Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1841-1853, 1846-06-18
Twentp-Nintb Gonsress.
MIR. Benton's Oregon Speech.
In SeHate, May y, 1916.


say, Mr. President that the bill hov before the Sen
ate is not the recommended by the President of
the United States. He recommended that the soyer-
eighty and jurisdiction Of the United States be extern
ded 10 Oregon territory to the same extent that
Great Britain had extended her sovereignty and uris
diction to the country In this reconinenda-
ton fully concur and venture to say, that if such
abi brought in. IT might pass the Senate (leay-
ing out unnecessary sPeeches) in little time IT
would require 10 read il three times by its title. But
the Bill before the Senate not of that character IL
goes far bcyond the Presidents recommendation 1t
proposes many things not found IN the British act OF
152l-things implying exclusive jurisdiction and
sovereignty us, and that to underlined extent OF
country, and under circumstances which must imme-
dlately produce hostile collisions between agents
and the British agents the other side of the Rocky
Mountains. j am opposed to all this; but | am not
in favor Of the indefinite pOstponement oil the bill.
wish to it amended and made conformable to the
Presidents recommendation. If gentlemen who have
the conduct of the here will bring In such
amendment, and put 1t on its passage without
speeches, will stop my speech until it has passed
/ will proceed to show, well as | can, the
degree and extent Of just claims beyond the Rocky
Mountains.
To understand what mean to say, 1t is necessary
to recoect the geography of the country in question,
and it presenting, it does, three distinct geo.
graphical divisions, TO each of which different claim
and a different degree of claim attaches, and which
cannot be COMPOUNDED under any one general view,
without general mysticaton and total confusion of
the whole subject The Columbia river and its valley
is of these divsions the islands along the coast
is another; Frazer's river and its valley Called by
the British, New Caedonia) the third. Under
these three divisions / propose to speak of the
country, under these divisions have always spoken
Of it and what | have said of one part had no
application to another. When | spoke of the
great river Of The West and its valley, either
by Its American of Columbia or Indian name
OF Oregon,el never intended Frazers river and
its valley, or Vancouver's island, or the Gulf Of
Georgia. or Desolation Sound Broughon's Arch.
When speak of the coast and the islands, 1
do not mean the continent and the mountains; and
when speak of. Frazers river New Caledonia,
do not mean the Columbia river repudiate all such
loose and slovenIy yerbage; and, desiring to be
derstood according TO my words 60 on to speak of
the country beyond the Rocky Mountains under the
three great geographical divisions into which nature
has formed it, and to which political events have so
naturally ada pied themselves
begin with the islands.
From the Straits of Fuca Gin fact from Pnget's
Sound to the peninsula of Alaska distance of one
thousand mies-tbere is a network of islands-an
archipelago-some large some small, chequered In
together and covering the the of one,
two, and even three hundred miles in front of the
continent They are most of them OF volcanic I'M
preston, and separated from each other and the
tnent by deep bays, CULTS, and straits and by long
deep chasms, to which navigators have given the
name of canals This long chequerboard of islands,
and the waters which contain them, have been the
theatre of maritime discovery to many nations, and
especially Spanish British and Russian; but, except
the Russians, no nation made permanent settlements
any of these islands; and they only as low down
as latitude 90. The British and Spaniards both aban-
doned Vancouvers island after the Nootka Sound
controversy and from that time had settlement of
any kind on the coast, islands, north of Cape Men,
docno, latitude Al and the British had none any,
where In this state of the the question came
between Russia, Great Britain and the United
States, in which the distinction between the islands
and the continent acknowledged by all the powers,
and Russia excluded from the continent, and confined
to the islands, because her discoveries and settlements
not continental, but insular. The conventions
with Russia British and American) of 1928 were
framed upon that principle; and now | proceed to
read the instructions from government under
which this distinction between the islands and the
continent asserted and maintained. | read from
Mr. Adams's despatch to Mr. Middleton, July 3D.
1923;
{" II has been admitted by the various European
tons which have formed settlements this hemisphere
that the occupation Of island any claim whatever
to territorial possessions on The continent to which it
adjoining The recognized principle has rather been the
verse; as by the law Of nature islands must rather be
considered as aPpuIenant to continents than continents 10
islands"
And again, in Mr.. Middleton's communications to
the Russian government
The Russians have establishment upon the island of
Stka, In latitude 81 degrees 80 minutes This FORT built in
I799 destroyed years by natives Of the
county, and re-establshed in 1904 by LisiaDk
called New ATchange Russia cannot, however avail
herself Of the Circumstance Of possession form
foundation for rights the continent the usage Of nations
having established that the occupation Of island
could give right upon neghborng The prin-
cpe raher that the islands ought be considered
spPendant the continent than the inverse Of the PROPOSE
tlon."
These were the instructions to our minister under
which we treated with Russia in 1924, and upon
which the conventions of that period were formed.
They establish the fact that these island In front of
the northwest coast considered separate geo.
graphical division of the country governed by national
law applicable to islands, and that discoveries among
them, perfected by settlement, gave no claims
upon the continent. This Is the way the powers
settled with Russia. Applying the principle to
themselves, and no discovery of Vancouver's island
any of the thousand islands along that coast, can
considered cardinal error In all the recent discus
sions Oregon, to bottom continental claims upon
these nsular discoveries. The Spaniards, as so well
shown in the speech of the senator from New York,
Mr.. DIX, were the predecessors of the British IN
these discoveries; but did not understand him as
claiming the continent out to the Rocky Mountains,
and up 81 deg 40 min., by virtue of these mari
time discoveries; and am very that | limited
my own sanction of his views to the tracks of the
ships which made the discoveries. consider Spanish
discoveries along that coast dominant over the
British, both for priority Of date and for the spirit of
ownership in which they made. The Spaniards
explored masters of the country looking after
their own extended and contiguous possessions and
TO which no limit had ever been placed: the British
explored in the character of adyentures seeking new
lands in a distant region. Neither made permanent
settlements; both abandoned; and now. see nothing,
either in the value title of these islands, for the
two nations TO fight about The principle of conve-
nience and mutual good viii, magnanimously pro-
posed by the Emperor Alexander in 1923, seems to