Douglas tingled to his fingers' ends with the sentiment expressed in
these lines. The prospect of forfeiting this Oregon country,--this
greater Northwest,--to Great Britain, stirred all the belligerent
blood in his veins. Had it fallen to him to word the Democratic
platform, he would not have been able to choose a better phrase than
"re-occupation of Oregon." The elemental jealousy and hatred of the
Western pioneer for the claim-jumper found its counterpart in his
hostile attitude toward Great Britain. He was equally fearful lest a
low estimate of the value of Oregon should make Congress indifferent
to its future. He had endeavored to have Congress purchase copies of
Greenhow's _History of the Northwest Coast of North America_, so that
his colleagues might inform themselves about this El Dorado.[201]

There was, indeed, much ignorance about Oregon, in Congress and out.
To the popular mind Oregon was the country drained by the Columbia
River, a vast region on the northwest coast. As defined by the
authority whom Douglas summoned to the aid of his colleagues, Oregon
was the territory west of the Rocky Mountains between the parallels of
42° and 54° 40' north latitude.[202] Treaties between Russia and Great
Britain, and between Russia and the United States, had fixed the
southern boundary of Russian territory on the continent at 54° 40'; a
treaty between the United States and Spain had given the forty-second
parallel as the northern boundary of the Spanish possessions; and a
joint treaty of occupation between Great Britain and the United States
in 1818,--renewed in 1827,--had established a _modus vivendi_ between
the rival claimants, which might be terminated by either party on
twelve months' notice. Meantime Great Britain and the United States
were silent competitors for exclusive ownership of the mainland and
islands between Spanish and Russian America. Whether the technical