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The famous ukase of 1821 was issued by the Russian Emperor on the expiration of the twenty-year charter of the Russian-American Company. It prohibited "to all foreign vessels not only to land on the coasts and islands belonging to Russia, as stated above" (including the whole of the northwest coast of America, beginning from Behring Strait to the fifty-first degree of northern latitude, also from the Aleutian Islands to the eastern coast of Siberia, as well as along the Kurile Islands from Behring Strait to the south cape of the Island of Urup) "but also to approach them within less than one hundred miles."

After the Nootka Convention in 1790, the Northwest Coast was open to free settlement and trade by the people of any country. It was claimed by the Russians to the Columbia, afterward to the northern end of Vancouver Island; by the British, from the Columbia to the fifty-fifth degree; and by the United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, between Forty-two and Fifty-four, Forty. By the treaty of 1819, by which Florida was ceded to us by Spain, the United States acquired all of Spanish rights and claims on the coast north of the forty-second degree. By its trading posts and regular trading vessels, the United States was actually in possession.

By treaty with the United States in 1824, and with Great Britain in 1825, Russia, realizing her mistake in issuing the ukase of 1821, agreed to Fifty-four, Forty as the limit of her possessions to southward. Of the interior regions, Russia claimed the Yukon region; England, that of the Mackenzie and the country between Hudson Bay and the Rocky Mountains; the United States, all west of the Rockies, north of Forty-two.

The year previous to the one in which the United States acquired Florida and all Spanish rights on the Pacific Coast north of Forty-two, the United States and England had agreed to a joint occupation of the region. In 1828 this was indefinitely extended, but with the emigration to Oregon in the early forties, this country demanded a settlement of the boundary question.

President Tyler, in his message to Congress in 1843, declared that "the United States rights appertain to all between forty-two degrees and fifty-four degrees and forty minutes."

The leading Democrats of the South were at that time advocating the annexation of Texas. Mr. Calhoun was an ardent champion of the cause, and was endeavoring to effect a settlement with the British minister, offering the forty-ninth parallel as a compromise on the boundary dispute, in his eagerness to acquire Texas without danger of interference.

The compromise was declined by the British minister.

In 1844 slave interests defeated Mr. Van Buren in his aspirations to the presidency. Mr. Clay was nominated instead. The latter opposed the annexation of Texas and advised caution and compromise in the Oregon question; but the Democrats nominated Polk and under the war-cry of "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight," bore him on to victory. The convention which nominated him advocated the reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon; the two significant words being used to make it clear that Texas had belonged to us before, through the Louisiana purchase; and Oregon, before the treaty of joint occupation with Great Britain.

President Polk, in his message, declared that, "beyond all question, the protection of our laws and our jurisdiction, civil and criminal, ought to be immediately extended over our citizens in Oregon."

He quoted from the convention which had nominated him that "our title to the country of Oregon as far as Fifty-four, Forty, is clear and unquestionable;" and he boldly declared "for all of Oregon or none."

John Quincy Adams eloquently supported our title to the country to the line of Fifty-four, Forty in a powerful speech in the House of Representatives.

Yet it soon became apparent that both the Texas policy and the Oregon question could not be successfully carried out during the administration. "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight" as a watchword in a presidential campaign was one thing, but as a challenge to fight flung in the face of Great Britain, it was quite another.

In February, 1846, the House declared in favor of giving notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of the Oregon country must cease. The Senate, realizing that this resolution was practically a declaration of war, declined to adopt it, after a very bitter and fiery controversy.

Those who retreated from their first position on the question were hotly denounced by Senator Hannegan, the Democratic senator from Indiana. He boldly attacked the motives which led to their retreat, and angrily exclaimed:—

"If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition."

The resolution was almost unanimously opposed by the Whig senators. Mr. Webster, while avoiding the point of our actual rights in the matter, urged that a settlement on the line of the forty-ninth parallel be recommended, as permitting both countries to compromise with dignity and honor. The resolution that was finally passed by the Senate and afterward by the House, authorized the president to give notice at his discretion to Great Britain that the treaty should be terminated, "in order that the attention of the governments of both countries may be the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes in regard to said territory."

Forever to their honor be it remembered that a few of the Southern Democrats refused to retreat from their first position—among them, Stephen A. Douglas. Senator Hannegan reproached his party for breaking the pledges on which it had marched to victory.

The passage of the milk-and-water resolution restored to the timid of the country a feeling of relief and security; but to the others, and to the generations to come after them, helpless anger and undying shame.

The country yielded was ours. We gave it up solely because to retain it we must fight, and we were not in a position at that time to fight Great Britain.

When the Oregon Treaty, as it was called, was concluded by Secretary Buchanan and Minister Pakenham, we lost the splendid country now known as British Columbia, which, after our purchase of Alaska from Russia, would have given us an unbroken frontage on the Pacific Ocean from Southern California to Behring Strait, and almost to the mouth of the Mackenzie River on the Frozen Ocean.

Many reasons have been assigned by historians for the retreat of the Southern Democrats from their former bold and flaunting position; but in the end the simple truth will be admitted—that they might brag, but were not in a position to fight. They were like Lieutenant Whidbey, whom Vancouver sent out to explore Lynn Canal in a small boat. Mr. Whidbey was ever ready and eager, when he deemed it necessary, to fire upon a small party of Indians; but when they met him, full front, in formidable numbers and with couched spears, he instantly fell into a panic and deemed it more "humane" to avoid a conflict with those poor, ignorant people.

Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle A Phantom Ship

The Southern Democrats who betrayed their country in 1846 were the Whidbeys of the United States. For no better reason than that of "humanity," they gave nearly four hundred thousand square miles of magnificent country to Great Britain.

Another problem in this famous boundary settlement question has interested American historians for sixty years: Why England yielded so much valuable territory to the United States, after protecting what she claimed as her rights so boldly and so unflinchingly for so many years.

Professor Schafer, the head of the Department of American History at the University of Oregon, claims to have recently found indisputable proof in the records of the British Foreign Office and those of the old Hudson's Bay Company, in London, that the abandonment of the British claim was influenced by the presence of American pioneers who had pushed across the continent and settled in the disputed territory, bringing their families and founding homes in the wilderness.

England knew, in her heart, that the whole disputed territory was ours; and as our claims were strengthened by settlement, she was sufficiently far-sighted to be glad to compromise at that time. If the Oregon Treaty had been delayed for a few years, British Columbia would now be ours. Proofs which strengthen our claim were found in the winter of 1907–1908 in the archives of Sitka.

There would be more justice in our laying claim to British Columbia now, than there was in the claims of Great Britain in the famous lisière matter which was settled in 1903.

By the treaties of 1824, between Russia and the United States, and of 1825, between Russia and Great Britain, the limits of Russian possessions are thus defined, and upon our purchase of Alaska from Russia, were repeated in the Treaty of Washington in 1867:—

"Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degree of west longitude (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the North along the channel called Portland Channel, as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude; from this last mentioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same meridian); and finally, from the said point of intersection, the said meridian line of the one hundred and forty-first degree, in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions on the Continent of America to the northwest.

"With reference to the line of demarcation laid down in the preceding article, it is understood:—

"First, That the island called Prince of Wales Island shall belong wholly to Russia.

"Second, That whenever the summit of the mountains which extend parallel to the coast from the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia as above mentioned shall be formed by a line parallel to the windings of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom.

"The western limit within which the territories and dominion conveyed are contained, passes through a point in Behring Strait on the parallel of sixty-five degrees, thirty minutes, north latitude, at its intersection by the meridian which passes midway between the islands of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook, and proceeds due north, without limitation, into the same Frozen Ocean. The same western limit, beginning at the same initial point, proceeds thence in a course nearly southwest, through Behring Strait and Behring Sea, so as to pass midway between the northwest point of the island of St. Lawrence and the southeast point of Cape Choukotski, to the meridian of one hundred and seventy-two west longitude; thence, from the intersection of that meridian in a southwesterly direction, so as to pass midway between the island of Attou and the Copper Island of the Kormandorski couplet or group in the North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian of one hundred and ninety-three degrees west longitude, so as to include in the territory conveyed the whole of the Aleutian Islands east of that meridian."

In the cession was included the right of property in all public lots and squares, vacant lands, and all public buildings, fortifications, barracks, and other edifices, which were not private individual property. It was, however, understood and agreed that the churches which had been built in the ceded territory by the Russian government should remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church resident in the territory as might choose to worship therein. All government archives, papers, and documents relative to the territory and dominion aforesaid which were existing there at the time of transfer were left in possession of the agent of the United States; with the understanding that the Russian government or any Russian subject may at any time secure an authenticated copy thereof.

The inhabitants of the territory were given their choice of returning to Russia within three years, or remaining in the territory and being admitted to the enjoyment of all rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion.

It must be confessed with chagrin that very few Russians availed themselves of this opportunity to free themselves from the supposed oppression of their government, to unite with the vaunted glories of ours.

Before 1825, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and the United States had no rights of occupation and assertion on the Northwest Coast. Different nations had "planted bottles" and "taken possession" wherever their explorers had chanced to land, frequently ignoring the same ceremony on the part of previous explorers; but these formalities did not weigh against the rights of discovery and actual occupation by Russia—else Spain's rights would have been prior to Great Britain's.

Between the years of 1542 and 1774 Spanish explorers had examined and traced the western coast of America as far north as fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, Perez having reached that latitude in 1774, discovering Queen Charlotte Islands on the 16th of June, and Nootka Sound on the 9th of August.

Although he did not land, he had friendly relations with the natives, who surrounded his ship, singing and scattering white feathers as a beautiful token of peace. They traded dried fish, furs, and ornaments of their own making for knives and old iron; and two, at least, boarded the ship.

Perez named the northernmost point of Queen Charlotte Islands Point Santa Margarita.

Proceeding south, he made a landfall and anchored in a roadstead in forty-nine degrees and thirty minutes, which he called San Lorenzo—afterward the famous Nootka of Vancouver Island. He also discovered the beautiful white mountain which dignifies the entrance to Puget Sound, and named it Santa Rosalia. It was renamed Mount Olympus fourteen years later by John Meares.

This was the first discovery of the Northwest Coast, and when Cook and Vancouver came, it was to find that the Spanish had preceded them.

Not content with occupying the splendid possessions of the United States through the not famous, but infamous, Oregon Treaty, Canada, upon the discovery of gold in the Cassiar district of British Columbia, brought up the question of the lisière, or thirty-mile strip. This was the strip of land, "not exceeding ten marine leagues in width," which bordered the coast from the southern limit of Russian territory at Portland Canal (now the southern boundary of Alaska) to the vicinity of Mount St. Elias. The purpose of this strip was stated by the Russian negotiations to be "the establishment of a barrier at which would be stopped, once for all, to the North as to the West of the coast allotted to our American Company, the encroachments of the English agents of the Amalgamated Hudson Bay and Northwest English Company."

In 1824, upon the proposal of Sir Charles Bagot to assign to Russia a strip with the uniform width of ten marine leagues from the shore, limited on the south by a line between thirty and forty miles north from the northern end of the Portland Canal, the Russian Plenipotentiaries replied:—

"The motive which caused the adoption of the principle of mutual expediency to be proposed, and the most important advantage of this principle, is to prevent the respective establishments on the Northwest Coast from injuring each other and entering into collision.

"The English establishments of the Hudson Bay and Northwest companies have a tendency to advance westward along the fifty-third and fifty-fourth degrees of north latitude.

"The Russian establishments of the American Company have a tendency to descend southward toward the fifty-fifth parallel and beyond; for it should be noted that, if the American Company has not yet made permanent establishments on the mathematical line of the fifty-fifth degree, it is nevertheless true that by virtue of its privilege of 1799, against which privilege no power has ever protested, it is exploiting the hunting and the fishing in these regions, and that it regularly occupies the islands and the neighboring coasts during the season, which allows it to send its hunters and fishermen there.

"It was, then, to the mutual advantage of the two Empires to assign just limits to this advance on both sides, which, in time, could not fail to cause most unfortunate complications.

"It was also to their mutual advantage to fix their limits according to natural partitions, which always constitute the most distinct and certain frontiers.

"For these reasons the Plenipotentiaries of Russia have proposed as limits upon the coast of the continent, to the South, Portland Channel, the head of which lies about (par) the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, and to the East, the chain of mountains which follows at a very short distance the sinuosities of the coast."

Sir Charles Bagot urged the line proposed by himself and offered, on the part of Great Britain, to include the Prince of Wales Island within the Russian line.

Russia, however, insisted upon having her lisière run to the Portland Canal, declaring that the possession of Wales Island, without a slice (portion) of territory upon the coast situated in front of that island, could be of no utility whatever to Russia; that any establishment formed upon said island, or upon the surrounding islands, would find itself, as it were, flanked by the English establishments on the mainland, and completely at the mercy of these latter.

England finally yielded to the Russian demand that the lisière should extend to the Portland Canal.

The claim that the Canadian government put forth, after the discovery of gold had made it important that Canada should secure a short line of traffic between the northern interior and the ocean, was that the wording of certain parts of the treaty of 1825 had been wrongly interpreted. The Canadians insisted that it was not the meaning nor the intention of the Convention of 1825 that there should remain in the exclusive possession of Russia a continuous fringe, or strip—the lisière—of coast, separating the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, havens, and waters of the ocean.

Or, if it should be decided that this was the meaning of the treaty, they maintained that the width of the lisière was to be measured from the line of the general direction of the mainland coast, and not from the heads of the many inlets.

They claimed, also, that the broad and beautiful "Portland's Canal" of Vancouver and the "Portland Channel" of the Convention of 1825, were the Pearse Channel or Inlet of more recent times. This contention, if sustained, would give them our Wales and Pearse islands.

It was early suspected, however, that this claim was only made that they might have something to yield when, as they hoped, their later claim to Pyramid Harbor and the valley of the Chilkaht River should be made and upheld. This would give them a clear route into the Klondike territory.

In 1898 a Joint High Commission was appointed for the consideration of Pelagic Fur Sealing, Commercial Reciprocity, and the Alaska Boundary. The Commission met in Quebec. The discussion upon the boundary continued for several months, the members being unable to agree upon the meaning of the wording of the treaty of 1825.

The British and Canadian members, thereupon, unblushingly proposed that the United States should cede to Canada Pyramid Harbor and a strip of land through the entire width of the lisière.

To Americans who know that part of our country, this proposal came as a shock. Pyramid Harbor is the best harbor in that vicinity; and its cession, accompanied by a highway through the lisière to British possessions, would have given Canada the most desirable route at that time to the Yukon and the Klondike—the rivers upon which the eyes of all nations were at that time set. Many routes into that rich and picturesque region had been tested, but no other had proved so satisfactory.

It has since developed that the Skaguay route is the real prize. Had Canada foreseen this, she would not have hesitated to demand it.

From the disagreement of the Joint High Commission of 1898 arose the modus vivendi of the following year. There has been a very general opinion that the temporary boundary points around the heads of the inlets at the northern end of Lynn Canal, laid down in that year, were fixed for all time—although it seems impossible that this opinion could be held by any one knowing the definition of the term "modus vivendi."

By the modus vivendi Canada was given temporary possession of valuable Chilkaht territory, and her new maps were made accordingly.