Again, skillful diplomacy in these pre-war days established better relations between Canada and ourselves than had formerly existed. This was fortunate because, had "The Patriot's not friendlier feelings existed, Canada might have War" made us much trouble in the gruelling years between 1861 and 1865. Early in Van Buren's administration a revolt against Great Britain had broken out in Canada known as "The Patriot's War." Hundreds of Americans all along the borderline were inclined to help their "oppressed" neighbors to win the kind of independence that we had won in 1783. This feeling was fanned brightly on December 29, 1837, when the British authorities seized the steamer Caroline with which Amer icans had been illegally aiding the Canadian The Caroline rebels and an American was killed. With the incident quelling of the rebellion hostility subsided, though many of our citizens never ceased urging annexation. Good diplomacy finally resulted, in 1853, in the establishment of mutually satisfactory arrangements with Canada. British shipping received rights to trade on Lake Michigan and we, in turn, received the same rights on the St. Lawrence (and Canadian canals connecting with it) for a period of years. Thus all along the line these two decades before the Civil War saw some significant steps taken and decisions made which paved the way for hopeful settlement of the international questions which arose in the war-times following. It is often idle to speculate on what did not happen in history, but to do this sometimes gives us a valuable point of departure for the study of what did happen. When one contemplates what our case might have been during the Civil War if several of these important international troubles had not been safely settled, one is inclined to say with Morse, as his first message now flashed over his wires: "What Hath God Wrought." There were other fields in which our Nation was making notable advances that would be of help in solving the problems of unification when war should burst upon us. To these attention. should be given. I. READING LIST WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY: C. R. Fish, American Diplomacy, Chap. 28; G. P. Garrison, Westward Extension, Chap. 5; McMaster, VII, 271-284; J. B. Moore, American Diplomacy, 74; J. W. Foster, A Century of American Diplomacy, 282. 2. OREGON: C. L. Skinner, Adventurers of Oregon, Chaps. 3-8; K. Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West, II, 113-161; J. Schafer, History of the Pacific Northwest; Fish, Chap. 19; Garrison, Chaps. 6-9; C. Goodwin, Trans-Mississippi West, Chaps. 6, 9, and 11; W. Barrows, Oregon, 160254; Moore, 234-236; Foster, Chap. 8; Fish, 195, 254-7, 270. 3. CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY: McMaster, VII, Chap. 84; Fish, Chap. 21; Moore, 82; Foster, 326, 456; Fish. 4. ORIENTAL RELATIONS: Fish, Chap. 18; T. Dennet, "Seward's Far Eastern Policy," American Historical Review, XXVIII, 45; Moore, 119, 122-5, 262; Foster, 289-292, 415-6. QUERY AND DISCUSSION What nations bordered the United States at the outbreak of the Civil War? What were the last treaties made between them and us prior to 1861? Were there any embarrassing questions unsettled between them and us on that date? What might have happened if the Oregon and the Maine boundary lines had been in dispute in 1861? What important negotiations took place in the "Golden age of diplomacy" (1815-1825)? How does diplomatic history prove the adage that laws are no better or stronger than the character and earnestness of the men we appoint to carry them out? Are rabid expansionists true patriots? In what section of the country would you expect to find the most ardent expansionist sentiment? Would the conditions and experiences of pioneer life be conducive to such desires? Section 36. The Northwest Girds Her Loins Migration to the Great Lakes region At the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain what is now the State of Michigan contained perhaps a thousand Americans; when she entered the Union, in 1837, Michigan counted a population of near two hundred thousand. In this period our inland seas became famous routes of migration and their little settlements of traders and soldiers were transformed, as if by the touch of a magician's wand, into thriving ports-soon to become the cities of Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago. The rush in these years resembled a stampede rather than a migration, and bold must be the writer who attempts to picture its many lights and shades and give form and color to the ardent dreams of its adventurous thousands. Some one has well described the pell-mell advance by saying that the Lake Erie boats of this time were filled with "men, women, and children, beds, cradles, kettles, and fryingpans. "Dauntless" is the one word which describes the spirit of these Northmen; it created ships which could weather the savage Lakes storms; with steady of the NorthThe spirit patience it built harbors at Buffalo, Cleveland, men and Chicago; it lifted Detroit from her ashes, brought up firm ground from Lake Michigan for Chicago to stand on, and it riveted the infant commerce of half a dozen states to the Great Lakes by means of canals; finally it linked the whole empire with steel rails (Map following p. 314). The area of the Lakes When, with the completion of the Erie Canal to Buffalo (1825), men looked abroad from this new "rail head" in the West they saw the same glittering waterway spreading westward that the hunter and trader had seen; but with what different eyes! From their feet Lake Erie stretched 250 miles to the southwest; northward from Detroit, Lake Huron spread its expanse 218 miles straight toward the keys of the upper lakes, the Straits of Mackinaw and the Sault Ste. Marie; from here Lakes Michigan and Superior, 345 and 381 miles in length, respectively, extended the panorama of waters to Duluth in the northwest and Chicago to the south. The attempts of men to outguess this marvelous riddle of opportunity for commerce and growth is interesting because of their mistakes. One man saw in the completion of the Erie, Welland, St. Mary's, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan canals the welding of a giant empire by inland trade routes 2,200 miles in length-even if we ignore the Mississippi pathway (almost as long) from Chicago to New Orleans. Another, like Henry Clay, became dazed at the prospect which waited in the wilderness for shipbuilder, agriculturist, miner, and railway seer. Speaking in Congress in this year in which the Erie Canal was completed |