whether the secret articles were generally known at this time; but the
open treaty had been published in Niles' _Register_ correctly, and had
been cited by President Polk.[227] The inference would seem to be
that Douglas unwittingly used an unauthenticated version, and found in
it a conclusive argument for the claim of Texas to the disputed
territory.

Mr. John Quincy Adams had followed Douglas with the keenest interest,
for with all the vigor which his declining strength permitted, he had
denounced the war as an aggression upon a weaker neighbor. He had
repeatedly interrupted Douglas, so that the latter almost insensibly
addressed his remarks to him. They presented a striking contrast: the
feeble, old man and the ardent, young Westerner. When Douglas alluded
to the statement of Mr. Adams in 1819, that "our title to the Rio del
Norte is as clear as to the island of New Orleans," the old man
replied testily, "I never said that our title was good to the Rio del
Norte from its mouth to its source." But the gentleman surely did
claim the Rio del Norte in general terms as the boundary under the
Louisiana treaty, persisted Douglas. "I have the official evidence
over his own signature.... It is his celebrated dispatch to Don Onis,
the Spanish minister." "I wrote that dispatch as Secretary of State,"
responded Mr. Adams, somewhat disconcerted by evidence from his own
pen, "and endeavored to make out the best case I could for my own
country, as it was my duty; but I utterly deny that I claimed the Rio
del Norte in its whole extent. I only claimed it as the line a short
distance up, and then took a line northward, some distance from the
river." "I have heard of this line to which the gentleman refers,"
replied Douglas. "It followed a river near the gorge of the mountains,
certainly more than a hundred miles above Matamoras. Consequently,
taking the gentleman on his own claim, the position occupied by