of other families in the older states following after, taken together with the door open no farther than it had been proved to be open by the few American families that had passed through, should have been enough to assure any calm observer of what the issue was to be. There were such observers whom it did so assure, and their calm faith and clear forecast stood the nation in good stead in the exciting debates that were to follow.
The second period of the discussion of the Oregon Question in congress began late in the year 1837, near the close of the first session of the twenty-fifth congress. It was opened a few days before adjournment by each house calling upon the President "to furnish at an early period of the next session any correspondence that may have taken place between the government and foreign powers in relation to our territory west of the Rocky Mountains.To both these resolutions the President, promptly on the opening of the next congress, replied that no correspondence whatever had passed between the government of the United States and any other government in relation to that subject since the renewal in 1827 of the convention of joint occupancy. It thus appeared that while the subject had been in abeyance in congress it had been equally so in the executive department of the government, and it was not destined to reappear in this department for a further period of more than four years. Meanwhile the subject in one form or another was seldom absent for long at a time from the discussions of congress. This was especially true of the senate, where, in the person of Dr. Lewis F. Linn, senator from Missouri, the title of the United States to Oregon and the cause of the citizens of the United States who had settled there found an earnest advocate and a zealous and indefatigable friend. Measures were introduced in both houses of congress, by Doctor Linn in the senate, and by Mr. Gushing in the house, look-
