Resolving the Oregon Question
Posted by: Volcanoguy
N 42° 00.204 W 121° 53.391
10T E 591935 N 4650749
History sign about the Applegate Trail at Landrum Wayside.
Waymark Code: WMFN4K
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 11/06/2012
Views: 4
The Francis S. Landrum Historic Wayside is located on U.S. Hwy. 97, on the north side of the Oregon-California border. The wayside has a number of signs dealing with the Applegate Trail and the Oregon-California border. This waymark is for low fiberglass sign dealing with the Oregon country
Marker Name: Resolving the Oregon Question
Marker Text: Four years after the end of the War of 1812, Great Britain and the United States agreed their citizens could trade in the Oregon country without prejudice to either nation’s claims. Both countries strived for that extra influence which could blossom into sovereignty. The “Oregon Question” became an issue of greater concern, accelerating to a salient dispute by the early 1840s. Polk’s 1844 presidential campaign was based entirely on the quotation printed to the right. Polk was not a volatile statesman; the activist Northwestern U.S. Senator, Lewis Cass, coined the slogan “All Oregon or none, 54-40 or fight.” The United States and Imperial Russia agreed in 1823 to limit their spheres of influence to fifty-four degrees, forty minutes north latitude -- today’s boundary between Alaska and Canada. War between Great Britain and the United States was avoided on June 15, 1846 with completion of the Convention of Washington which resolved the Oregon Question by establishing the 49th parallel as the international boundary.
“There are four great measures . . . which are to be the measures of my administration: one, a reduction of the tariff; another, the independent treasury; a third, the settlement of the Oregon boundary question; and, lastly the acquisition of California.” -- James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States.
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