actual conditions and geography. From Passamaquoddy Bay to the
Lake of the Woods, accepted lines were substituted for
controversy, and the basis of peace was thus made more secure.
The treaty also contained provision for the mutual extradition of
criminals guilty of specified crimes, but these did not include
embezzlement, and "gone to Canada" was for years the epitaph of
many a dishonest American who had been found out.

The friendly spirit in which Webster and Ashburton had carried on
their negotiations inaugurated a period of reasonable amity
between their two nations. The United States annexed Texas
without serious protest; in spite of the clamor for "fifty-four
forty or fight," Oregon was divided peacefully; and England did
not take advantage of the war with Mexico. Each of these events,
however, added to American territory, and these additions gave
prominence to a new and vexing problem. The United States was now
planted solidly upon the Pacific, and its borders were
practically those to which Adams had looked forward. Natural and
unified as this area looks upon the map and actually is today, in
1850 the extent of territorial expansion had overreached the
means of transportation. The Great Plains, then regarded as the
Great American Desert, and the Rockies presented impossible
barriers to all but adventurous individuals. These men, uniting
in bands for self-protection and taking their lives in their
hands, were able with good luck to take themselves but little
else across this central region and the western barrier. All
ordinary communication, all mail and all freight, must go by sea.
The United States was actually divided into two very unequal
parts, and California and Oregon were geographically far distant
colonies.