
they can show, for a several title, neither
discovery, nor conquest, nor purchase of the
natives, nor cessions from the Spanish,
French or Americans, the only people, ex-
ccpting the natives, who have claimed il since