Creative Books

[Footnote: Treaties and Conventions (ed. of
1889), 416, 1017; Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.),
chap, xvi.; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV., 275.]
Although Russia put forward large and exclusive claims north of the
fifty-first parallel, which we challenged, the contest for Oregon
lay between England and the United States. At the close of 1820,
Floyd, of Virginia, moved in the House of Representatives to inquire
into the feasibility of the occupation of the Columbia River; and
early the next year [Footnote: Annals of Cong., 16 Cong., 2 Sess.,
945; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, V., 238, 243-260.] a committee report was
brought in, discussing the American rights. Floyd's bill provided
for the military occupation of the Columbia River, donation of lands
to actual settlers, and control of the Indians. No vote was reached,
however, and it was not until the close of 1822 that the matter
secured the attention of Congress.
Whatever may have been his motives, Floyd stated with vividness the
significance of western advance in relation to the Pacific coast.


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