How the States Got Their Shapes Too

by Mark Stein

  Mexico saw Britain’s move and, three weeks later, added its chips. On May 7, 1845, its congress passed a resolution. “The unjust usurpation of which [the United States] sought to make Mexico the victim, makes it her duty to take up arms in her defense,” it asserted, upping the ante by concluding, “The Mexican nation calls upon her sons to defend their national independence, threatened by the usurpation of the territory of Texas.”2

  It was Polk’s turn again. What he needed now was room to maneuver, knowing he could not simultaneously take on two wars. In July he had Secretary of State James Buchanan make Britain an offer that gave him room to maneuver with U.S. public opinion, and time to do so by making it an offer Britain had to refuse. Polk achieved both with deceptive simplicity. He abandoned his campaign pledge (and inaugural address demand) that the United States was entitled to all of Oregon and returned to the previous administration’s bid for a boundary that continued along the 49th parallel from the Rockies to the Pacific. Americans who preferred compromise to war were startled and impressed; Polk’s militant supporters were startled and upset. Unnoticed by both groups was the absence, in Polk’s proposal, of any mention of British access to the Columbia River. But the British noticed. The Columbia was a major artery of Britain’s fur trade, conducted under the auspices of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In addition, a line from the Rockies to the Pacific would divide Vancouver Island and its prized ports in the strait separating it from the mainland. Britain rejected Polk’s proposal.

  In the United States, Britain was now viewed as intractable. What wasn’t viewed was the purpose of Polk’s move—to make Americans view themselves as tractable. Polk had acquired the card he needed.

  Later in the same month of July 1845, with Britain now pausing to reassess the U.S. president, Polk raised the stakes on Mexico. He ordered troops to cross the Nueces River, with those orders explicitly stating for the first time that the United States considered the Rio Grande to be the border between Texas and Mexico.

  Britain, after considerable thought, opted to match this move. “In a short time,” the London Times reported in November, “Admiral Seymour will be upon or near the coast of Oregon with one ship of 80, one of 50, one of 18, and one of 16 guns.”

  Within weeks Polk hedged his bet, sending Congressman John Slidell to Mexico with an offer to purchase Texas for as much as $40 million.3 By hedging on Mexico, Polk caused Britain to ponder him yet again. Did war over Oregon amount to bluffing or not?

  To make certain the British kept wondering, Polk used his December 2, 1845, State of the Union message (which he would later make further use of domestically) to ensure the uncertainty of his intentions. In speaking of Oregon, he repeatedly invoked the spirit of compromise while simultaneously raising the specter of war:

  In consideration that propositions of compromise had been thrice made by two preceding Administrations … and that the pending negotiation had been commenced on the basis of compromise, I deemed it to be my duty not to abruptly break it off.… A proposition was accordingly made which was rejected by the British.… All attempts at compromise having failed, it becomes the duty of Congress to consider what measures it may be proper to adopt … for the maintenance of our just title to that territory.

  Over in Britain, one thing was certain. It too had a militant faction that equated compromise with surrender. This faction was spearheaded by Lord Palmerston, a former foreign minister whose party no longer led Parliament. Prime Minister Robert Peel, like Polk, needed room to maneuver. In a parliamentary maneuver, Peel called Palmerston’s bluff and won. Polk, in response to Peel’s having marginalized Palmerston’s opposition, sent word in January 1846 that if the British wished to make a counterproposal to his offer of the 49th parallel, he would send it to the Senate to hear its advice.

  Meaning what? Britain, again having to contemplate this perplexing president, did nothing. One month later, Polk turned up the heat: the treaty of joint occupancy could be terminated twelve months after either nation served notice, and he urged Congress to serve notice.

  The British Parliament was not the only legislature trying to figure out Polk. So was the U.S. Senate. If the clock ran out, what did the president plan to do? During a two-day period, Polk noted in his diary:

  [March 4, 1846] Senator Hanegan of Indiana called.… He spoke of Mr. Haywood’s speech in the Senate that day, in which he had undertaken to expound my views on the Oregon question, and seemed, without asking the direct question, to desire to know whether he was authorized to do so. I told him no one spoke ex cathedra for me, that my views were given in the annual message of the 2nd of December.… On going into my office I found Mr. Yulee & Mr. Lewis there and, as I anticipated, they had called to see me on the subject of Oregon. Unlike Mr. Hanegan, they expressed themselves to be greatly delighted at Mr. Haywood’s speech in the Senate.… I repeated … that my views were contained in my message of the 2nd of December.

  [March 5, 1846] Senator Cass called this evening.… I told him my opinions on the Oregon question were contained in my annual message.

  Louisiana Senator Alexander Barrow was among those who expressed befuddlement. To his fellow senators he declared:

  We have before us a most extraordinary and, I must say, humiliating public spectacle.… We sit here as part of that great National Council which, along with the Executive, directs the affairs of this people.… Amongst us [the president] has a decided party majority, anxious to afford him support in all his measures. And yet … his real purposes in the momentous questions before us … are an enigma to his very adherents here, who cannot, for their lives, settle between them his true meaning and intention!

  Like Prime Minister Peel, Polk had to outfox the leadership of his nation’s militant faction. But for Polk that faction was in his own political party. Hence this move of asking Congress to start the clock ticking, while keeping them guessing his intentions if time ran out. As his White House encounters revealed, both sides assumed his ambiguity meant he was leaning toward them. On April 23 the Senate joined the House in voting to end the joint occupancy agreement.

  It was not a moment too soon. Two days later, sixteen American soldiers were killed in a skirmish with Mexican troops. In early May Polk sent Congress a declaration of war.

  The next move was Britain’s. Which way would it go? The answer arrived on June 3. Britain would agree to the 49th parallel, but only from the Rockies to the main channel of the Juan de Fuca Strait, and only if the Hudson’s Bay Company retained navigational rights to the Columbia River until the expiration of its charter in 1859.

  Polk, as he’d promised, sent the proposal to the Senate but yet again flummoxed them by saying he planned to reject the proposal unless two-thirds of the Senate voted in its favor.4 Polk then said nothing more on the subject, leaving the Senate to guess what that meant.

  Militants in the Senate continued to oppose the proposed compromise, and those who had been opposed to war supported it. The critical votes would be from those less committed. Some, because of Polk’s having just entered into a war with Mexico, voted for compromise, not wanting to fight two wars at once. Others opted for compromise, anticipating that Polk’s silence and two-thirds request would tilt the field. The proposal thereby ended up being passed 37 to 12. Within weeks it became a treaty, which the Senate ratified 41 to 14.

  Polk had not acquired all the Oregon territory his party had advocated in its campaign platform. But he had acquired all the territory that the previous president, also from his party, had unsuccessfully sought.

  The Mexican War was brought to conclusion when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought what would become California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of what would become Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona into the borders of the United States. The treaty was ratified on March 10, 1848, in the midst of the next presidential campaign.

  James K. Polk, as promised, was not a candidate.

  · · · VIRGINIA, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA · · ·

  ROBERT M. T. HU
NTER

  Cutting Washington Down to Size

  Virginia is ready to receive these people back into her bosom, and they are ready and anxious to return. They desire to enjoy the rights of men, the privileges of free men. Can the American Congress fail to respect such a feeling?

  —CONGRESSMAN ROBERT M. T. HUNTER1

  In 1791 Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker marked off the boundaries of the District of Columbia: a square with ten-mile sides, straddling the Potomac River. It encompassed two municipalities (Georgetown and Alexandria), a federal enclave (Washington), and rural areas on either side of the Potomac (Alexandria County and Washington County).

  Fifty-five years later, President James K. Polk signed away the entire section of the nation’s capital on the Potomac’s southern side, returning it to Virginia. In reaction, one newspaper in the North wrote:

  The Senate has passed, by a majority of more than two to one, the bill which passed the House the 8th of May, retroceding the city and county of Alexandria, D.C. to Virginia.

  The Democrats of Maine have nominated John W. Dana, of Fryeburg, as their candidate for governor.2

  District of Columbia, 1790-1846

  In the South, by comparison, a Mississippi paper wrote:

  In the Senate, on the 2nd inst., the bill taking the city of Alexandria from the District of Columbia and giving it to the State of Virginia passed.

  In the House, on the 3rd, McKay’s tariff bill passed.3

  Hello? Was anyone paying attention?

  This 1846 legislation was initiated by Virginia Congressman Robert M. T. Hunter. His success, however, culminated efforts that had begun more than forty years earlier. The seeming indifference of the press is misleading. It had been covering these efforts for decades. As early as 1803, Washington, DC’s National Intelligencer reported on the problem of the federal government running the District of Columbia.4 That year and the next, Congress vigorously debated the return of areas ceded to the federal government for the creation of a nation’s capital. The Annals of Congress record that Virginia Congressman John Randolph “believed the interests of the several parts of the [District of Columbia] were as hostile as any in the Union, as it was manifest there was an Alexandria, a Georgetown, and a city interest.… He therefore thought it expedient to retrocede all the territory, excepting the City of Washington.”

  Robert M. T. Hunter (1809-1887) (photo credit 24.1)

  While the preponderance of the speakers debated whether or not “retrocession” was constitutional, all agreed with Massachusetts Congressman John Bacon that “the exercise of exclusive legislation [for running the District of Columbia] would take up a great deal of time, and produce a great expense to the nation.… It was likely that as much time would be spent in legislating for this District as for the whole United States.”

  Years later, Hunter repeated Randolph’s and Bacon’s concerns, amplified now since they had become established facts:

  We have three cities in this District, each aspiring to be great, and all desiring to open up communications to the sources of their trade.… They have shared unequally in the appropriations.… Go look at [Alexandria’s] declining commerce, her deserted buildings, and her almost forsaken harbor. Look to the waste of natural advantages and opportunities in that town, suffering not from the blight of God, but the neglect of man.… We have not done all that might have been done for those who depend upon us for the necessary care which this government alone can bestow.

  Because Congress indeed had its hands full running the country, it had given scant and uneven attention to the District of Columbia. This, in turn, intensified the rivalry among the District’s municipalities for congressional attention—particularly regarding commercial needs such as canals and bridges. “One of the early acts of this government … was to throw a mole [dam] across from Mason’s island to the south bank of the Potomac, and thus cut off the channel for boat communication between Alexandria and the water of the upper Potomac,” Hunter cited as an example to his colleagues. “From the time this was done up to the completion of the canal, scarcely a boat was ever seen in Alexandria from the upper Potomac.”5

  Indeed, that earlier debate regarding a dam between Mason’s Island (present-day Theodore Roosevelt Island) and the Potomac’s south bank also reflected the rivalry of the municipalities, the inequities of congressional actions, and the resentment in Congress at having to devote time to the municipalities. In that 1804 debate, Virginia Congressman Randolph had declared:

  [A] prompt rejection of the bill would serve as a general notice to the inhabitants of the District to desist from their daily and frivolous applications to Congress, to the great obstruction of the public business.

  Andrew Gregg of Pennsylvania, however, pointed out that under the Constitution:

  The House [was] bound to legislate for these people until it relinquished the claim to the jurisdiction either by authorizing them to legislate for themselves or retroceding them to the states to which they originally belonged.

  Regarding the rivalry and inequitable treatment, North Carolina Congressman Nathaniel Macon argued:

  The gentlemen in favor of this dam or causeway say it will do no harm.… On the other side, serious apprehensions are entertained of its injurious effects upon … the Eastern Branch [the present-day Anacostia River] and its causing obstructions in the harbor of Alexandria.

  In the years leading up to Hunter’s 1846 effort, petitions seeking to detach the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia were repeatedly presented to Congress, resulting in bills that failed to pass in 1824 and 1840. Residents of Georgetown also periodically sought to have their area of the District returned to Maryland, most notably in an 1838 petition presented to Congress and in a bill that failed in 1856.

  How, then, did Hunter succeed? Two overarching concerns account for Hunter’s success—and also account for the continued failure of such efforts by District residents on the Maryland side. Over the years, one of those overarching issues diminished, while the other enlarged.

  The issue that diminished regarded the location of the nation’s capital itself. Differing visions among the Founding Fathers led to disputes as to whether the capital should be in Philadelphia or New York or a central location or in the South. Only after protracted negotiations between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton was the Potomac River location accepted.6 When Congress first debated retrocession in 1803, Delaware Congressman James A. Bayard voiced this ongoing concern. Should the land be returned to Virginia and Maryland, he worried, “What obligation is there in Congress to remain here? … Unfix the Capitol and recede the District and believe me, Congress will soon take wings and fly to some other place.” But compared to when the Founders had debated the capital’s location, the issue now had an added dimension. President Jefferson was just then concluding the Louisiana Purchase, by which the United States suddenly became twice as large as it had been. If the legislative bolts locating the nation’s capital were loosened, where might the expanded nation want its center of power?

  As the Louisiana Purchase evolved, the development of railroads so greatly reduced the burdens of travel that the concerns of the new states and territories did not include relocating the nation’s capital. The primary concern that emerged turned out to be the second overarching issue that contributed to Hunter’s success: slavery.

  It was during this era of national expansion that Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter grew up. The son of a prosperous landowner in Essex County, Virginia, 100 miles south of the District, Hunter attended the University of Virginia, became an attorney, and in 1834 was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Three years later he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

  Hunter’s personality was ideally suited for the period in which he served in the House. “Mr. Hunter is a conservative Democrat, a calm, quiet, undemonstrative, practical politician,” the New York Herald wrote. “[He] speaks little and writes less.… Although strongly Southern in his sentiments …
he draws a glowing picture of the future of the republic.”

  Calm and undemonstrative he was, but not unfeeling nor without a sense of humor. He displayed both attributes as a college student in a letter to his widowed sister: “You seemed to be terribly in the dumps when you wrote. Are you still troubled with those thick-coming fancies, which are worse than real evils?… Have all the family feuds been appeased, so that you can no longer find amusement or occupation for your energies?… [If so] you may suppose me your opponent.”

  Shortly before Hunter went to college, an upheaval resulting from the Louisiana Purchase had threatened to undo the nation. At issue was whether or not slavery would be permitted in the states being created from its land. Though the dispute was resolved by the Missouri Compromise, no one in Congress wanted to endure such rancor again. Unfortunately, the nation did endure it again, and again. The next major upheaval involved the same question as applied to the land acquired in the Mexican War.

  That war began within a week of Hunter’s 1846 proposal for retrocession. Everyone in Congress knew that the United States would win the war and likely acquire vast territory.7 And everyone in Congress knew that such a victory would raise the old question of whether slavery would be permitted in the newly acquired lands. Thus, when Hunter presented his resolution, it was during the calm before the storm. Members of Congress were inclined to do anything that could be done to mitigate the expected storm.