SOLD – James Buchanan Sends Word to Britain That the U.S. Will Ratify the Oregon Treaty

The Oregon Territory, which extended from California in the south to the southern boundary of Russian Alaska in the north, had long been in dispute between the U.S. and Britain. An avid expansionist, Pres. Polk supported the 1844 Democratic platform that claimed the entire Oregon area. Extremists looked for war, but Polk, aware that war with Mexico was imminent, had no desire to take on Britain also.

The attention of the British was not fixed on North America, and they sought a way out of the confrontation as well. The British appointed Richard Pakenham, a member of the Privy Council, to be Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating a resolution and sent him to Washington. Secretary of State James Buchanan handled negotiations for the Americans. The U.S. offered to settle by extending the Canadian boundary along the 49th parallel, from the Rockies to the Pacific. When the British declined, Polk reasserted the American claim to the entire area and recommended military preparations to Congress. He also rejected two British offers of arbitration in rapid succession.

The Mexican War began on April 25, 1846, and changed the complexion of things. On June 6, Pakenham put forward to Buchanan a treaty with a compromise offer of the 49th parallel as far west as Vancouver Island, and with free navigation of the Columbia River for the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose rights were to be guaranteed. Polk’s Cabinet voted to submit it to the Senate for consideration even before it was signed, as the conclusion of a fair compromise with Britain so shortly after the outbreak of war with Mexico must have been very welcome. The Senate advised acceptance by a substantial majority, and the Pakenham-Buchanan Treaty was signed on June 15, 1846.

There must have been a sense of urgency in Washington, as only nine days elapsed from the British June 6 offer to final signing. James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) was the founder and publisher of The New York Herald, the leading American newspaper before and during the Civil War. As such he was the foremost journalist of his era. His paper combined public interest stories, sensational reports of crimes and disasters, and coverage of national and international news. It was officially independent of party ties, but had endorsed the Democratic nominee Polk in 1844, and approved of his expansionist designs.

The war with Mexico was more popular in the south than the north, where many saw it as a way for slavery to expand and gain power. The New York Herald strongly supported the war, and claimed, "It is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country." Thus the Polk Administration (including his Secretary of State, James Buchanan) was grateful to Bennett for his support and anxious to please him.

Brig. Gen. Robert Armstrong (1790-1854) was one of Andrew Jackson’s officers in the Creek War and at the Battle of New Orleans, where he was wounded. He was appointed by his old boss to the plum office of postmaster at Nashville in 1829, and remained there until 1845. He was the confidential adviser of Pres. Polk, a Nashville resident, who after his inauguration named him American consul to Liverpool, a job he held for seven years. This was an extremely important post because Liverpool was at the time the primary port for passenger and merchant ships running between the United States and England. General Jackson so respected him that he bequeathed him his sword. Louis McLane (1786-1857) had been Andrew Jackson’s Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State. Under Polk, he was U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. Whether Bennett was going to England in June 1846 anyway or was specifically dispatched by the U.S. government, we do not know. However, the following letter shows that, in the week the treaty was completed, Secretary of State Buchanan gave him papers to deliver to Ambassador McLane in London. The fact that Buchanan gave Bennett a courier’s passport indicates the papers were significant; that they were not merely correspondence to McLane, updating him on the situation, is suggested by the fact that McLane was directed for such “news” to speak with Bennett. The dispatches almost certainly announced the American government’s intention to ratify the treaty, and may also have dealt with timing and implementation plans. In addition to the papers, Buchanan gave the following cover letter for Bennett to hand to Armstrong, and apparently also briefed him on the status of the treaty.

James Buchanan Autograph Letter Signed, one page 4to, Washington, June 9, 1846, to Gen. Armstrong. “This letter will be delivered to you by James G. Bennett Esquire of New York, to whom I have given a courier’s passport as bearer of Dispatches to Mr. McLane. He will be accompanied by Mrs. Bennett. During their stay in Liverpool, may I bespeak for them your kind attentions. It will gratify me to learn that you have afforded them every facility which you so well know how to bestow. I refer you to Mr. Bennett for the news. He is as capable of giving it to you as any gentleman within my knowledge."

The practice of using trustworthy journalists as diplomatic couriers or go-betweens has its own fascinating history. Pres. Kennedy employed John Scali during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a messenger, to cite just one other example. Here Buchanan relies on Bennett to deliver to McLane papers relating to settlement of the last contest about territory in North America between the U.S. and Britain. The American-Canadian border was thus finally set, and the U.S. and Britain, so often in contention over the previous seventy years, were freed to develop a relationship built on friendship. There is another interesting aspect to this letter. The contents of letters of introduction were often disclosed to the carrier so that he would know what to expect from the recipient. The rather obsequious wording of Buchanan’s statement that nobody knows the news as well as Bennett was thus designed for Bennett’s eyes, with the obvious intention of currying favor with him. The compliment may have served a purpose while Polk was in office, but it had no lingering value, as when Buchanan himself ran for president in 1856, The New York Herald endorsed his opponent, John C. Fremont. A very rare letter relating to an important triumph of American diplomacy; it also illustrates a seldom-seen side of Buchanan’s style and the light but ingenious hand of his personal diplomacy.